the MAJOR thing you need to remember is KINETIC energy; a .223 will only supply a limited amount of this energy at range;
go shoot your neighbor's cat with a bb gun, then shoot it with your .223;
go shoot an ELK with your .223 and he will run into the following month;
you want to 'humanly' kill your game; and not have to track it for that afore mentioned month;
you want to kill it outright if at all possible;
the bigger the game, the more energy is required;
the .223 was designed to 'injure',and not necessarily kill;
and was never developed as a hunting round; it was developed to injure and maim humans;
Again welcome to the fire Mike, I hope you stick around, there are a lot of people with a lot of knowledge here, it has benefited my hunting and shooting skills to participate in this forum as I hope it will benefit you, there is a lot of knowledge here. You have to understand that there are a lot of notions surrounding firearms of various types that have been foisted onto the unsuspecting public thru a variety of media including our always accurate News folks, and yet many of them are dead wrong. You appear to have heard a few of these notions and accepted them. This is a good place to listen and learn.
