Anyone hunted deer with 8.15x46?  It should be plenty of bullet if put in the right spot but having shot them in my Schuetzen, they just feel light and tiny.  Any thoughts or concerns?

It is not what you use but where you place the shot. I have killed a few with a 22 Long Rifle back when we needed one for Food. And they were not wounded either and or lost.

Did you mean it was ill advised to make Elmer roll over in his grave? Probably. Of course, you can kill an elephant with a 22 LR if you know where to shoot one but you'd better be really sure about it. Not kidding.

Back when still going to Colorado guns kept getting bigger and bigger and it had to be a Magnum of some kind. At times those folks would not have much meat left to eat and the Deer would still run away for awhile. They had allot of gun  but some could not hit the broad side of a barn and they would be gut shot, ham shot shoulder shot but they would finally get it to go down. Myself I used a 6MM Rem. in a Ruger 1# B and I loaded my own and I also shot it allot and it was more than enough gun for me. 
And then there was DM Bell who took a bit larger animal. So you have more than enough rifle to take out.

“He shot his 1011 elephants with a 7x57mm rifle”...
Bell recorded all of his kills and shots fired. It was a business to him, not pleasure, and he needed to record expenditures…
• He shot exactly 1,011 elephants with a series of 6 Rigby-made 7x57mm (.275 Rigby) rifles with 173 grain military ammo.
• He shot 300 elephants with a Mannlicher-Schoenauer 6.5x54mm carbine using the long 159 grain FMJ bullets.
• He shot 200 pachyderms with the .303 and the 215 grain army bullet.
• He went to a .318 Westley Richards for a while, which is a cartridge firing a 250 grain bullet at about 2400 fps, but found the ammunition unreliable and returned to the 7mm.

I posted a couple of months ago on the German gun collector’s association forum on this subject. I took a small buck with the 8.15x46 in the early 90s useing a 185gr cast gas check bullet. I had to use a second shot at close range even though the first was well placed. There was very little tissue damage and no bullet expansion. I am going to try again useing 150 gr .318 bullet from Buffalo Arms. This hopefully will be more humane.
Mike

Many people on this forum have harvest more deer than I. I have filled my tag the last 4 years with an 8x57 Mauser, all were one shot heart lung hits, all ran less than 50 yards and expired. That is humane to me. I want to try again with with my beautiful Kettner 8.15x46 stalking rifle. I hunt for the sport & a single shot adds to the difficulty. I didn’t mean to hijack the post.
Mike

Allot has to do with using the right choice of bullet and not to unusual to see someone not using the right bullet for the game being hunted.

The Germans manufactured hunting rifles using the round.  Jacketed ammo would be similar to 30-30. Should be fine for deer.