Deer with .22-250

When I lived in Nunavut I spent two years hunting caribou with a .223 and a 22-250AI. I tested all sorts of bullets and wrote an article which I never did manage to get published. My results based on 10 caribou and hundreds of wet phone books:

Fully Usable Bullets for game 350 pounds and lighter

53 Barnes X.... best penetrator, great initial wound channel but poor wound channel after the first few inches and the petals blowing off.

60 Allred Triple Jacket..bonded, good performance from 1800-4000ft/sec

55 Trophy Bonded... even better than the Allred,,,great wound channel

60 Nosler Partition.... Excellent consistency, loses 40% of mass but good wound channel

64 Win PP. Will core separate past 3000ft/sec, but decent penetration and good wound channel. Fussy about accuracy

74RWS Conepoint needs 1-10Twist but outstanding performance and penetrates as well as 100 grain 243, Slightly less than 53X but better wound channel in second half of penetration. Tested to 3500ft/sec.

Marginal Bullets.... (Often core separate reducing penetration but minimally sufficient penetration)

60 Hornady
63 Sierra
70 Speer

All varmint style bullets of 50-55 grains were irratic at high speed though to be honest often put down caribou with authority. They could be made to fail when things went wrong and bone was struck. The hyper-expanders like the V-Max were clearly insufficient penetrators

The only problems I experienced was with the 223 where energy is low past 150 yards or so and killing power was clearly insufficient. The 22-250 was a hum dinger to 300 yards but in the end my 6.5 Rem Mag was better, gave better wound channels and a bit more margin for error. I stopped using the AI and eventually sold it. I never saw the fantatstic hydrostatic shock even with 4000ft/sec and although fully usable I prefer a bigger bullet.

This might just be bias though as the 22-250AI with proper bullets never gave me any reason for complaint and if it was all i owned I wouldn't hesitate to take a deer down with it.
 
Now that's good info.....

I was thinking of picking up a box of 55gr Trophy Bonded for my 223 just in case I was varmint hunting and a buck stuck it's nose out where I could see it... :)

Tak, can you tell me when you did you're testing because after Speer purchased the rights to the Trophy Bonded bullets they changed the outer jacket from copper to an alloy that doesn't bond to lead as readily and which is far more brittle than copper resulting in the Trophy Bonded bullets not being as good as they originally where.

Don't get me wrong they are still good but instead of being at the top of the premium bullet heap like they once where they are rated more in the middle now.
 
I think its all been covered now but like most others, the smallest I would go for mullies would be a 257 roberts. However, here on the island (Vancouver Island), the deer are just small little blacktails so I use my .243. Seems to work good but I don't think I would use it on some of the larger Mainland mule deer.

Now my main all around big game gun is my 7mm remington mag. Usually I shoot the Winchester accubond out of it with good results.

So bottom line? IMHO, the .22-250 is not a suitible deer caliber.
 
i've taken 2 whitetails (with two shots in case anyone was wondering) with the 22-250 using remington 55 grain factory ammo. one was at ~60 yards, the other at ~150 yards. both dropped like they were hit by a bolt of lightning. in fact, i thought for a second that i missed the one at 150 yards as when the scope came back on target after recoil, the deer was gone (but he had just hit the ground). my neighbour also shot a black bear with a 22-250, IIRC he said it only took one shot.

that being said, if i was to do it again, i would try the 60 grain nosler partition.

i personally would limit it's use to does and small bucks. guys seem to think nothing of using the 223 and 22-250 on wolves, so why not small deer.
 
Takujualuk said:
When I lived in Nunavut I spent two years hunting caribou with a .223 and a 22-250AI. I tested all sorts of bullets and wrote an article which I never did manage to get published. My results based on 10 caribou and hundreds of wet phone books:

Fully Usable Bullets for game 350 pounds and lighter

53 Barnes X.... best penetrator, great initial wound channel but poor wound channel after the first few inches and the petals blowing off.

60 Allred Triple Jacket..bonded, good performance from 1800-4000ft/sec

55 Trophy Bonded... even better than the Allred,,,great wound channel

60 Nosler Partition.... Excellent consistency, loses 40% of mass but good wound channel

64 Win PP. Will core separate past 3000ft/sec, but decent penetration and good wound channel. Fussy about accuracy

74RWS Conepoint needs 1-10Twist but outstanding performance and penetrates as well as 100 grain 243, Slightly less than 53X but better wound channel in second half of penetration. Tested to 3500ft/sec.

Marginal Bullets.... (Often core separate reducing penetration but minimally sufficient penetration)

60 Hornady
63 Sierra
70 Speer

All varmint style bullets of 50-55 grains were irratic at high speed though to be honest often put down caribou with authority. They could be made to fail when things went wrong and bone was struck. The hyper-expanders like the V-Max were clearly insufficient penetrators

The only problems I experienced was with the 223 where energy is low past 150 yards or so and killing power was clearly insufficient. The 22-250 was a hum dinger to 300 yards but in the end my 6.5 Rem Mag was better, gave better wound channels and a bit more margin for error. I stopped using the AI and eventually sold it. I never saw the fantatstic hydrostatic shock even with 4000ft/sec and although fully usable I prefer a bigger bullet.

