My oldest shot his first deer recently and of course wanted nothing to do with throwing out the hide, thus its now neatly folded and frozen in the freezer. We used egg and salt to tan rabbit hide that seems like it'd be a huge hastle on this large of a scale. Anybody have experience with store bought stuff? Also, is there an easy way to stretch and soften the hide?

You mentioned the word hassle.

Do yourselves a favor, avoid the hassle and ship it to North Texas Tannery. They charge something like $70 for a whitetail hide. A steal of a deal.

Go to taxidermy.net and you will find a ton of options. Brain tanning is the best but by far is not the only way to do it.


https://www.taxidermy.net/search/14561105/?q=Tanning+deer+hides&t=post&o=date

Man I badly want to send it off to them, but he wants to do it himself and I'd rather he spend time doing that than staring at a screen

Why is it the best?

It's what the Indians did for thousands of years.

BCO07 said:

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Why is it the best?

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Very soft. Keep in mind, it is not just a wash, rinse and dry. It takes allot of work. Use gloves and a dedicated blender for when making and handling the solution. Here is a quick rundown of the method.
https://emoffgrid.com/how-to-make-a-brain-tanning/

I've also done the acid tanning tanning and it is soft but not quite as much. You tube will give more info than I can here.
Good luck!!

Are you wanting to tan with hair on or hair off (buckskin)?

On

There are a number of commercial products available for home tanning, and several recipes such as the alum or acid methods, and of course the brain tanning method as mentioned. However these methods/products usually work best with hair off tanning. The hide is more supple and softer with the hair off, but for the purpose of a rug or hanging on the wall, any of these methods can usually work with hair on for these purposes if done properly.