[Porchdog]

I love my Marlin .44 and I do take it out deer hunting from time to time. I'm very confident to 100 yards (probably my limit with open sights). .44 should have plenty of power for deer, especially from a carbine. An acquaintance killed a 700+# black bear with one shot from a handgun several years ago and he was using 180 grain loads. I haven't shot at a deer with it yet, but that's primarily due to Pennsylvania's antler restrictions.
We need to have at least 3 points on one side to shoot a buck, with my eyesight I need some magnification to count points most of the time. I only use open sights if I'm hunting antlerless or flintlock.


Don't dismiss the 45-70 before you try it. I have a barrel for my Encore and it's not bad at all with the Remington "black powder equivalent" 405 grain loads. If you load up velocity it can get painful, but it doesn't take that much to kill a deer and it's much more accurate than any slug gun I have tried.

By the way, my cousin has an early "guide gun" in .444 Marlin (before they started porting them). I tried that with the Hornady "light magnum" loads and it was downright vicious.