Thread: .223 go-to guns?

I'll agree with comments above from personal experience that the 55 gr Hornady projectiles are cheap projectiles but have worked well on Goats and Fallow but the majority of my deer have been shot with 55 gr Sierras.

The majority of deer I've shot have been sika where I haven't waited for head or neck shots but gone for chest shots with all apart from two were bang flops. The two were runners that ran 30-40 metres before collapsing where I couldn't figure out why until I realized I underloaded the cases and instead of my usual 26 gr AR2206H I had loaded those with 24 gr AR2206H so it was a lesson learnt that they needed to be driven hard and fast in my rifle at least and all of those deer were shot while bush hunting.

For the bang flops, my reason behind this is all of the kinetic energy from the projectile is being dumped into/inside the animal, I've shot a few animals with other calibres where projectiles would pass through leaving amazing blood trails even a blind man could follow yet those animals were still standing... dead on their feet but they were still standing.

Last year we shot a bunch of Fallow for meat, I was running my .284 with 150 gr Sierras and the round would punch right through, the animal would stand there unfazed with a hole through it and eventually fall over and I felt quite sad doing this so I switched to my .223 where they were just bang flops and felt it was just far more humane.

I loaded up some 140 gr BT's for the .284 so if I returned I could use a lighter projectile which would open up faster but as yet haven't had the chance to test that theory.

Most the 55 gr Sierra projectiles I chest shot Sika with I would find buried under the skin on the other side.

I have even used some 55 gr V-max on sika where the chest cavity was pulp but I kept using the Sierras as I like a good lead tip. I tried some Barnes but found them too expensive in the long run and I just couldn't get them to group well.

I've also started using heavier 63 gr Sierras and found them to be awesome aswell, there slightly tougher which will make them great for bigger critters.

As for head shots, a mate shot a Fallow stag head on with his .222 loaded with a 55 gr Targex projectile. It bounced off the skull giving it no doubt a terrible headache where he spent two days trying to find the animal to no avail. My son shot it a couple months later at 225 metres in the heart.

Once we boiled the head you could see the wound had calcified and it makes an interesting head.

We just prefer neck and chest shots with the .223 like we do when using any other caliber.