I find it interesting that many argue the merits of the .223 as a deer round but never talk about any short comings.
The short comings are it's small wound channel and less damage than is made by larger bullets.
This doesn't matter if it shot is placed in the forward half of the chest cavity where it penetrates both lungs and lots of blood vessels. The buck isn't going far.
But how about the shots that go bad and hit something that doesn't bleed nearly as much ? Think a .22 caliber bullet will make as large a wound channel as a 7mm - .308 bullet of like construction and velocity ?
One doesn't hear much about fast .270 or '06' bullets that expand rapidly killing quickly with a hit behind the diaphragm. But Jack O'Connor used to write about such things.
I'm not saying this happens much on really big, tough animals, but it does on deer.
John Wooters, in his great book, Hunting Throphy Deer discussed the fact that one rarely gets the time to carefully place his shots on big, old bucks. For that job one needs extra killing ability. That's why he recommended cartriages between .26-.30 caliber pusing bullets between 130-150 grs. in weight between 2800-3000 fps. E
You don't read these threads much. Your first point....At least half tell us how poor the .223 is. Your second point.....The vast majority of people will never see a big old buck. Those old writers were just like the rest of us except they had more time to hunt. That gave them the opportunity to pass on a good deer to wait for a great buck.
