This subject has probably been beat to death on various forums, but what say the 'Fire? Is the .223 Remington an adequate cartridge for deer out to a distance of 250 yards? Let the schit-slinging begin.
its not the cartridge... it is the shooter and shot placement and picking the right bullet...
despite popular theory, deer are not armor plated... nor is much other game....
on an experiment, I shot a post card piece of 3/8 inch thick steel target at 200 yds, my load was 12.5 grains of Blue Dot with a Hornady 55 grain SP bullet.. MV was about 2600 fps..
The bullet bore right thru the steel plate...
Same combination, but making a regular Military Spec 3150 fps MV with a common powder, when the same type of plate was shot at 100 yds, the bullet splattered on the plate...5 in a row... then used the 12.5 grains of Blue Dot and the same bullet, with a MV of 2600 fps, and shot at it at 100 yds..that bored thru the plate each time...
Well the military load would certainly kill the deer, and if that bullet moving slower will drill thru a steel plate, I'm sure it will drill thru a deer or antelope....I've not been there, but loaded the Blue Dot loads for kids ( scouts), and they've been hunting with grandpa and dad, and it took down blacktail deer just fine...
That's pretty much been common knowledge for ever. That's the reason the energy numbers on bullets is a bunch of BS. You have to kill stuff to know what your bullet is really doing. It's been proven time and again that bullets matter more than caliber for hunting or target shooting.
