.223 for hunting deer?

thumper1 said:
223 is fine for deer
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What's the first thing you feel after pulling the trigger on a poor helpless animal?? The recoil

Your signature line says it all! :( perhaps one day the poor helpless animal will be a very large and very grizzle'd bear and you lost your ammo a mile back in the woods, there are souls up above that take care of things like that, don't ya know! ;)
 
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sobo4303 said:
Like I said earlier, the best answer is no answer at all. A very wise professor told me once that the best educator is experience and passing your learned experience to others to learn from. You can choose to benefit what some of us (recommended go bigger cartridges) have already experienced, or you can choose to use whatever you want. Have fun!

If it is legal and you really believe the 223 is satisfactory, break a leg. Three out of five deer you shoot will be the perfect shot and will die relatively quickly. Experience will teach you how to deal with the not-so-perfect shots.
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Ok, so how many deer have YOU shot with a 223? And what bullets did you use? Distance? Shot angle?

Just curious.
 
KodiakHntr said:
Ok, so how many deer have YOU shot with a 223? And what bullets did you use? Distance? Shot angle?

Just curious.
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Well, here in Alberta, it is not legal, so my answer would be none. I have however shot a few with a 243 90 gr bullets. Hit one in neck, he dropped like a stone. Bullet passed through, broadside at about 140 yards.

Hit another (buck) between tow ribs, through lung and heart. Dropped like a stone, broadside about 220 yards.

Hit another (doe) higher in shoulder, was moving/turning broadside to away from me, and she ran (limped sorta) off about 50 yards and I hit her again just under spine, from other side. Dropped then. Had to finish off with head shot.

Hit doe, longer shot about 400 yards, broadside. I think I hit high because she rolled over into a thicket. Got up and took off. No snow, no blood. Lost her tracks, she got away. Spent the better part of the afternoon trying to find her.

Switched back to 30-06 and 308. No more fooling around. Again, use whatever caliber you want as long as it is legal. I don't recommend a 223, but hey, some folks gotta learn the hard way too.
 
archie_james_c said:
I hope you're not serious?
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well Arch, I do have a huge heart for all animals, and even a bigger one for the "poor helpless" ones! so, take it from there! there is that old saying, something like: "do on to others" well, you know the rest! things do come around, I'm old, I've seen it! I do my dam-dest to do one shot clean kills every time, and certainly not skimping on the cal. I don't own any magnums, (other than 44mag) don't need any for the hunting that I do, and I certainly wouldn't use anything less than a 243 on Deer. And I don't even use that. My choices are 257 Roberts, 7x57, 260, 7mm-08 and 308. So, there you have it! Am I serious? And if you wish to call me a serious son-of-a-#####, I won't mind!
 
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sobo4303 said:
Well, here in Alberta, it is not legal, so my answer would be none. I have however shot a few with a 243 90 gr bullets. Hit one in neck, he dropped like a stone. Bullet passed through, broadside at about 140 yards.

Hit another (buck) between tow ribs, through lung and heart. Dropped like a stone, broadside about 220 yards.

Hit another (doe) higher in shoulder, was moving/turning broadside to away from me, and she ran (limped sorta) off about 50 yards and I hit her again just under spine, from other side. Dropped then. Had to finish off with head shot.

Hit doe, longer shot about 400 yards, broadside. I think I hit high because she rolled over into a thicket. Got up and took off. No snow, no blood. Lost her tracks, she got away. Spent the better part of the afternoon trying to find her.

Switched back to 30-06 and 308. No more fooling around. Again, use whatever caliber you want as long as it is legal. I don't recommend a 223, but hey, some folks gotta learn the hard way too.
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Which 90gr bullets? Vmax's? TSX's? Being the part that interacts with the animal they are pretty much the only thing you have absolute control over, and continue to be the most important part of the equation.

My experience differs from yours, in that I killed my first 40 or 50 head of big game with a 6mm and 100gr Power Points starting at a very young age. No losses....
And having killed deer (etc...) with everything from a 223 on up through 375, I'm quite sure that a 223 is just as capable of killing a deer or black bear as a 243 given proper bullets. And just as capable as a 30.06 to wound something with a fringe hit.......

I think a lot of guys tend to get a false sense of security when they use a 30 06 or 300 of any flavor. There's a pile of deer lost every year wounded by guys with 7mm's and 30 06's and 257's etc..... Bullet placement, and correct bullet for the application matters far more than the stamp on the head........ Just sayin'...
 
KodiakHntr said:
Which 90gr bullets? Vmax's? TSX's? Being the part that interacts with the animal they are pretty much the only thing you have absolute control over, and continue to be the most important part of the equation.

My experience differs from yours, in that I killed my first 40 or 50 head of big game with a 6mm and 100gr Power Points starting at a very young age. No losses....
And having killed deer (etc...) with everything from a 223 on up through 375, I'm quite sure that a 223 is just as capable of killing a deer or black bear as a 243 given proper bullets. And just as capable as a 30.06 to wound something with a fringe hit.......

