Thread: A question for the doubters

I love my .223 especially with the 75gr eldms, my son shot his first deer with it.
However there is very very little margin for error. Hit a small piece of anything before the animal, animal moves slightly when you pull the trigger, wind is a touch more than anticipated as you are sitting on the sheltered side of the gully (windage once you get over 250, 300 yards is huge) or you simply pull the shot a few inches. That deer is gone, often never to be seen again.
I don't know how many deer I've seen while culling make an exit with a .223 pill in them. Especially when people, I'm guilty too, of pushing them well to and possibly beyond the limit. Many of those deer would often have not made it far at all if a larger caliber had been used.

The simple fact is no matter how good the projectile you are using in the .223, there is simply not as much margin for error and shit does happen.

You could make a similar thread about people shooting deer with a .22lr or magnum and there will be hundreds of success stories, could produce plenty of pages worth that's for sure. What people won't post in the thread is the times it hasn't worked because they pushed the envelope or the animal moved etc. Bit like the .223 thread I suspect.

Originally Posted by TLB

..What people won't post in the thread is the times it hasn't worked because they pushed the envelope or the animal moved etc. Bit like the .223 thread I suspect.

You can miss or make a hash of it with any calibre.

Practise makes this less likey, and I suspect you will be inclined to practise more with a smaller cartridge that is cheaper to buy/reload.

If it were legal to hunt everything with a .224 calibre in the UK then my 7mm's in the cabinet would probably start sweating.