re: good high powered rifle

For reloading a deer hunting round, it's hard to beat the variety of the .308 calibers. If all you're going to do is whitetails I'd do a .308. If you're likely to go out west one day but still primarily just shoot whitetail, you might want to think about 30-06. If you go our west regularly, you probably need a rifle just for that and that should be .300 WM or so. All have the variety of bullets available in the .308 caliber so there's a LOT you can do with it.

But for just normal shooting, of the three, I'd go .308. 06 and WM are a lot more punishing in the recoil department.