I think a lot of guys tend to get a false sense of security when they use a 30 06 or 300 of any flavor. There's a pile of deer lost every year wounded by guys with 7mm's and 30 06's and 257's etc..... Bullet placement, and correct bullet for the application matters far more than the stamp on the head........ Just sayin'...
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just curious, I'm about to apply for my old age pension, what do you get for a monthly rate? :p
please do let us know when you are going off bear hunting with your 223, we can say AMFYOYO!
 
KodiakHntr said:
I think a lot of guys tend to get a false sense of security when they use a 30 06 or 300 of any flavor. There's a pile of deer lost every year wounded by guys with 7mm's and 30 06's and 257's etc..... Bullet placement, and correct bullet for the application matters far more than the stamp on the head........ Just sayin'...
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Where did you get this information from?
 
Gatehouse said:
I shot a black bear with a .223 and 53gr TSX at 175 yards. It died after taking 2 steps. Should work fine on deer.
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but, you're a mountain man, you're the exception to the rule! :p

I bet dem dam bears just lay down and die, when they see you come'n up da mountain! ;)
 
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two-dogs said:
just curious, I'm about to apply for my old age pension, what do you get for a monthly rate? :p
please do let us know when you are going off bear hunting with your 223, we can say AMFYOYO!
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Here's the thing, not everyone has the same experience level.... Some of us have more than others by virtue of being Do-ers, not Talkers.....

I knew a guy years ago who took me under his wing and taught me how to reload. One day we started talking rifles (he was a part owner in a gun store) and was telling me about some rifles he owned. Got to the point where the numbers started adding up to several hundred. And I called bull####. He laughed about it and we carried on. Few day later we started talking deer hunting, and how he really had no need to kill anything anymore. Got to talking about deer numbering in the thousands, close to the tune of 5,000+ deer. And I called bull#### again.

So he invited me out to the house, and we had a look at the HUNDREDS of high end rifles he had, and we sipped coffee while he told me about the market hunting days in New Zealand when he'd met his wife, and we looked at pictures of dead deer, and payment records..........

His rifle of choice for shooting deer when he started was the 6.5x55, but after a few months of daily shooting it got to the point where he couldn't carry enough shells. The answer, was the .222.

Myself, I'm only at 10 critters with a 223 currently, split roughly down the middle between black bears and muleys.....And it ain't because I don't have other options for rifles.
 
joe-nwt said:
Where did you get this information from?
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Are you new to the board? Have you not witnessed the abundance of threads EVERY year that pop up come september through december about deer hit "perfectly" with 'x' cartridge and 'y' bullet that must have "failed"?
 
KodiakHntr said:
Which 90gr bullets? Vmax's? TSX's? Being the part that interacts with the animal they are pretty much the only thing you have absolute control over, and continue to be the most important part of the equation.
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90 gr Nosler Bal-Tips.

Hey, like I said if the 223 works for you. Great, I'm not going to debate or argue with you. Just giving the OP my opinion.
 
KodiakHntr said:
Are you new to the board? Have you not witnessed the abundance of threads EVERY year that pop up come september through december about deer hit "perfectly" with 'x' cartridge and 'y' bullet that must have "failed"?
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Ahh. I see. If it's posted on the internet it must be true......
 
joe-nwt said:
Ahh. I see. If it's posted on the internet it must be true......
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*sigh*....Yes joe, that's correct. Nothing has ever actually happened unless it was joe-nwt that did the doing.....

My bad, I had no idea that everyone who has ever posted they lost a deer or bear or unicorn that was shot with any caliber was simply making it up.

I was also unaware (silly me!) that animals shot in the tip of the tail with 308's and 25-06's and 300UltraDuperSuperMagnums fall dead simply by virtue of the cartridge headstamp being larger than a 223.

I apologize to all readers for bringing actual experience with 223's and deer sized big game to this thread. I should have known that emotion and guessing was the only acceptable format here on cgn.
 
Hey Kodiak,

2 things.

One, I don't care if people use a 223 for deer. Whatever fills their boots. So if you think my post was about that, you are mistaken.

And two, I asked where you got your information from with regards to "There's a pile of deer lost every year wounded by guys with 7mm's and 30 06's and 257's etc.." to which you replied "threads on the internet". If the deer were not recovered, how do we know a) they were hit perfectly and b) the bullet failed? We don't. It's all hearsay. That's why I asked where you got that information from.
 
Which was my point exactly, hence the quotation marks.

All too often guys complain about deer being smacked with 223's and being lost even with perfect placement, or appropriate bullets. Without a recovered deer, how do you have any clue where it was hit? It is exactly the same scenario, but you don't hear guys complaining that a 30 06 isn't "enough gun" for deer.....

Too many people allow emotion to rule their thought processes. My apologies as I thought you were one of them....
 
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