Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Is the 222 Too Light For Deer?

Too funny and spot on as well!

New Zealanders still use the .222 Rem on red deer....although the .223 is now rampant, and used by professional shooters.

People use them on bigger stags than a mule deer.

But these kind of threads get read in NZ by younger hunters as well, and we now have a new generation growing up who are reading American forums and believe that a .243 won't kill a deer without a perfect broadside shot at 30 metres etc and so on.

considering you can break shoulders with a 222/223 not sure what your after here when things go less than perfect not sure how a 30-06 is going to improve things enough to matter as you dont have to thread a bullet between ribs for a 222 to work. yeah chit goes wrong at times but its just as likely to go wrong with a bigger round and your not sitting any better.

My stepfather killed more than a truck load of whitetails with factory Remington 50g PSP in a Remington 600 Mowhawk and never had an issue. His shots were typically less than 100yds (if over not by much) and he was never in a hurry with his shots.....FWIW

PennDog

frankly, I don't trust the caliber to thread the needle through timber and anchor one that is close to the property line in such a way that it doesn't run onto the neighbors property.

It's happened to all of us at least once....

I made a mistake using a 375 H&H with a downloaded cast bullet. Made a bad shot on a deer, tracked blood for 350-400 yards, jumped the deer, and never saw him again. The lessons I learned were:

- It's better to make a good shot than use a big gun.
- A hard cast bullet at 1500 FPS just makes a .375" hole in a deer.
- don't start tracking the deer unless you see it fall, then still wait longer before going after it.

Sometimes we have to make mistakes so we can learn from them....

A friend took a smallish WT doe with his this year. He used factory 50gr core-lokts from when his inheritted Rem 600 was new, placed the shot through both lungs at 100' or so and the deer fell over after a short run. I was in on the post-mortem when we butchered it and found he'd hit no bone, the bullet was in fragments, and the onside lung was mush. It was pretty well what we all thought would happen with the bullet involved-fine as long as bone isn't hit,oops if it is. Since the rifle will be used again this year, a batch of ammo has been loaded up with a supply of the 45 gr TSX's I've used in my 1:12 223s for a few seasons. They've worked very reliably on a half dozen WT for Wee Cousin Casey so far, so should work just fine in the deuce.

If it was germane to the subject, I've have mentioned it. I've lost a wolf (30/06) and a black bear (30/06).

I have no idea what that has to do with shooting deer with a 22CF.