224 cal on deer...it worked in the 80's

[Brotherbadger]

I keep hearing people say that "shot placement" is everything, as if with larger cal rifles it is not. Shooting a large cal does not automatically guarantee a successful one shot kill while disregarding shot placement. When hunting any animal regardless of caliber, shot placement is the foremost consideration...

What is meant is that you have a larger margin for error with larger calibers. Obviously shot placement is always important in all hunting, it's just that much more important when using smaller rounds like a 223. You can get away with taking more questionable shots with a 30-06, than you can with a 223(obviously not recommended you do so with any round, but still).

[Barnacle Brad]

What is meant is that you have a larger margin for error with larger calibers.

I need an example...

[Buzzcook]

If I miss the target by .25" that is a miss with a .22 cal and a hit with a .30 cal.

[JD0x0]

I need an example...

Extreme example. Gut shot a deer with .223 rem. Chances are it's going to be wounded, as we all know, the gut is a bad place if to hit if you want a humane kill. OTOH, .50 BMG with expanding ammo, and equal shot placement, that deer is not too likely to walk away.

Obviously that's not an ideal example in real world hunting... Let's say you shoot a hog in the shoulder bone. It could possibly suck that .223 up like nothing happened. Whereas .300 win mag or other 'heavier calibers' would more likely punch through the bone and kill the animal.

Shot placement is always important, but a more powerful cartridge/caliber does open up your margin of error and allows you to make kills at more 'risky' angles, where you may not be able to set yourself up for the 'perfect shot' with a smaller caliber and get the job done. . Otherwise everyone would hunt elk with .22LR and headshots, since you could technically get a kill with .22 rimfire with the right placement.

A larger caliber/cartridge is not going to turn a complete miss into an ethical kill, but if your shot goes a little off target, because of factors like wind, shooter error, or the animal moving during the bullet's flight, it gives you a bigger margin of error and larger possibility that the shot will remain an ethical one, which puts the animal down quickly.

[Barnacle Brad]

If I miss the target by .25"

The target being what?

I guess the only chance 22-250 and .223 shooters have, is to continue making surgical shots and leave those risky angling lung shots to the guys with the 'big' guns.

[tahunua001]

If I miss the target by .25" that is a miss with a .22 cal and a hit with a .30 cal.

um... can you please get back to us after you look at 4th grade math again?
if you miss the target by .25" then the .22 cal(assuming miss is measured from center of bullet is .14 away from the intended target while the 30 cal is still .10 away from the target:still a miss.

the thing is that 30 cal creates much more hydrostatic shock and carries a lot more momentum, inertia, and kinetic energy with it, meaning that if a 22 cal hits a bone, the bone could deflect it, or the bullet could get lodged in the bone, or it could keep going but without the necessary energy to achieve maximum penetration all the way to vital organs. with a 30 caliber, it is not only likely to continue on it's original path but is also likely to take bits of bone with it acting as secondary projectiles and causing more damage.

with hydrostatic shock, even if no bones are present and the bullet narrowly misses it's intended target, the hydrostatic shock could cause capillaries, veins, and arteries to rupture causing massive internal bleeding where the 22 could just jiggle them around a bit and leave them intact, picture two earth quakes, one measuring 2 on the Richter scale and another measuring 7. one will decimate cities, the other just might shake the buildings a bit.

this is comparing 223 to 30-06 which I have enough experience with to say that this is a real world and likely difference in performance.... not like comparing a 22lr to a 50 BMG.

[Unlicensed Dremel]

And as always, I like to mention at this point, just for some perspective, the youtube vide that shows a small whitetail doe shot through the heart with a .50 BMG (no heart left at all), and still bolts top speed 90 yards across a field before dropping. I know the topic isn't "sure thing DRTs", but it's kinda related.

[Buzzcook]

um... can you please get back to us after you look at 4th grade math again?

Thank you for your kind reply.

[603Country]

My cousin shot a medium sized Doe in the heart lung area with his 50 cal (Amax bullet) and blew the deer in half. Neither half ran very far.

[reynolds357]

How dare you suggest using a .223 to kill deer. It is a well known fact that you need at least a .458 Win. Mag. and preferably a .460 WBY to take a Whitetail.

