22-250, and don't sweat the twist. It'll be fine with up through 60 gr's. If you want to get fancy, you can always rebarrel it later, but meanwhile you'll have a good little rig for what you intend, and a 22-250, even twisted 1-14", is still a hell of a lot more rifle than a 223.
I disagree. A slow twist 22-250 offers no appreciable gain over the 223, in my experience. For big game, the 223 shoots 50-60 grain bullets fast enough to have a practical point and shoot trajectory out to the ranges most big game is killed. I've even stretched it out a bit on big game, killing an antelope buck at around 400 paces with a 52 grain hollow point. I've also used the 223 to take several truck loads of game with 40 grain Ballistic Tips. A whitetail doe was shot facing me head on several years with this bullet; we found the base of the bullet in an inner tenderloin. Pretty good penetration!
Speaking of 40s, they essentially turn a 223 into the 22-250 of 40 years ago. Similar BC to the older non-plastic tipped 50-55s, and the 40s can be fired from a 223 at similar speeds to a factory loaded 22-250 with 50-55s.
The 223 does all of this with less recoil and noise than the 22-250, which really adds up when shooting colony varmints, and can be handy when shooting coyotes for quick recovery and spotting your own shots, especially when shooting from weird positions (such as out of the truck window). The 223 has cheaper factory ammo. The Kimber 223 will shoot heavier bullets - though the Kimber won't quite take advantage of the really high BC heavies, it will likely shoot the 69s, which work fine for stretching the range a bit for plinking and steel, and are available in factory ammo.
Sure, the 22-250 has more velocity and a flatter trajectory with any given bullet, but I find it to be wasted if one can't shoot the heavies. At least for me, if I'm stepping up above the 223 case capacity, I'm stepping up the caliber to 6mm in order to take care of the high bc bullets and wider array of big game bullets.
In 22 caliber, the 223 does everything I want or need for a centerfire.
Great post Prairie Goat and I agree 100% !
I use a .223 every day of the week at the big TX Hill Country Ranch I manage, and at our home Ranch in N. TX eliminating countless feral hogs and truckloads of deer managing our herds, pretty much using just about every .223 bullet available out to 400 yards. Most of that culling is done legally out the window of my Ranch "office" which is my 2016 SuperCrew 4X4 F-150. For that purpose and coyote hunting too, the plain old .223 is my first choice and best tool for the job. Low recoil and it just keeps killing them all graveyard dead.
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