personally I love the round, my father, and both my brothers have been using a trio of norinco sks to deer hunt since they were bought in 88 ,I believe, and I personally have been using one for the last six years (since I was old enough to hunt on my own for big game). The three guns have taken a several dozen deer and never had any problems handling the task inside of one hundred yards (they may be effective past that but where I hunt there has NEVER been a good reason to take a shot longer 125 yards) using wolf 124 grain jacketed hollows, and wolf 154 sp. The guns all shoot 2 to 4 inch groups at one hundred yards using said ammo. This year I've gotten into reloading and I'm currently shooting remmy brass loaded with a 150 grain speer hotcor in front of 23.8 grains of h4198, costs more but shots considerably better, and 100 rounds of it is more than enough for sight in and hunting for two or three years. It has low recoil, and provide the platform is decent, good accuracy, and as stated above is very similar to the 30-30, at least inside a reasonable range.