Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints 2 best 223 bullets for anchoring coyote?

We killed a lot of coyotes hunting in Old Mexico in the 80's and 90's with 22/250's as military cartridges were not allowed

50g Sierra spt high velocity Sp

55g Sierra spt
55g bthp
55g bTsp
55g Semi point

55g Nosler ballistic tip

223's in AR's shooting the heavies, drop like a rock out of a 16" barreled AR with slow velocity, so you unzip a lot of coyotes between 250-300, hitting them low.

Speed kills

Out of a remington 12t bolt gun, I shoot the 55g with a hot load of Benchmark and cci 450's at 3475 fps with amazing accuracy. I had one 53g V max blow up on a shoulder, so no more of those. 55g Sierra Blitz kings are the most explosive 55g bullet, so I want a tougher bullet for shoulder, hip, rib hits and shooting them up the butt when they are running away...penetration.

If you are an AR man, consider the 22 Grendel, no down side.

Often we called in multiple coyotes coming from different direction, so shooting coyotes running away was normal. You need a bullet that will penetrate 10" minimum, so no V max or Blitz kings for me. The 60g V max out of a 22/243 AI at 4000 fps is a different story, and I also think it would be a great choice for the 223.

Hedge your bets, use bullets that will penetrate some, and we had great luck with the 53g Hornady match, 52 &53g Sierra match bullets also from all angles.
55g Hornady sp with the cannalure was great along with the 55g Winchester SP.

Best fur load we had was 55g Winchester with 26-26.5g of Win 748, as the bullet rarely went though the coyote, but penetrated well on quartering shots and never failed to break bones.

We used to carry a Novice once a month with us to introduce them to predator hunting, so we saw a lot of bad hits on coyotes, near and far. One thing we learned is if you hit a coyote behind the diaphram, often you never find them because they can keep breathing. The answer to this is to use a bullet that will often completely penetrate the coyote, put him to leaking from both sides, and from 250-325 many are often hit low and behind the diaphram.

For short range shooting, the Sierra 55g Semi point has a lot of "knock down power", and the WHOP sound is tremendous, and this bullet is very easy to make accurate with just a tad of load tuning. If you are shooting an AR and your shots are 200 and under, this is a fantastic bullet for this application as jumping the bullet to the lands is made easier in tuning the load.

I would not get crazy on using some kind of plastic tip as most called in coyotes are killed between 85-175 yards, just use a bullet that will not blow up on bones and you will do ok.

Star line is making some pretty good brass for the 22 Grendel, and this is an impressive cartridge in terms of accuracy and speed for an AR for coyote hunting.

A coyote is a 25-30 pound animal, it doesn't take all that much to kill one. I always ran the 55 NBT, and it killed the chit out of them, both in .223 and 22-250 Ackley.

I save fur and one running off is like throwing money away so I want them dead but saleable. My two goto bullets are the 52gr Speer HP and 40gr NBT. I shoot the 52gr Speer in the 222 Rem, 223 Rem(AR), 5.6x50R Mag and the 22-250. It seems to do the job at all velocities and has proven to be very accurate. The 40gr NBT has worked well out of my 22-204 9t Savage at 4000fps, dropping coyotes on the spot with only fragments or the base of the bullet up against the far hide, yet hasn't splashed on the nearside yet(15 yrs)

Not 100% for sure but think he is asking about anchoring them right in their tracks.

I shot shot em with several bullets and some of those bullets are suited more for larger critters as I had a lot of runners compared to the 50 or 55 grain Ballistic Tip which seems to knock their dick right in the dirt.

Burns and I see similarly on this. I've killed a lot the last several years with my 26" 9T AR 223 AI and I'm loving the 69 TMK, and now 60 TMK out to 500ish yds.

Never had a clue that it took a special bullet in a 223 to put down a coyote. But a 22-250 used to be the choice for as far as you could hit'm.

That said, I got a bunch of Winchester 55 grain Varmint X, off the clearance rack, that have a picture of a coyote and a ground hog on the box. So only having had a 223 for a short time, I'd use these if setting up specifically for dogs.

Ballistic tip

62 Barnes or 62 Bear Claw

Any sp bullet seems to work. Find one that groups as accurately as you can shoot and have fun hunting coyote. If the first shot doesn’t work, use two. I know this is not very scientific and the information given above is EXCELLENT. Of course hides here are not worth anything and usually has fleas and ticks.

Slap a magazine of something in the rifle and go forth! Have fun!

As I expected would be the case, there's a lot of great feedback / advice here. Thanks guys.