Maximum short range effectiveness on deer?

[JASmith]

Nukes knows some stuff about wound ballistics that most of us won't see. He and Drifter summarized it nicely - make a good-sized hole in vital stuff and the quarry will soon go down. Even our mesolithic ancestors knew what size hole to make - and that was nearly 10,000 years ago! Here's a way to look at what sized bullets to use for making those holes:

Interpreting this chart, we can see that just about any 120 gr or heavier bullet in the Grendel will do a fine job on deer.

The story behind the chart is at Ideal Bullet Weight.