In Virginia the minimum caliber for whitetail deer is ".23," a regulation specifically written to exclude the .22 centerfires, including such hot-pants screamers as the .22-250 and .220 Swift. I've long argued that even the .243 is a gun for experts, and strongly agree with the Virginia law on .22 centerfires. I don't doubt that deer can be and are killed with them in Virginia (albeit illegally) but I do think that a 6.5 Anything-At-All is a better choice. In Scandinavia the 6.5x55 is used on everything up to and including moose. Many European 6.5's use very heavy-for-caliber bullets, accounting for their sterling reputation on such large animals.
If I were still buying rifles (I'm not) I'd be tempted to get a .260 Remington: but as Mr Sales Resistance I continue to talk myself out of one. Why? The choice of rifles is very limited unless I go the custom build route; that gets pricey pretty quickly, and at this point in my life I don't need anything other than what I've got. Moreover, my penchant for heavy bullets means the 140-grain ones in factory .260 ammunition aren't heavy enough for me. I like 160's. If I could find a production .260 with a walnut stock, traditional styling, and a 1:8" twist I'd likely succumb to temptation. The Creedmoor and its clones don't do it for me at all.
Furthermore, my .308 does everything I need it to do. I have no no need for a new rifle for anything I might hunt. If for some reason the .308 isn't an option, the 8x57JR barrel in my drilling, using 196 grain bullets, is available as needed. I may not be surfeited with rifle choices, but I do have some viable ones.
So I will continue to doubt the utility of the .22 centerfires. Yes, reduced recoil is a factor in improved marksmanship, but in the woods, how many shots are fired at an animal? Personally I'm not terribly recoil sensitive but even my light weight Kimber isn't bad; so at least for me the much touted minimal recoil of, say, the .223 Remington is unimportant. The fact is that I don't even notice recoil when I'm focused on a kill (I don't hear the noise, either, come to think of it). I've killed a couple of deer with a .45-70. They died as fully as necessary but ended up no deader than the ones shot with my .308. Surely a deer shot with a .22-250 or even a .223 will die given proper bullet placement, but I prefer a bit of "insurance." I once encountered a man at a check station with a massive 10-point buck. I asked what he'd used. "A .243," he replied, "I shot him in the neck, and he ran in circles for a while until he dropped." Having once or twice made neck shots (I don't like them) using a .30-06 and my 8x57 that dropped a deer Dead Right There, my dislike of the .243 was strengthened by that encounter. I have encountered hunters who used .243's with which they've made made one-shot kills but in my opinion the .243 is a caliber for experts, not novices who are far more prone to making errors of bullet placement. It always bothers me when I read articles in the gun press about how it's "ideal" for kids and small-framed women. If you can put a bullet into the right spot, a .243 and the .22's will all kill, but too often that doesn't happen.
Where I hunt the brush is very thick. I don't like the idea of having to track a deer that hasn't quite cottoned on to the fact that he's dead just yet. I think that's more likely to be necessary with a .22 or even a .243 than it is with the .308. On top of that, we have bears in our woods. I have no desire to kill a bear but if push came to shove and I absolutely had to, I'd be much more comfortable with something larger than a .22 of any kind. The .308 it is, until someone offers me a .260 Remington as described above at a price I can afford.