I have a Winchester Model 1910 in .401 Winchester that I shot for the first time last week. I was in La. showing it to my cousin because he has never heard of such. I brought along a handful of old ammo that I have for it. I believe they were 250 grain soft points. I wasn't even sure that they would fire. We went around to his backyard to fire the rifle. When we went around back, we saw a coyote about 75 yards away. My cousin told me to shoot at it and at least scare it away. This rifle has the factory open sights. I put the sights right at his backbone and pulled the trigger. The coyote just dropped. They rifle is heavy so the recoil wasn't bad at all. We could not find the bullet because it passed all of the way through the coyote. It splintered some bones because we could see it on the ground with the blood. From the size of the exit wound, I don't think the bullet expanded at all. Would this be an effective deer rifle? It is handy to carry and it seems to shoot pretty "hard" and straight .

The 401SL is the only one of the SL series that should be considered for deer (the rest are to anemic), and it's not anywhere close to being as good as the 7.62x39 out of a SKS.

That said, have you looked at the price of ammo for it lately? $2-3 a shot (and getting more expensive every day) might be something else to think about.

http://www.auctionarms.com/search/displayitem.cfm?itemnum=5974652

Here is another opption for ammo, Quality Cartridge.
http://www.owlnet.com/quality/401%20WSL.htm
You could also get dies from RCBS or CH Tool & Die http://www.ch4d.com/

The .401 WSL (winchester self loading) is listed as having a 200 gr softpoint at 2135 fps or a 250 gr softpoint at 1870 fps and was designed for close range deer and black bear. It should be fine for deer out to 125 to 150 yards and is equal to or slightly better than a .41 or .44 magnum out of a rifle.

I traded my bicycle for one about a 100 years ago mostly because we didn't have any pavement at the ranch and so I seldom rode it!! ..

Shot some deer and antelope with it, it killed them very well indeed, about like a 44 magnum rifle does, I think that would be a good comparison, but it was a short range rifle for sure, lots of drop..I traded it for a saddle sometime later...Also its pretty heavy..I later got a .351 in same and didn;t like it at all....

Was a great Cop's rifle,carried one in the back of my old crusier.CLose range use only,and had a funky peep sight. THe one I had used the extended Prison mag.