Hunting with .22 center fire rounds?

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Jeff000

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I know its a no-no. But just wondering if there is a reason behind it? Or does it fall under the "no reason, just stupid politicians making up laws" thing?

I know the .22 has less weight, so less energy, but it has velocity, and that can make up for some of the weight differences.
I am pretty sure a 22-250 would do pretty well against most small game.

Hell in the states they can use pistols to hunt game.
 
It's illegal to use a 22 centerfire in Alberta for big game, but a few other provinces allow it. A 22-250 is actually a pretty common deer rifle in some areas in Canada and the US.
 
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Shortly after the 222 Rem. came out, a brother bought one and went deer hunting with it. Mule deer broad side, bang, dead deer on the spot. Later in the day another mule deer standing broadside, same hold for the important vitals, bang, bullet must have landed within an inch or two of the hold, the deer bounded off, never to be found. Each deer was about 80 to 100 yards, clear, no brush.
 
Scott_N said:
It's illegal to use a 22 centerfire in Alberta for big game, but a few other provinces allow it. A 22-250 is actually a pretty common deer rifle in some areas in Canada and the US.
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I thought it was all of Canada, hmm.
Why would some allow and other not? That makes even less sense.

H4831 said:
Shortly after the 222 Rem. came out, a brother bought one and went deer hunting with it. Mule deer broad side, bang, dead deer on the spot. Later in the day another mule deer standing broadside, same hold for the important vitals, bang, bullet must have landed within an inch or two of the hold, the deer bounded off, never to be found. Each deer was about 80 to 100 yards, clear, no brush.
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I dont know what that means really, I have heard my boss say he shot a deer last year with his 300 ultra mag and had the deer run off and he never did find it despite finding a lot of blood. I also remember him saying it was a good shot. I always just figured that every once in that even a good shot manages to miss everything it needs to for the deer to live.
 
why would you want to use .22 center fire for caribou or any medium game? i would say absolute minimum .257 roberts for deer, .270 or higher for anything bigger
 
Jeff000 said:
I have heard my boss say he shot a deer last year with his 300 ultra mag and had the deer run off and he never did find it despite finding a lot of blood.
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Some people belive bigger guns make up for shooting ability.

This topic has been discussed to death on here, but that's ok. I for one would have no problem in hunting with a .222, .223, .224, .225, or .22-1,000,000. I have also told this tale to death. One of our family stories involves a passed on Uncle of mine. He killed a mule deer dead with one shot from a .22 short. I belive if you put a bullet into it's lungs, he's going to die and probably better than if you would have used your bosses .300 Ultramag. If for no other reason than you will be able to shoot a .223 better and with more confidence without the flinch.
 
"...Hunting with .22 center fire rounds?..." Hunting what with a .22 cf? For large game like deer the problem is the most common bullets in factory ammo are varmint bullets. Varmint bullets are made to expand rapidly upon impact with little penetration. Deer sized game require the bullet to penetrate while expanding for a clean kill. A varmint bullet will destroy a great deal of the edible meat on a beastie like a rabbit or squirrel.
In any case, AB says no ammunition that is less than .23 calibre for large game only. Migratory birds are covered by both the hunting regs and the Mogratory Bird Act. There doesn't appear to be any small game hunting regs on-line. Other than general prohibitions like no shotguns bigger than 10 ga for any game, et al.
 
As Sunray has pointed out, most bullets in centrefire .22 rifles are designed to expand rapidly on small animals.
Notwithstanding this, rifles like the .22-250, the Swift, even the .222 and .223 can be remarkably effective on game the size of caribou, with factory ammunition. These are widely and successfully used in the North.
Handloads with appropriate bullets are better.
My suspect that more animals are lost because of poor shot placement, rather than calibre selection.
 
There are so many excellent hunting cartridges out there it's really a non-issue. Besides if wifey knew that one gun could do it all i would be selling a ####-load of guns.
 
Minimum bullet size requirements were put in place to reduce the numbers of game that were wounded unnecessarily by irresponsible hunters every year.

It is not difficult to kill a deer size animal with a .22 centerfire, but it is a lot easier to wound with a .22 than a larger calibre. A 180 grain hunting bullet from a .300 Win Mag will do a lot more damage to a deer than a 55 grain hunting bullet from a .222 Remington.

I will never try to say that .22 calibre bullets can not effectively put down game. If anyone is unsure about this, consider that Canada's military cartridge is basically the .223 Remington, and we can only use ball ammo. What I will say is that with smaller bullets, proper shot placement becomes much more important, because you can't count on the destructive effect the bullet will have when it hits with more energy, and the larger expansion.

When my dad was a kid, they had one gun on the farm. His uncle had one gun on his farm as well, and they were both single shot .22 rimfires. They used .22 shorts for groundhogs & racoons, and several times a year my great uncle would shoot a deer with "expensive" higher velocity LR bullets. I don't know where he shot them, but I know he killed them. I don't consider this irresponsible because I'm sure that he only took shots that were well within the effective range of the round, and was sure of the shot placement.

Personally I like to use a .270 or a 12gauge sug gun to hunt deer. I don't know why you would want to use a .22 centerfire to hunt big game. As far as I can tell there isn't even much difference between the prices of hunting ammo for .270/.223. And if recoil is an issue, 20gauge slugs are just as effective, and .243Win is a nice light shooting deer cartidge.

That's just my $.02.
cheers.

Tim
 
.230 caliber is the minimum in Alberta... so since that's not a rifle caliber it means .243 is the minimum. This seems crazy to me because what's the difference between a .230 and .224 bullet? Very little really 0.006" is hardly perceptible, but I suppose they had to draw the line somewhere, right?
I agree with what has been said, and I personally believe that with a 22 centrefire instead of going for broadside shots like you do with 30 cals you would just need to shoot for the head and you would be much more successful. Different hunting style is all that would be needed.
 
For Hunting: Shot Placement > 50 BMG

Unfortunately most laws are to prevent the lowest common denominator. For the person and can't hit a barn while they're standing inside of it, they have minimum calibers. :D
 
Shooting for the head is in my opinion un ethical. Most animals have a very small effective target area in the head with a much larger ineffective target area where the animal would live for several days suffering before dying. For example a moose has a very small brain and the majority of the head is the mouth and snout. A slightly misplaced shot would likely damage the mouth and snout, making the animal unable to eat but not stopping it from running for a significant distance.
 
"...had to draw the line somewhere..." Pretty much. However, it's not the bullet diameter that matters. It's the bullet construction, weight(to a certain extent) and its energy down range.
While there's no really valid comparison between a .22-250 and a .243 due to the bullet weights used, a 55 grain .223" PSP Remington factory bullet has 1201 ft-lbs of energy remaining at 100 yards. An 80 grain PSP .243 bullet has 1551. Nether has enough energy left at 300.
Mind you, both are varmint bullets and arren't suitable for deer sized game. You can't get heavier than about 70 grain .223" hunting bullets(match bullets do, but they're not suitable for deer sized game). The .243 goes to 105 for hunting bullets.
 
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