Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .223 55 grain bullet failure on deer

Could be you got your one and only bad experience out of that bullet. I would keep using it.

4 of my grandkids use a 223 for whitetail. they shoot winchester power point factory loads with 64gr bullets. shot behind the shoulder, their deer rarely travel more than 30 yards. i like them to shoot heavy for caliber bullets. shots for them here on the farm are rarely over 50 yards. if the op has lost confidence in one bullet, there are many others out there which will work.

My 1-12 Featherweight shoots 60gr Partitions very well.

A friend’s granddaughter has the same rifle as you have and the ammunition I’ve described above have patterned well and have been deadly on whitetails. Her rifle won’t shoot heavier bullets either.

Just fwiw

Bullets hitting living animals fo strange things. Shoot e ought animals and sooner or later you’ll have an experience that’s abnormal.

Here’s my thought:

How many deer has this rifle and bullet combination killed successfully?

How many times has it performed subpar? Sounds like a sample size of 1.

Sample size of three with this rifle and four with this bullet/ammo. Granted, not a large sample size, but more than one.

I think it was an unusual, freak occurance. I've killed somewhere around 25-30 deer with a .223 and ordinary 55 gr. sp's with no problems or catastrophic bullet failures.

My instinct is to say that you are right about this. I am going to keep using it since it is so accurate out of this rifle and has performed so well the previous three times we have used it on deer. I have seen strange things happen when bullets meet deer flesh before.

It’s the campfire way. One bullet does something that appears odd out of its normal proven parameters, and it is reason to change what one uses or where they are going to aim if they do.

Thing is, the new choice will also have someone, somewhere who has something odd happen.

You recovered the animal. Things happen off script sometimes as we all know out in the field. Congrats to your daughter.

Move up to a 243 and the 80 grain TTSX

Had a Remington Mohawk 600 with a 1/12 that would shoot the Sierra 63 grain SMP into .5 MOA with 26.0 grains of 748. Also have a Valmet 412 12/.223 that shoots under and inch with that same load.

Sold the Mohawk to my friend in Texas as I knew it would get more use and his family have already killed several deer with it and the Sierra load.

Only .223 bolt gun I have right now is a 1/8 Tikka that I got from Mackay Sagebrush. With 75 grain Hornady or 63 grain SMPs it will run in the .5 area...

Bob

I've taken 3 Blacktails with my Featherweight.... each were bang/ flop....

70 grain Speer SMP... over a load of 28 grains of H 380, at like 2900 fps...
from around 100 yds out to 200 yards.. Forest Service land...

If I take a 223 out deer hunting one of the three bullets will be loaded for it..
Speer 70 gr SMP, 63 SMP Sierra, 60 gr SP Horandy...

Three Deer with a .223AI and 52grain TSX. One made a little 20 or 30 yard circle. The others just more or less fell over on the spot. Two with a 22-250 and 62grain TTSX. One at around 200 and one around 70. The one at 70 went in the chest and out a ham. Neither seemed to take another step.

I've used the 06 a lot more than the 223 for hunting.. so I've of course taken more deer with the 06, and 180 grain bullets..
but I've also had more failures out of the 06... so can anyone draw any logical conclusions from that? I can't...
its still putting the right bullet in the right spot and the bullet performing like it should.. which also doesn't always happen..

on the other end, I'll have to admit.. the old beloved 444 Marlin has never ever failed me...

I witnessed this “splatter effect “ with a 22-250 shooting a factory loaded trophy bonded bear claw. Ruined the deer’s shoulder and essentially turned him into a 3-legged deer. He hobbled around for a year before he was finally put out of his misery.

If you handload, switch to the 64 Nosler Bonded Solid Base. You won't have any problems with it--expansion, weight retention, straight penetration. Barnes bullets, every so often, just do something ridiculous upon impact. It's part of the game with them.

I've never had a deer go far when shot through the lungs with either a 60 grain Partition or 64 grain PowerPoint.

IIRC, Mule Deer once posted that he helped to kill a pile of cull animals in Africa with 55 grain Winchester/Olin factory loads and that must be a more fragile bullet than anything made by Barnes.

My go-to bullet in any slow twist 22 caliber rifle is the 55gr Hornady SP. However, my only 1-12 twist 223 hates that bullet. It's a Ruger M77 MarkII UL. I did find that it really likes the 50gr TTSX and it performed well on the one deer I've taken with the rifle. Shot was through the vitals at 255yds. Deer did a typical 50yd death run, per usual with that shot placement. That rifle also shoots the 63gr Sierra extremely well, as in 3/8in well, but I haven't used it to take a deer yet.

the 223 will indeed kill deer, but there are FAR BETTER choices



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