Seriously, the .220 Swift is just a monster in the first place. I love mine. You can push it insanely fast if you want. For deer, the Barnes X is the only bullet I would trust to stay together at SWIFT velocities.

[Art Eatman]

For a comparison example: I use the Sierra 85-grain HPBT in my .243. It is definitely a blow-up bullet. So, on Bambi, I have only made neck shots or cross-body heart/lung shots. Basically, DRT. But I won't take an angling shot on a going-away deer.

My '06? Sure, I will and have had quick kills with angling shots.

I pretty much feel the same way about using any centerfire hotshot .22 on a deer. I'd not take an angling shot, just on general principles.

[mete]

Semantics -- many do not understand the difference between 'possible' and 'appropriate ' !!

[reynolds357]

Mete, a .220 Swift pushing a Barnes X in the high 3000's is very appropriate for medium game at moderate distances. It is simply a death hammer. My favorite hunting load is a 90 grain Norma bonded in a .257 Weatherby. If you hit the deer somewhere between the neck and the guts, it goes down like a ton of bricks fell on it. For me, the .220 Swift has done the same thing with predictable regularity. Technically the 90 Norma bonded is a "Varmint" round in the .257 WBY. For practical purposes, the .257 WBY and .220 Swift are not very different.

[603Country]

Well...as mentioned earlier, I did shoot a number of deer with the 220 back in the 80's. PO Ackley even suggested that it was a great round for that purpose. But, fact is that it really isn't a great round for that purpose. It will do, if you use the right bullet and use it wisely, but that doesn't make it great. I'd use it again if I had to, or if I had the rifle at the right (or wrong) time during the season, but I have better deer caliber options. There are quite a number of folks, however, that don't have a better option. That would be the zillions of guys that bought an AR15 type rifle because it looked cool. That's probably the only rifle they have, and by golly they are going to hunt deer with it, since the zombies never showed up. And, like a guy I know, they have a sack of FMJ rounds and don't know diddly about other bullet options, so they'll hunt with what they have. And that, to me, is a shame. Worse, they most likely couldn't track a bleeding elephant through a snowdrift, so they'll wound and lose some deer. It's not you guys that I worry about, but the guys that don't get good advice on a forum like this. There's a lot of them out there. I know a few. I've invited a couple of them out to the ranch to shoot and talk and maybe they'll learn something. But in every case, they weren't here to learn. Thought they knew enough already. But they don't.

[reynolds357]

603C, for the record, the orig post stated ".220 Swift." There is a huge difference in 5.56 Nato and .220 Swift. I personally do not believe the 5.56 Nato is a good deer round, but the SWIFT is a hammer.

[603Country]

I shot a few Texas-sized deer that fell over and actually vibrated when shot with the 220. And I shot a few that acted like they had not even been shot. That's about the time I decided to go back to my other rifle, which was a 270. The ranch foreman trusted my shooting and would ask me to go get camp meat or to just shoot does when I saw them (gave the meat to local schools back then), since the ranch had targeted herd reduction numbers. I was shooting 10 or more per day. Efficiency was important, and the 220 just wasn't efficient enough. The 270 was plenty efficient, and for the record, I was using those first generation Nosler Ballistic Tips.

The 220 was a hammer about 70% of the time. I was doing way too much tracking till I went to the 270.

That was a long time ago, and bullet choices are better now, but the 220 and the 223 are , to me, still marginal for deer.

[reynolds357]

If you were shooting the orig Nosler ballistic tips, you were pretty much shooting varmint bullets. I had one of their 140 7mm shot from a 7 Rem mag. fail to penetrate a white tail's shoulder blade. Knocked him down, I shot him again when he got up. Kind of disturbing to see a whitetail get up from being hit with a 7 Rem mag on the shoulder. More disturbing to find basically shotgun pellets when I dressed the deer. The deer looked more like it had been shot with bird shot than it looked like it had been shot with a rifle. The bullet literally did not make it 3" into a white tail. The follow up shot was a lung shot that did not exit.

[Barnacle Brad]

I may have posted a link to this site in another thread:
http://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledgebase.html

My apologies if it is redundant, but thought the information regarding caliber, bullet and shot placement a very good resource. It reaffirms a lot of what has been discussed here.

Goat season starts in a few days...starting to get an itchy trigger finger!!!

