Hi Vel,
I'm right with you on the FMJ's although I've never tried them in anything larger than 224, nor did any of the guys bringing me coyotes ever use them. I've always been curious if the larger diameter FMJ's would offer any better performance than the 224's. The times I've used them in 224 they were uninspiring to say the least.
I have had good luck with the old Speer 80 grain spitzer back when I had a 6mm Remington. I don't have a broad cross section of fur bearers to draw from with that bullet but of the couple dozen fox and coyote I shot with that bullet, most only had a 1-1.5" exit wound. That's acceptable when it comes to sewing up hides. Unfortunately for the OP no one loads that bullet commercially and in fact Speer has discontinued it.
I guess for the OP I'd recommend getting a box of either Remington 100 grain Core Lokts or Winchester 100 grain Power Points and shoot a few coyotes with them. If they do a good job then try them on a cat. Cat's take a little more work and I'd hate to turn one inside out because I hadn't tried my bullets out on coyotes first.
Mart,
i didn't have very good results with fmj, and gave up on them in short order.
however, my friend bob s. used them almost exclusively--primarily the 50 gr remington metal case pill in .224, but he also shot a considerable number of yotes with the .308 win using the 147 gr fmj pills. in professional fashion, he brought them all to bag--but had many runners in his predator hunting career.
though i prefer shooting yotes with .224 cal, i have used bigger calibers, up to and including .270 win. around about 1974, i discovered that the nosler partitions were the best pills in the larger calibers--very unconventional, but they worked very well indeed...
if i recall correctly, i believe shawn heyden uses the remington 80 gr pointed soft point in his .243 rig, with great results.
