What is the most effective factory load .223 for coyotes? I realize every gun is going to shoot differently, but I am interested in which ones would be good to try.
So far I have found that my Savage 12 FVSS shoots Winchester Varmint JHP 45g, Federal Premium Nosler Partition 60g, Hornady Superformance V-Max 53g and Winchester Ballistic Silvertip 50g the best. The best performing one so far I would say is the Federal Premium. Of these, which would be the best for taking down coyotes, or what else should I try?
Ask the coyote after the fact. I doubt wether or not any of them will notice a difference.
Many people on this site, make far to much ballyhoo over the best bullet for this or for that.
What you really need to keep in mind is that an average coyote has a cross section of 4-8 inches or 8-16 cm. Most are around 12cm.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there is 3 inches of hair above and 1 inch below that.
Under most circumstances the coyote isn't going to stop and give you a chance to figure out, where in that hair he's hiding. He will usually be constantly moving. Once in a while, you get lucky though.
Can you put any of the bullets you mentioned into that area, from the shoulder area to mid rib cage????
As was mentioned before, 2-3 bullets is all you're going to use. Sometimes, depending on how much land you have to hunt on and how many coyotes there are, you might need as many as 10. Not often though.
My favorite coyote rifle is a Tikka T3, chambered in 6.5x55, shooting Hornady 95 grain V-Max bullets at just over 3000fps.
It has about the same trajectory out to 400m as your 223 with any of the bullets you mention.
I like it because it handles wind a bit better than lighter bullets and in some cases, especially where cattle or sheep are present, the bullets blow up completely and I don't have to worry about ricochets. No, I won't shoot if there is even a remote chance of hitting another animal or if there is a chance of a ricochet, which there is no way of calling.
Don't worry about it to much. For coyote hunting, you want extremely frangible bullets that are accurate in your rifle. That's all that counts.
I really used to like the Speer TNT offerings. They were like hand grenades on anything they hit.
