Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting .223 for whitetail - yes or no?

Yes. I'd use one way past 250, and I wouldn't use a barnes...ever

ABSOFRIGGINLUTELY

I have taken an awful lot of deer and hogs with it out to 250. It runs out of steam further out... You can kill a deer (or hog) with just about any caliber as long as YOU make the correct shot placement.

NO BULLET or CALIBER will make up for a poorly placed shot.

That was a 45 gr Barnes TSX and 24 gr of 748 IIRC...

My fellow South Carolinian is correct. The first deer I killed with a rifle, in 1967 was drt at 200 yards with a Norma 50 grain factory loaded.222. The most recent deer I killed with a 22Cf was a large wt buck at 275 -300 yards with a 65 grain SGK. It’s not what you shoot them with, it’s how you shoot them. I am not so desperate to kill an animal that I blast away with Hail Mary shots at running deer in the woods. I’ve seen plenty of deer wounded and lost by those who do, usually excited kids shooting too much rifle. Just about any reasonable.223 load will work just fine.

This has been my experience as well

It is not barely adequate. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference in a wound channel with a 223 and a 6.5 Creed, assuming good bullets.

yes, if the person pulling the trigger knows what they are doing...

If you’ve never done it before then no, it isn’t near big enough. If you have then sure, it’ll kill deer or even bigger stuff further than the stated range and with “worse” bullets as well. At least this is what you will generally glean from answers to this type question here on the fire.

There hasn’t been a deer born I’d be afraid to shoot with a 223 at 250 yards, I wouldn’t go out of my way to use a super hard bullet either. If you can shoot a 223 can be a pretty big gun.

That's a pretty rifle. Is it a Remington BDL?

Why not a Barnes?

I've got that covered. Master classification in Service Rifle, 200-600 yards.

Yes. Proven it too many times to myself to say other wise.
Dropped a nice 9 point and a big 6 point seconds apart one evening. Those two bucks died way too quickly to say a 223 isn’t enough gun.

GreggH

Yes. A .223 kills way above it's pay grade.

Legally culled large numbers of deer (does) over the years with a 222. We kept shots inside 100 yards and 95% of the shots were high neck. DRT on pretty much every shot.

Hornady factory 50 grain loads most of the time.

They aren't needed. Just like bonded bullets aren't needed.

But by all means if you want a narrow wound channel use a barnes.

Thats good to know. I just bought a box of Barnes vor-tx 55gr tsx. After reading this I think I'll stay with the 64gr soft points

Not saying they won't kill deer, but I would rather use the 64gr soft points if lead is legal.

Gotcha.
I wish Hornady made the SST bullet in .223 (.224 for the picky ones).
Is there another manufacturer's equivalent of the SST bullet in .223?

yes for my 10 year old grandson for a deer , but for me for bigger bucks no i wanna a bigger cartridge always.

Google "77gr tmk hunting"