[603Country]

Reynolds, I shot at least 100 deer with that original Nosler BT in my 270 and I don't think I lost a one. And I shot about that many with the new improved version. Going on memory, I lost 2 with the newer bullet. One was lost for 24 hours (slid under some leaves, with only a lower leg protruding). Other one was a slightly misplaced bullet and the nice buck wasn't found till some months later, unfortunately. The BT is an extremely accurate bullet and does a fine job on deer of all sizes. Shoot em in the lungs, not in the big bones. It's always easy to blame the bullet, though usually the blame belongs elsewhere.

But...for the record, the 55 gr Nosler BT is not good for deer. It truly is a varmint bullet.

[Signal-0]

I love using the AR15 for deer hunting. My go to load is the Speer 70gr Semi-Spitzer with 26.0grs of W-748... I've provided close friends with this load and to date, I've lost count as to how many deer and hogs and fell victim to this round.

I think all of agree on the following:

1. Shot placement is critical and important.
2. Caliber size never substitutes for proper shot placement.
3. Animals do amazing things, survival wise when shot... in other words, their extended survival defies logic.
4. While the smaller calibers CAN do the job, they may not be the best choice for new/less experienced hunters (discipline and shot placement issues).

[reynolds357]

603, a strike dead on shoulder blade is the fault of the bullet, not the shooter. The fact that Nosler toughened up the bullet is prima facia evidence that they had a problem in their orig. design. 200 deer? Whats the bag limit where you hunt? Must have an agricultural permit.

[603Country]

Reynolds, where I grew up, the limit per season was either 5 or 6. I don't remember. I never did less than the limit. But from 1980 to 1990, I was an oil trader that entertained customers on a hunting ranch. As an employee, I wasn't allowed to shoot bucks (unless they were obvious culls), but we had to take over 400 does per year. Most of the guys wouldn't shoot the does, and few of the guests would, so every year, late in the season, the ranch manager would tell me to shoot every doe I saw. So I'd get a good shooting customer or two and we'd get serious about doe shooting. I can only guess at how many does I shot (with the old style Ballistic Tip, which I'm pretty sure was in production at the time). I shot them in the lungs, the neck, and occasionally in the head. Never tried to hit them in the shoulder bone, on purpose. Most days I shot 10 or 12 does, and the customers shot close to that each. It takes a lot of time to shoot em, load em, take em (5 to 8 at a time) to the ranch and the skinners, turn around and go back and do it again and again and again. I think you can understand why I preferred the 270 to the 220. Tracking was time wasted and was to be avoided.

And all that time, I never shot a buck, but I sure saw some good ones. The best was a 14 point that was chasing a doe around. I watched them for a while through the scope and finally shot the doe. Seems all wrong doesn't it, but I'd get fired for shooting a buck and they were paying me WAY too much to risk getting fired.

I sure miss that job. Had my own jeep, my own company issued bird dog, and all the shotgun shells I could shoot (dove and quail). Rifle and pistol ammo was on my nickel, which is what got me into reloading. I'm retired now, but I'd go back to work to get that job again. Unfortunately, we got bought by a big company and the fun came to an end. The big company eventually changed its name to Enron, and you may know how that all worked out.

[buck460XVR]

I think the biggest difference between the 80s and now is that back then, blood trailing a deer was considered normal and a basic skill of most deer hunters. Even when a well shot deer went 80-100 yards before expiring, folks didn't think it was a big deal. Nowadays, if a shot does not result in an instant bang-flop-DRT, the bullet must not have performed and many hunters don't know the first thing about proper blood trailing techniques. It's gotten so that many folks think they musta missed if a deer doesn't go down right away.

[reynolds357]

Tracking deer? I thought that was what dogs were for.

[buck460XVR]

Originally posted by reynolds357:

Tracking deer? I thought that was what dogs were for.

Dogs trail deer, hunters track them.

Had a Drahthaarr years ago that was great at blood trailing wounded deer. Legal here as long as the dog is on a leash and you do not have a firearm with you. Was a great aid for bow shot deer in the big swamps around here. Used him more for other folks than myself. Funny thing was he completely ignored deer and their scent when bird hunting, but put him on a leash and show him some blood and the hound in him came out.