Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Ammo for slow twist .223

I have a Remington VSSF coming with a 1/12 twist. It'll be mostly for the range and coyotes, but was wondering if anybody is using 55 grain bullets for deer? A do it all bullet for a slow twist .223.

I say bullet, but what I should say is factory ammunition. I've gotten away from hand-loading - just too may hobbies and not enough time.

Thanks

Factory ammo? Does not compute.....

otherwise, if you still gotta.. anyone with a decent 55 grain SP...

if you come to your senses and handload for deer.. 60 grain SP Hornady, 60 gr HP Sierra, 63 grain SMP Sierra or 70 grain SMP Speer... the later is my favorite..

I've gotten good accuracy with Fiocchi .223 ammo. I use the 40gr VMax Extrema but I believe they also sell 55gr. About $22 per 50.

If you can find factory ammo loaded with Hornady 55 gr. soft point, I'd go with that...

As a matter of fact, I can. Hornady factory ammo has become my standard go to anyways. Buds had 50 round boxes for $22, so I bought 5 boxes and will give them a run.

Thanks everybody.

Ive killed everything from gophers to coyotes to deer and hogs with that 55 grain Hornady...good luck!

You'll be fine with that. The older I get, the less reloading interests me. In fact I never really enjoyed it, but it was a means to an end.

The "end" for me was always better accuracy, and better bullets before premium loads became common. I've never gotten accuracy as good as my handloads from factory, but part of that may well be that I mostly gave up on factory way back when, except when I was under time constraints. Now I've got so much crap stockpiled, handloading is the only (acceptable) way out from under it all. Pretty good problem to have, considering the various droughts we've been through. They won't get me now!

It took me awhile to figure out that it don't take much to hit a basketball sized target.

Glad to hear somebody else say that. Like fly tying what began as a hobby gradually turned into a chore. I still reload everything simply because I couldn't possibly afford the amount of ammo I go through if I bought factory...

I haven't yet evolved out of the handloading for its own satisfaction state. I've only been doing it for close to forty years now.

I can't say that I really enjoy hand loading. If one is going to shoot .218 Bee and .219 Zipper, it has to be done. I also craft .243 loads using NP bullets. As long as federal makes blue box .30-30 and .308 in 150s, and as long as Hornaday makes 180 Superformance .30-06, I will not be stuffing them. I have a pretty good supply of Winchester factory loads and Lake City military stuff for the .223. My CZ is 9 twisted, so I may try some heavier bullets for deer.

Jack

Here you go O.P. https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1...ain-gmx-hollow-point-lead-free-box-of-20

The 55 grain GMX will take any deer in the Western Hemisphere.

My family and I have taken several deer with it, and have yet to recover a bullet. The deer don't make it very far after being hit, usually about 30 yards or so.

I had seen a VSSF a few weeks ago and kind of overlooked it for the very reason of it being a 12 twist, even though otherwise it was a very appealing rifle.
But.....
I just mistakenly got a closet queen 12 twist Ruger 77 Mark II for about half the price of the used VSSF, so glad to see this thread. I had thought it was a 9 twist until I got almost all the way there to pick it up, but when I saw the high gloss blue and decent grain to the walnut I went ahead and got it anyway. Also, I had a buddy that shot 62 Fusions and 64 PowerPoints out of a stainless boat paddle Mark II and he always did really well with those. So I thought, what the heck, for less than a new RAR Predator, I’ll give it a go.

Hope yours does better than my Remington 700 Varmint and .223 AI VSSF. Both are 12 twist and would shoot 55's into around 1 1/2" or so with careful handloading. However, I stumbled across a load with 40 grain Nosler BT's which shoot bugholes and I've stuck with it ever since. Absolutely like dynamite on coyotes and anything smaller out to as far as I want to shoot at them, which is quite a ways....

Bob

Geez, only shoots the light bullets well... That’s a bit discouraging. I guess I’ll find out with my old Ruger next weekend. Only ammo I got to try is 4 boxes 55gr plastic tip Winchester that I picked up on closeout , so that ought to give me an idea. And some 64gr mono’s that I wasn’t even going to try.

Oh well. We shall see. Usually takes me two or three tries to get it right anyhow. Probably get an 8 or 9 twist in the end if this one doesn’t do what I want. But I’m sure I’m on the right path with the .223 Rem.

Those 40 BTips will actually do just fine on deer as well. They'll break the shoulder if necessary on the way in.

My Ruger has the slow 1-12 twist. Loves .40g BT and AMAX bullets. Got it for cheap shooting. Can't use it for big game in Colorado anyway, so a faster twist and heavier bullets are ho-hums.

I will respectfully agree to disagree on that one. I would never use .223 BT's for deer sized game on a bet. I've seen what they do to rock chucks, rabbits, ground squirrels, and other thin skinned game and they are so explosive they sometimes don't even go all the way through a rock chuck. The hole they leave are also impressive, but would translate to huge amounts of damaged meat IMO. Besides, I have better tools for that job. I don't know, maybe we have bigger deer here, but I doubt it. Seems like the deer I saw in North Dakota a couple weeks ago were getting pretty fat on all that grain they were eating....

Bob

I have a CZ 527 with a 1:12 twist. I handload and use factory ammo as well. My handload is the 50 gr. Nosler BT and 25 gr. Varget. I've since been using the Hornady Steel case 55 gr. BTHP. Both the hndload and the factory load shoot to nearly the same point of impact and are sub .5 moa loads. I've killed several mouflon/barbado sheep with the Nosler load on our lease in west Texas. All have been shoulder shots and everything has been literally pole axed. I haven't launched the Hornady loads at a critter yet, but when I do it will be a head shot.