Nothing is cast in stone and the perfect shot for minimum meat damage is right behind the shoulder through the heart lung area. Lihgter weight bullets tend to produce more damage as they are traveling at higher velocities. Heavy bullets with thicker jackets tend to punch through and not mushroom as well as the lighter bullets.
I have found the 150 grain bullet in my 30-06 produces the quicker kill but also more damage. The round nose bullet may produce a greater amount of hydrostatic shock to the animal but may not produce a quicker kill.
Every game animal reacts differently to a bullet strike. One will drop as if struck by lightening, while the next, struck the very same place, will run off as if never touched.
Having more than 40 years of deer hunting experience behind me, I find the 125, 130, 150, grain PSP .308 diameter bullets produce the quickest kills on deer sized game. No matter what bullet weight you use, no deer can survive a well placed bullet through the heart lung area just behind the shoulder.
Meat damage will be at a minimum with shot placement being the key factor. The vast majority of deer taken are not shot behind the shoulder. The average deer hunter will shoot his deer at any and all angles and not take care to make shot placement a priority. All those filmed kills on TV show perfect shot palcement, and in the real world of deer hunting that is not the norm. The need to fill that tag out weights good jugdment on shot placement.
Far to many deer hunters will shoot at the deer, not at a specifc spot on the animal, and at any angle or direction the deer may be standing or moving. I see wounded deer with limbs shot off, hanging useless, limping, hoping along as they travel trying to feed. Those wounded animals are the result of hunters who take no care in shot placement and leave those animals to a sad fate trying to survive in the wilds.

I don't mind losing a few pounds of venison to acheive a quick humane kill. I shoot 150's in my .308s and 30-006s.

I can't discuss the effects of light bullets from a 30-06 as the lightest bullet I've ever shoot from a 30-06 has been a 165gr bullet. Either Hornady or Core lokt. I have used 165's, 180's and even 200's on both whitetails and mulies. The deer I've shot appeared very dead and in short order. I've used an array of different calibres to take deer and antelopes with and can't recall that the heavy weight .308 bullets caused any more damage than say a 140gr bullet from a .280. From a properly placed shot, of course. I, for one, am not impressed with pictures of deer with their rib cage and shoulder blown away by some fragile bullet traveling at warp speed. Of course, if all you're interested in is killing something.......
I will concur wholeheartedly with the post that deer hunters tend to just "arkansas away" at deer, hoping their boomingscreamer and/or their magic bullets will make up for their lack of precision.

Before I was loading for my 30.06 I bought the 150grn.CoreLokts- best super cheap bullet for deer there is- maybe only a 1.5-2" MOA but heck- what do you want for $8.50 a box- inside 200yds you can't beat em for deer.
As said by many above- I might loose 1-2# of shoulder meat, but never more.
For the last few years I usually use 165grn.Partitions- my favorite hunting bullet. That's because I use 168grn. MatchKings or BTs for paper and they all group right there together.
If I've been shooting paper with the MKs & BTs and decide to go hunting, I just put 8 clicks in the elevation of my scope and I'm good to go.
I still feel the finest hunting bullet ever made is the Nosler Partition.
I've always wanted to hunt something tough enough to justify the FailSafes but there just isn't much in the US that it would work on except maybe a big brown bear up north- haven't had that opportunity yet.

Aim for the exit hole- as we say in bowhunting....

Hunting from an elevated stand over corn; the normal practise here in Coastal South Carolina, I wait for a broadside shot then shoot just behind the shoulders.

With 165 gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips at 3400 fps from a .300 Jarrett, the entire chest cavity is destroyed leaving either a very dead deer, or a very short and easily followed trail of blood & guts to the expired animal.

The deer dies almost instantly and no edible meat is lost.

I tend to agree with Reloader's comments. And would add this to confuse the waters......some of the fastest dying and LEAST meat damage I have ever seen inflicted on deer came from CAST BULLETS.

Atkinson says to shoot heavier bullets in the 06 and this reasoning is sound simply because it gets the velocity down. Depending on several factors, anytime you get a bullet skipping along at say 2,500fps or faster, you are risking a LOT of meat damage.

Our forefathers were shooting cast bullets and doing wonderfully well. What we have gained with sophisticated jacketed bullets is NOT faster, cleaner kills.....but simply a bit more velocity and flatter trajectories.

I've said it before and I'll say it once again, "How FAST an animal is going to go down depends on his mental state of being at the time he was shot. An animal juiced up on adrenalin is quite a different story from an animal calmly nibbling at new growth."

I have had great luck with 150 gr or 180 gr Corelokts or Hornady Interlocks. Quick kills without too much meat damamge.

i shot a good sized mule deer buck with a hornady 220 round nose. it hit him in the ribs and there was just a tad of meat lost. i also shot this deer with a 168 nosler J4 from 325 yrds. it didnt blow up and it opend a good wound channel. the 220 and 168 hit to the same point of impact and i took them hunting. 168 for 150-325 and the 220 for 0-150.

my dad finished a fork horn mule deer one year with a nosler 168 bt. the first shot was 200-215 yrds straight on and it penatrated all the way to guts and then from like 10 or 15 feet he shot it through both shoulders. big mistake but we had 2 good hind quaters.

if you punch'em through the ribs they dont go far and there isnt a lot of meat lost. the worest thing that i have seen was a mulie doe my dad shot with a muzzle loader. must be some thing with shoting them through the front shoulder. when i was skining the doe there chunks of bone the size of dice falling out.

even a ballistic tip in the ribs doesnt loose alot of meat. i shot a nice buck at 80 yrds with my 7mm anth the sumbitch took the 140 ballistic tip low and behind the shoulders he didnt go 30 feet before he fell over.

I've been shooting Speer 165 SPBT in my '06 for Years! It has been my primary CA Deer, and backup (to .300 Win Mag) CO Mulie and Elk rifle.

Worked up a load that shoots into ~1" at 100. As was mentioned earlier, placement is the key to less meat loss. Hit in the head, neck, or lungs it dies quickly and you only lose some burger meat from the neck "roast" or from between the ribs.

Prefer to shoot in the head or neck, but I have hit them in lots of places (and lost a lot of meat, too), including one in CO that I hit in the ham! Killed him dead, but what a task that was to salvage meat! Bone fragments everywhere.

Anyway, a little heavier bullet and good placement (usually) works for me.

I use a .30-06(150) and my son a .270(130) just plain WW power points factory loads. We just shoot them in the ribs, get a half dollar size exit hole and no meat damage. But the insides are mush and most fall on the spot.

Remington Coreloc's or the WW equivilant from Wal-Mart work fine for the small Georgia deer I hunt. I have not experienced severe tissue damage with these bullets, one broad side through the lungs at 35 yards or less, is the way it usually goes. The only anomoly or failure with the coreloc's was my fault. Last year I shot a small doe facing me at 135 yds with the 180 grain coreloc. The deer was not facing me directly and the bullet went through the chest and out behind the left shoulder. There was blood sprayed for 10 feet behind where I hit it, but it did not kill the deer which had to be tracked and shot again. It was still trying to move, so I suspect I just took out one lung and missed the heart. This year I shot about a 135 pound doe with a 168 grain ballistic tip, again broadside through the lungs. No problems, collected all the meat, entry and exit hole about the same size. This shot was at 40 yds. JimmyP