Thread: A question for the doubters

Originally Posted by Southerner223

It covers @gimp points pretty well (maybe he has listened to it? If not maybe you should do one!)

There are only limited conclusions that can be reached if you take an evidence-based approach to forming them. It is not surprising that the people that take that approach end up in the same place.

Of course conclusions should be updated as new information becomes available, and we should always be testing them.

I shot my first deer in 2003, using a .223. 55gr Remington SPs, 2 red stags. The deer died. I did not know that .223 was insufficient for deer. Over time as I became exposed to the hearsay of the hunting community I adopted the conclusions of the masses - that .223 was marginal, etc. I did shoot many animals with a .223 in the intervening years and did not experience any problems but I always believed the conventional wisdom that it was marginal. I had a 1:8" twist .223AI in 2009-11 or so, shooting 75gr Amax but sold it in a fit of stupidity.

The first 2 deer I shot with the 80gr ELDM from my current .223 were 2 red hinds at about 250m. I was uncertain about whether .223 would perform given the "conventional wisdom". It was a longer shot than I'd taken on deer with the .223 in the past. I shot the first in the shoulder and she dropped like a bucket of water. I shot the second one in the shoulder and she dropped like a bucket of water.

Over the next several years I have shot dozens of deer, hundreds of goats, some tahr and chamois with the heavy bullets. None have failed. No performance issues of any kind. No limitations felt, performance as satisfactory as the .243, 6.5mms, etc that I mainly used prior. Less wounded animals and cockups than mates using .308s. I have had to update my prior belief. Unfortunately my experience doesn't match the "conventional wisdom". Now it appears that the conventional wisdom is mainly repeated by people without data or evidence, or who are misunderstanding. It was difficult to understand why my experience (and that of most others using good bullets in .223) doesn't match the intuitive conclusions you'd make to arrive at the conventional wisdom. Generally the best place to check the validity of conclusions is to look for robust analysis of evidence - the scientific literature. When you look at this, things become clearer.

The same general journey of learning applies around measuring precision and load development. Question the conventional wisdom and you'll find that all evidence supporting it is speculation and theory.


It's not surprising that the conventional wisdom is wrong, and people continue to repeat the nonsense from long-dead gun writers. Fackler's main body of research was developed through the 1980s-90s. Standardised testing of wound ballistics wasn't available until the early 90s. Speculative approaches were all that was available until then, and it takes a long time to unravel those beliefs.