That was very much the case with the .222 in NZ, however the cartridge has largely been superceded with the .223 Rem. The Sako Vixens and BSA Monarchs were the go, and both command top dollar if in good to excellent condition today.
95% of my shooting is on private land with other livestock farmers. Nearly all the blokes I shoot with use a .223 to shoot deer in the head or neck, at night, when shooting for control purposes, which usually doubles up as a chance to restock the freezers, and supply the elderly in the area. These are proper Kiwis who grew up on the land, not imports like me who despite having a pastoralist background in the UK never spent anything like the hours in the field at night as these guys did.
They are highly skilled shooters. Very, very good.
Personally, I avoided the head shooting option, probably because my Grandpa frowned on it, and instead practiced, and got pretty good at, shooting them in the lower neck or hilar zone (see page 2). The latter became the norm when I moved into very steep country where shooting across gullies was the go, and ranges typically exceeded 200m.
So there’s roughly 10 guys who I’ll hunt with at some point in the course of a year. My neighbour is the most prolific. His latest acquisition? A 6.5 Creedmoor for use out to ~600 yards. His normal quad rifle? A Sako 75 in .223 Rem. He has a beaut old 7x64 Brenneke which comes out occasionally, when the weather is good. The 7mm is the heaviest of his 15 odd hunting rifles. He shoots a lot of deer. Probably 80% with the .223 Rem.
Of the other blokes, there isn’t a single shooter using magnums of any description. There’s an assortment of .22-250s, several .223s (my other mate who I shoot with a lot also uses a T3 Super Varmint in .223), there must be a dozen or more .243s, a couple of .25-06, three or four .270s, two 6.5CMs now, the Mauser hand-me-downs in 6.5x55 Swede. Only a couple of us have .308s, we don’t use them that much, mostly on the annual S Island stag hunt. There isn’t a single .30-06 to the best of my knowledge.
The heaviest bolt action by far is a Savage in .338 Federal that was bought specifically for use on pigs, but has proven to be an excellent deer gun. All the other heavy guns are single shot or lever action .44s... Ruger #1s, Bergara, Henry and two rather awesome Marlin 1895s in .45-70 Govt., which are used again for big pigs but also on thickly wooded close range stag hunts. You really, really wanna have a go with one of those.
So I reckon, as a rough as guts average guesstimate, about 75% of the however many hundred deer shot by these blokes every year, are shot using projectiles weighing 100gr or less. Of these, at least half will be shot using pills in the 55-90gr range. The balance will be the various 95gr and 100gr 6mm pills.
Of the remaining 25%, the most common is the probably .270 though I reckon the 6.5CM will overtake the .270, .25-06 & the Swede real quick. Long actions are falling out of favour. Perhaps the single most desired attribute of the rifle & cartridge combination is being able to maintain the target in the field of view to observe the immediate aftermath of the bullet strike.
Pretty much the only time we see big magnums is when a city boy comes out to the country to go hunting.
A thorough read and understanding of the HOG chapter 13 will help you present your case should you be unfortunate enough to meet with the mantra of ‘it’s smaller, so it must be better’.
I jest of course, but that probably makes as much sense as most of the points for and against already raised in this thread.