This might just be bias though as the 22-250AI with proper bullets never gave me any reason for complaint and if it was all i owned I wouldn't hesitate to take a deer down with it.
Click to expand...


Thanks, that was the kind of info we were looking for.
 
Camp Cook said:
Now that's good info.....

I was thinking of picking up a box of 55gr Trophy Bonded for my 223 just in case I was varmint hunting and a buck stuck it's nose out where I could see it... :)

Tak, can you tell me when you did you're testing because after Speer purchased the rights to the Trophy Bonded bullets they changed the outer jacket from copper to an alloy that doesn't bond to lead as readily and which is far more brittle than copper resulting in the Trophy Bonded bullets not being as good as they originally where.

Don't get me wrong they are still good but instead of being at the top of the premium bullet heap like they once where they are rated more in the middle now.
Click to expand...

The boxes I used were pre-Speer. They were fantastic.
 
I recently spent some time in Nunavut and made several friends from the inuit community. The fact that they had taken dozens of polar bear and gnarwhal, animals that weigh 1500+ and 3000+ pounds respectively using only a .223 makes these arguments seem excessively trivial. The 22-250 will kill consistently with consistent bullets and consistent shooting. Period. Endstop.
 
It was the performance of my Inuit buddies 22-250's that got me interested in this topic. I never saw the explosive wounds with no penetration as seen in the gun press and the lads used whatever 55 grain factory load was sold at the Northern or Co-Op. Caribou are generally shot at longish ranges however after the extreme speed that over-expands bullets has dropped. Caribou also tend to drop when hurt.

A white-tail will keep going when hurt. I think the premium bullets gives a better margin for error and are well worth the expense. I have also seen some brutal kills with the 223 at long range with a lot more suffering than acceptable. The 22-250 is far better. The biggest problem with all these 22's is that the flat shooting range extends past the clean kill range. Limited to 150 yards with the 223 and 250 yards with the 22-250 result in pretty acceptable performance.

No Inuk I knew liked the 223 for anything bigger than caribou and the Inuit tend to like a 303 or bigger for Polar Bear and as big as available for the big sea mammals. The 375 has a following for whales and I sold a 458 Win to a hunter from Pang.
 
ryanb said:
I recently spent some time in Nunavut and made several friends from the inuit community. The fact that they had taken dozens of polar bear and gnarwhal, animals that weigh 1500+ and 3000+ pounds respectively using only a .223 makes these arguments seem excessively trivial. The 22-250 will kill consistently with consistent bullets and consistent shooting. Period. Endstop.
Click to expand...

Firstly I have to ask how many did they wound.....

Secondly I remember watching a show on tv where a eskimo used his dogs to corner a polar then he walked up close to it and shot it from the front between the shoulder blades paralyzing it. Then he walked up to it and killed it with a head shot.

There is an old saying "More animal have been killed with a 303 British and more have been wounded with a 303 British than any other cartridge in the world".

The only reason this saying isn't true about the 223 or 22-250 is because enough people in the world know not to use them.......
 
ryanb said:
I recently spent some time in Nunavut and made several friends from the inuit community. The fact that they had taken dozens of polar bear and gnarwhal, animals that weigh 1500+ and 3000+ pounds respectively using only a .223 makes these arguments seem excessively trivial. The 22-250 will kill consistently with consistent bullets and consistent shooting. Period. Endstop.
Click to expand...


You seem very confident int he abilities of the .22 centerfires! You should sell your other rifle and buy a 22-250 or 223 for all your big game hunting needs.:)
 
ryanb said:
I recently spent some time in Nunavut and made several friends from the inuit community. The fact that they had taken dozens of polar bear and gnarwhal, animals that weigh 1500+ and 3000+ pounds respectively using only a .223 makes these arguments seem excessively trivial. The 22-250 will kill consistently with consistent bullets and consistent shooting. Period. Endstop.
Click to expand...

Not much chance of a deflection in the high north... and you can see a long way as well... not much chance of losing an animal when it runs away... my point is that the rules of the game are a lot different in the arctic.
Period. Endstop.:rolleyes:
 
I knew an oldtimer in the Rainy River District that shot a pile of everything with a .22-250. Picked his shots and he was a good shot. No reloads all factory ammo, Remington if I remember correctly. Average sized deer had tennis ball sized hole in the neck. If I owned one I would hunt whitetails without any concerns whatsoever. I wouldn't shoot at a quartering away deer at 300 yards with any calibre let alone a .22-250. Within reason the .22-250 is a usable deer round.
just my two cents.
P.S. our deer season is 10 weeks long (rifle) gives you some time to pick your shot.....
 
I'm so sorry to hear that you have to wait so long for deer season ours starts Sept long weekend and Moose open up Aug 15th.... :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom