The 223 as a viable big game round.

Most of the people that condemn the .223 with proper bullets as a deer cartridge have no actual experience using it as a deer cartridge.

A friend recently asked me what he should get for his kids to start hunting deer with, and I told him a .223. Predictably, he said "wouldn't a .243 give them more margin for error on a deer as it is more powerful?"

I replied that instead of crossing his fingers in hopes that the power of a cartridge will make up for poor shot placement, he should focus on removing the error. And the best way to do that is properly applied trigger time. A .223 rifle and popping off a case of bulk .223 ammo over the summer will pay much higher dividends than using a rifle with more horsepower. For starters, .223 ammo is cheap. So the kids can get double the trigger time for the same price. The .223 recoils less so they won't be scared to shoot it and they can shoot longer before fatigue sets in.

Get those kids shooting at 8" gongs and then paper deer targets. The gongs will keep them entertained and having fun, and shooting at deer targets will help them understand shot placement. Have them shoot at different distances so limitations can be established. By the time they go deer hunting, the kids will be skilled marksmen and confident in their weapon.

Get some deer hunting appropriate .223 ammo, and go hunt with confidence that you don't have to pray that extra power will make up for lack of marksmanship.
 
rifleman762 said:
True. So now the real question is: at what distance and what shot placement is it ethical to shoot an adult deer with a 223? My short answer is that the distance is too short for my liking so I would use a larger larger case capacity cartridge and/or a larger diameter bullet. I have killed several whitetail does with an SKS and they only went about 20 to 30 yards before piling up. But that was in a spot where I knew I would be shooting them at closer than 100 yards. Easy peasy with iron sights.

A semi-auto feeding from Stanag mags using factory ammo will have a different answer than a short action Remington 700 with hot handloads and a heavy bullet when chambered in the same cartridge. But if you have a Rem 700, why not use 243 Win or perhaps 22-250?

If a longbow is an ethical deer hunting weapon, then a 223 Rem definitely is...it can kill quicker and from further away.
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I wouldn't use a 223 for deer, I have plenty of cartridges that I consider better suited to the task. Others can do as they wish.
 
223 WITH the proper bullets is suitable. It's not so much the cartridge or caliber, but what will the bullet do on impact and through the wound channel
 
Gatehouse said:
Most of the people that condemn the .223 with proper bullets as a deer cartridge have no actual experience using it as a deer cartridge.

A friend recently asked me what he should get for his kids to start hunting deer with, and I told him a .223. Predictably, he said "wouldn't a .243 give them more margin for error on a deer as it is more powerful?"

I replied that instead of crossing his fingers in hopes that the power of a cartridge will make up for poor shot placement, he should focus on removing the error. And the best way to do that is properly applied trigger time. A .223 rifle and popping off a case of bulk .223 ammo over the summer will pay much higher dividends than using a rifle with more horsepower. For starters, .223 ammo is cheap. So the kids can get double the trigger time for the same price. The .223 recoils less so they won't be scared to shoot it and they can shoot longer before fatigue sets in.

Get those kids shooting at 8" gongs and then paper deer targets. The gongs will keep them entertained and having fun, and shooting at deer targets will help them understand shot placement. Have them shoot at different distances so limitations can be established. By the time they go deer hunting, the kids will be skilled marksmen and confident in their weapon.

Get some deer hunting appropriate .223 ammo, and go hunt with confidence that you don't have to pray that extra power will make up for lack of marksmanship.
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This is exactly my reason for wanting it legalized in Alberta. Kids can shoot it and shoot it well. You can’t hand them enough ammunition when they are shooting the 223. The 243 doesn’t pique their interest anywhere near as much.
 
Teaching kids to shoot properly doesn't require that a 223 rem be legal to hunt big game.
Practice is practice. Great. And that's where it ends and the real deal begins
 
grelmar said:
No, and that's a myth that needs to die. It started back with the original adoption of the cartridge and M16 platform, and the politics around it. Robert McNamara was one of the new breed of Washington Technocrat "whiz kids", and deeply data driven. He loved his stats. One of the things that Remington did right, was that they did extensive research on the terminal performance of the cartridge, and presented the research to McNamara and the DoD. Among the many pages of research, was a section detailing the "Wounding Profiles" of the cartridge. It listed wound channels, cavities, etc. The point was to show just how lethal the cartridge was.

McNamara was not very popular with a lot of the old school Washington Wonks and political Generals. They deliberately misused the language of the reports to make it appear that the cartridge was only going to wound enemies that you would much prefer were just dead. There was a lot of push-back against the M16 and 5.56 cartridge, because both were developed outside the government arsenal system, so there was a whole bureaucracy and thousands of government jobs at risk if the precedent was set for small arms development entirely by private enterprise or outside the arsenal system in general - "Not Invented Here" is how the US ended up with the .308 (7.62 NATO) instead of any number of better cartridges being developed in Europe, and the M-14 instead of the FAL (the FAL was, is, and always will be, a better military rifle than the M-14 could ever hope to be).

Anyway, the military had no interest in a cartridge that just "wounds" - and still doesn't. It would actually put them in a legal grey area they don't want to be in, in terms of both The Hague and the Geneva conventions.

Also, even though the military 5.56 ammo is designed to be lethal, it's still a FMJ round, designed to remain intact and not expand upon contact. That's a very different beast from .223 hunting projectiles, which are designed to either shatter (frangible), or expand (soft point), and dump energy in an entirely different way.

