You gotts to know your ammo and mostly deer anatomy!A 6.5CM will level deer. Super close the round dumps all of its energy and doesn’t exit, mid to far, the hunting rounds do what they are supposed to do. The tracking jobs and lost deer are probably from inexperienced shooter / hunters, who bought into the hype, shot way too far for their comfort / skill, and / or did not properly zero their rifles and had a clean miss. People rarely want to analyze themselves. It’s easier to analyze their cartridge, bullet type, gun, scope, etc, etc….
It’s like the case studies in the army about soldiers “shooting the enemy 20x and they still wouldn’t go down! Therefore the 5.56 is ineffective.” Well it turns out they shot 20x but only hit the enemy once in the arm.
Additionally, it’s super popular so there’s a larger pool of people using it so you’ll here more stories / have more data points. How many stories do you hear of guys losing deer to a 6 Dasher or 30BR? Lol