223 vs 30WCF for hunting
- Thread starter MiG25
- Start date
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
The trouble with appraising .22 caliber groups is that even good groups look crummy compared to say 9.3 groups the same size. You will probably find 2.5" at 200 is the norm, but it depends how much experimenting you do with seating depth and so on. I just chose a load arbitrarily (4895) seated the bullet to the top groove and crimped, letting that uniform the bullet pull weight.
Interesting post, Boomer. Extrapolating downward (or is that intrapolating?) from your 500gr elephant load, it seems as though I need to find a good heavy solid for use in my .177cal air rifle; that would be "more than adequate" (that seems to be the favourite phraseology for this type of thinking...) for those malnourished bears. Let's say about 150 pounds for one of those displaced adolescent killers; that works out to about a 12.5gr pill out of the single-shot airgun.
Hey! Whaddaya know? D&L Airguns offers up a JSB Exact Beast pellet that weighs in at 16.2gr in .177; interesting, but probably overkill for this use...can't have that! Oh, here we go: the JSB Exact Monster pellet comes in at 13.42gr per .177 pellet. Perfect! Not so heavy as to elicit wails of "What's he compensating for?" from the ultra-sporting crowd, but with just a slight bit of extra mass held in reserve...you know, in case the marauding bruin is an enormous 200-pounder.
And why not use this for an actual hunting round, as opposed to a just-in-case defensive load? Everybody here knows the importance of "doing their part", and how "bullet placement trumps everything". I know that you guys all hunt "average" bears; why else would it be so often-repeated how small the average bear is? And let's not forget the iron will and resolve displayed by the small-bore hunters on here, who pass on all but the most perfect of shot presentations? Why, I'll bet that even the biggest bears would fall to a nice solid pellet (no hollowpoints, obviously...) carefully inserted "into the boiler room".
But, I dunno...all this here mathematical-type stuff makes my brain hurt, but it also makes me think of how effective a patched round ball is when used in a traditional muzzleloader. Those tiny lightweight round balls seem to kill far better than the arithmetic and the charts would lead you to expect. So, carrying that to it's logical conclusion...why on earth would I stop at the pellet gun? I still have an old Red Ryder lever-action BB gun around here somewhere. Quick cycling, traditional styling, plenty of firepower (I think it's something like 300 BB's in the magazine!)...damn! I think I've found my next bear rifle!
Thanks, CGN, for helping me see the opportunity push the envelope once again!
Hey! Whaddaya know? D&L Airguns offers up a JSB Exact Beast pellet that weighs in at 16.2gr in .177; interesting, but probably overkill for this use...can't have that! Oh, here we go: the JSB Exact Monster pellet comes in at 13.42gr per .177 pellet. Perfect! Not so heavy as to elicit wails of "What's he compensating for?" from the ultra-sporting crowd, but with just a slight bit of extra mass held in reserve...you know, in case the marauding bruin is an enormous 200-pounder.
And why not use this for an actual hunting round, as opposed to a just-in-case defensive load? Everybody here knows the importance of "doing their part", and how "bullet placement trumps everything". I know that you guys all hunt "average" bears; why else would it be so often-repeated how small the average bear is? And let's not forget the iron will and resolve displayed by the small-bore hunters on here, who pass on all but the most perfect of shot presentations? Why, I'll bet that even the biggest bears would fall to a nice solid pellet (no hollowpoints, obviously...) carefully inserted "into the boiler room".
But, I dunno...all this here mathematical-type stuff makes my brain hurt, but it also makes me think of how effective a patched round ball is when used in a traditional muzzleloader. Those tiny lightweight round balls seem to kill far better than the arithmetic and the charts would lead you to expect. So, carrying that to it's logical conclusion...why on earth would I stop at the pellet gun? I still have an old Red Ryder lever-action BB gun around here somewhere. Quick cycling, traditional styling, plenty of firepower (I think it's something like 300 BB's in the magazine!)...damn! I think I've found my next bear rifle!
Thanks, CGN, for helping me see the opportunity push the envelope once again!
Interesting post, Boomer. Extrapolating downward (or is that intrapolating?) from your 500gr elephant load, it seems as though I need to find a good heavy solid for use in my .177cal air rifle; that would be "more than adequate" (that seems to be the favourite phraseology for this type of thinking...) for those malnourished bears. Let's say about 150 pounds for one of those displaced adolescent killers; that works out to about a 12.5gr pill out of the single-shot airgun.
Hey! Whaddaya know? D&L Airguns offers up a JSB Exact Beast pellet that weighs in at 16.2gr in .177; interesting, but probably overkill for this use...can't have that! Oh, here we go: the JSB Exact Monster pellet comes in at 13.42gr per .177 pellet. Perfect! Not so heavy as to elicit wails of "What's he compensating for?" from the ultra-sporting crowd, but with just a slight bit of extra mass held in reserve...you know, in case the marauding bruin is an enormous 200-pounder.
And why not use this for an actual hunting round, as opposed to a just-in-case defensive load? Everybody here knows the importance of "doing their part", and how "bullet placement trumps everything". I know that you guys all hunt "average" bears; why else would it be so often-repeated how small the average bear is? And let's not forget the iron will and resolve displayed by the small-bore hunters on here, who pass on all but the most perfect of shot presentations? Why, I'll bet that even the biggest bears would fall to a nice solid pellet (no hollowpoints, obviously...) carefully inserted "into the boiler room".
But, I dunno...all this here mathematical-type stuff makes my brain hurt, but it also makes me think of how effective a patched round ball is when used in a traditional muzzleloader. Those tiny lightweight round balls seem to kill far better than the arithmetic and the charts would lead you to expect. So, carrying that to it's logical conclusion...why on earth would I stop at the pellet gun? I still have an old Red Ryder lever-action BB gun around here somewhere. Quick cycling, traditional styling, plenty of firepower (I think it's something like 300 BB's in the magazine!)...damn! I think I've found my next bear rifle!
Thanks, CGN, for helping me see the opportunity push the envelope once again!
L.O.frickin'.L...
I tried the Nosler, Sierra 60gr HP, and Sierra 63gr SMP. I can't recall which had the best groups, but I think it was the hollow point. I was about to start blaming the rifle when I tried some 55 gr. Sierras, and they stayed in an inch at the same distance. An inch-and-a-half at 100 is really probably adequate if you think about it, just disappointing when compared to the varmint bullets.