Now... Having said all that...

I still wouldn't shoot anything bigger than a coyote with .223 Remington. That's more of a personal preference/bias than anything. I will, and have, hunted deer with 7.62x39, and found it to be more than acceptable at reasonable ranges (I don't flatland hunt deer, just bush, so I'm not shooting much past 50-75 yards). Realistically, by the numbers, .223 should be just as effective at those ranges so long as you're using a 65-75 grain soft point. But that skinny little bullet gives me the willies. I want something with a bit more mass and diameter.
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Ye hit that on the bean fer sure. I've had a few .223's and just couldn't cotton up to 'em. Man did we ever go down the power scale when we dropped the FN C1A1. Fookin' power brokers an their stupid games. The M16 should've been at least a 6x47mm to get decent performance from the M16 & the like.

This will always be me favorite auto rifle, next to the M1 carbine. Ain't any land critter that can't be put to rest with one of these with a well placed shot & bullet proven fer the task.
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Gatehouse said:
A .223 IS legal to hunt big game in many (most?) provinces and states, as it should be.
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I wholeheartedly agree. I live in Alberta so I won't be able to have my wife or sons (in the future - oldest is only 3) hunt deer with my WK180-C until I build a 25-45 Sharps barrel for it. Does it make sense that a .257" 87gr Hot Cor at 2800 fps is legal on deer but a .224" 70gr TSX at 2800 fps is not? Speaking of dumb laws, I should be able to hunt with my AR15 and not have to buy another semi-auto 223... The government is causing me to buy more guns ;-)

Speaking of the 243 Win, one would probably consider it to be a terrible deer cartridge if the only load available was the 58gr Hornady V-max at 3900 fps! Varmint loads for varmints, deer loads for deer. Some cartridges lean one way or the other but many cross over to both sides.
 
If I was forced to use a .223 for deer, I expect I could do so quite effectively. However, I'm not forced to use it, so why would I actually choose to do so when there are so many more effective cartridges for the job? Why would anyone deliberately choose to use the smallest round possible? What is the point being proved, to whom is it being proved, and why does it need proving in the first place? Use a genuine deer cartridge for deer hunting; use a genuine elephant cartridge for elephant hunting; use varmint cartridges for varmint hunting. Why do people think they should do anything else?
 
Didn't someone on here from B.C. take a deer with a tavor? Pretty sure it was on here.

I would hunt whitetail with 223 no problem. Shot placement over caliber size. Retards with 300wm will still lose an animal if they don't put the round where it needs to go.
 
chuck nelson said:
Because Alberta knows best they do not allow the 223 to hunt big game. I'm sure three minutes of thought went into that rule and on another forum when I brought it up say that the rule should change (mainly as a benefit for the youth), snowflakes fast started melting. To belabour the point and because this place slows to a crawl in the summer here it goes.

Even though I apparently will shoot less in my lifetime than some here will shoot in a year I was out again this morning. I had zero intention of running my phones video capabilities but thought what the heck. The video is only for sound (I’m going to buy a phone Skope now) so please have no expectation of a Warner Brothers movie.

Yes, I know I’m not shooting deer. Yes I know steel does not bleed. But a deer at 250 yds could not, in seven lifetimes, win this battle. And I wouldn’t have wanted to be a deer standing at the distances illustrated either.

The scope is an SWFA 3-9 HD that apparently can't work as well.

https://youtu.be/kn5VfOXG8sQ

https://youtu.be/nB55NuE6PjM
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Your first mistake is dealing with the fudds on AO lol SNS2 or whatever his name is is brutal.
 
frabill said:
Didn't someone on here from B.C. take a deer with a tavor? Pretty sure it was on here.

I would hunt whitetail with 223 no problem. Shot placement over caliber size. Retards with 300wm will still lose an animal if they don't put the round where it needs to go.
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I shot a mule deer doe with a Tavor and a TTSX bullet. I've also killed black bears with the .223 and was with Tod Bartell when he killed a deer with a .221 Fireball. But there are plenty of hunters that have used the .223 on bug game far more extensively than me.
 
Gatehouse said:
I shot a mule deer doe with a Tavor and a TTSX bullet. I've also killed black bears with the .223 and was with Tod Bartell when he killed a deer with a .221 Fireball. But there are plenty of hunters that have used the .223 on bug game far more extensively than me.
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Yeah must have been you. FDE tavor with an rmr?

Anyway your post pretty much proves my point that 223 is capable for deer.
 
frabill said:
Anyway your post pretty much proves my point that 223 is capable for deer.
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The fact that someone has done something is not proof that it is a good idea to do it. You can shingle a roof with a tack hammer if you want, but that doesn't mean a tack hammer is a good roofing tool. I've eaten lots of steak using a table knife, but, if I can I like to use a steak knife.

Why do we never see forum threads trying to prove a 6.5x55 is " capable for deer"? Because everyone KNOWS it is (with virtually no limiting conditions on its use). Why do we see so many repeated threads trying to prove the .223 is "capable for deer"? Because everyone KNOWS it will actually kill deer (although everyone also KNOWS that you must be within the quite real limiting conditions that using the cartridge impose), but everyone also KNOWS that there are lots better rounds available, so people keep trying to justify their use of a barely suitable tool for a job.

So go right ahead and use your tack hammer to shingle your roof if you insist. People will see your new roof when you're done, but they will also have lots of thoughts about why you would insist on doing so.
 
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