Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters The Shrinking Big-Game Rifle

Very interesting comment. Nowadays the emphasis seems to be on what can be done with a certain cartridge. Back in the day, as I recall, there was more talk about what should be done (or attempted) with a certain cartridge. There are many aspects to 'sporting' but it's a concept worth pondering now and then.

Thanks for the reminder.

I know some 20-30 years ago John Nosler wrote in one of his loading manuals about shooting deer with .22 centerfires. He discouraged the practice, even though he successfully got a deer, because there was almost no blood trail. He was using one of his bullets - but the Partition was not yet available in .224.

IIRC a few years later Finn Aagaard moved to Texas, and did a lot of deer hunting with then-new Trophy Bonded bullets in the .223, and both he & his wife had excellent results on several animals. He wrote of it not long before his passing. That was probably the first time an expert said it was okay to use a .223 on deer sized game, with appropriate bullets.

Killing sheit is a complete mystery to many.

No.

What's funny is you can add .019" diameter to a bullet and people are ok fine.

Bullets and placement. Been that way since Copernicus.

Many people have an anti-.22 "feeling" about big game hunting, based on somehow associating all .22 caliber rifles with rimfires, and anti-.22 regulations instituted in many states after the .220 Swift appeared in the 1930's.

Back then, of course, there weren't any .22-caliber bullets "designed" for big game, but a lot of hunters went ahead and used the Swift anyway, mostly with success. When the bullets didn't work, the caliber was blamed, but back then a LOT of bullets didn't always work on whatever passes for big game, regardless of caliber. And the regulations were mostly passed by people who'd never shot any big game with a .220 Swift, or even seen one in action. They just "knew" (like several people who've posted here) that it wouldn't work.

When I was a kid here in Montana, the regulation for big game rifle cartridges was a centerfire of at least .23 caliber. (A .23 minimum was the law in many states, which of course meant that some people came up with .23 caliber wildcats, which worked fine.) Eventually the requirement was dropped, and today you can shoot big game with whatever cartridge you want to here, with the exception of some areas close to towns, even a .22 rimfire. This is because the game department finally realized most hunters use something that works.

.22 centerfires not only take a lot of deer and antelope here, but some hunters use them on elk--though of course with the "precise bullet placement" mantra everybody repeats when using "too small" rifles on any sort of big game. In fact, one old game warden I knew preferred the .220 Swift to any other cartridge for shooting elk off haystacks back when "game damage" was handled by wardens and not longer hunting seasons. He shot hundreds of elk with many cartridges, and said a Swift bullet in the lungs killed them with less fuss than any other cartridge he tried.

Strange animals you have out there. Our whitetails would never get up on a haystack.

John,

I seem to recall an article that you wrote many years ago, the gist of which was that your friends/neighbors liked to visit and see all of your different rifles, then they would go home and punch their deer tags with the Remington 700 Varmint in 22-250 that they used for all other purposes.

I have shot a few deer with 3 different .224" bore cartridges; the 223, 223 WSSM, and 22-250, with 60 grain Partitions and 64 grain PPs. All the deer died promptly and, upon farther inspection, the degree of internal damage made you wonder why they didn't die in their tracks. My Norwegian bachelor farmer friend has a large gun room, but the rifle that he carries with him day in and day out is a Marlin XS7 with a Stevens 200 barrel that I rechambered from 223 to 22-250 for him. He likes it so much that he bought a couple of extra 223 Stevens 200 barrel for me to rechamber, planning ahead for the day when the current barrel starts to lose its accuracy.

Teeder,

You haven't seen what elk can do to a haystack. Often they're on top of it in short order, because the haystack is a lot shorter.

well , the whitetails here have no problem climbing on top of round bale piles , corn or silage piles......

Jeff,

Yeah, there are a lot of .22-250's in Montana that get used as all-around rifles, especially in the eastern part of the state--even without "premium" bullets!

My first hunt to Montana was in the early 1970's and the rancher, over near Jordan, used a 22-250 on everything.

I was greener than green but it sounded OK to me at the time. I used a 270 and didn't feel badly...both Grits Gresham and John Jobson had hunted with the same rancher using a 7 Rem Mag and a 270.

No one much cared what you used if you could shoot straight.

A rancher friend in west River SD uses a old 340 Savage 222. Drops one every year. He's close to 90 years old. He seems reasonably inelligent. But the old fool doesn't know the 222 is the wrong cartridge and he's been using it since the 50's!

A well known Grand Junction, CO, 'smith told me that he had been killing deer with 1-14" ROT 22-250s, shooting 55 grain bullets, for years and couldn't understand all the demand for quicker twists and heavier bullets. I think that he was, mostly, shooting 55 grain Winchester/Olin factory ammo and his primary rifle was a Savage 99 that he'd rebarreled with a Ruger 77 V 220 Swift barrel that he'd cut back to 24"(?). I had him do the same thing with a 99EG receiver, 99CD wood, and a Ruger 77 V 25-06 barrel that he shortened and rechambered to 250-3000. Kinda heavy to tote around and, seemingly, increasing in weight as I grow older, but very steady to shoot off-hand and reasonably accurate too.

Frank Glaser in "Alaska's Wolf Man" market hunted for years and stacked huge numbers of critters bigger than deer said he preferred the Swift over all else except for the big bears.

His career ended in '54 so he was obviously not shooting "Premium" bullets...

Copernicus used a .280 Rem...

I remember a number of people back in the late 70's and early 80's using .222 Remington's for deer. I never heard anyone who used one complain about their effectiveness either.

I always wondered why so many people make a stink about the .223 now. It's not as if this is new.

People, for the most part, are very provincial. You see it NON-STOP on the 'Fire.

LOL!

Fugcking Yankee hater.

The word is indifference, not hate.

You couldn't leave BigStick out of this one, huh?