Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 22-250 to light for Deer ??

I was killing deer with .222's, ,223's and .22-250's long before any of these super "deer bullets" even existed. Folks who think it takes super special bullets to kill deer with a .22 crack me up. You must have listened to all the old gun rag hacks that repeatedly said .22 centerfires were not adequate for deer because the bullets would blow up on the surface and not penetrate deep enough to kill. Those gun rag hacks were full of shyt all along. I have killed dozens of deer with ordinary 50 and 55 grain soft points from .222's and .223's and never had that happen. One of the biggest bucks I've ever killed fell instantly to one 50 gr. Nosler solid base through the lungs from a .222..

I grew up with a bunch of guys that used running hounds on coyotes.

They mainly ran 22-250s because of their speed and ability to catch a running coyote. Some used 223s.

Most of the guys used the same rifle 1 week out of the year for deer and used a 52 grain match bullet or 55 grain Gameking bullet on both the deer and coyotes. Never heard em complain about having issues killing deer.

Wonder if some of this stuff is regional or not.

Take a 64gr Winchester Power Point, seat it on a max load of W760/H414 with a Magnum rifle primer. It will not bounce off a deer.

People forget P. O. Ackley’s writings on killing donkeys with a .220 Swift using light bullets.

Could probably Google it. He was impressed with terminal performance.

DF

I don't know if it's a regional thing. I do know quite a few guys here who kill varmints/predators and deer with .223's and .22-250's without complaints and that many if not most of them use the same bullets for both.

In my opinion it is not too light a cartridge for deer.

Conventional bullets like the 55gr Horandy SP or the 63gr SMP Sierra have proved themselves as quite effective for the smaller deer.

And there are other bullets, like Barnes' or the 60gr Partition will provide the extra penetration with which to feel more comfortable with the larger deer.

Wether it is an adequate choice or not will depend mostly in your markmanship, your hunting style and the kind of terrain you hunt in.

Bearing in mind that no caliber size will make it up for poor bullet placement,

Big Deer little Deer....How does one know which you are going to cross paths with? Let's leave it to Whitetails....In the Northern States you can run into some big body Deer, but not always....Even down in Southern Georgia they have been known to kill Whitetails that go over 200 pounds...Here in Pa. you may see one around 100 or over 200 pounds. Blackhart has some really big bodied Deer where he hunts, but the crew gets along fine with run of the mill .223 bullets...

They are Whitetails and not big or small Grizzlies..how much more penetration does one need for a 100 pound Buck vs a 200-225 pounder? I use Barnes and know I don't have to think about what size may come thru the woods....

Eskimo's and .223's and .243''s taking on Bears and Moose.... Don't know if that is still true today, but at one time it was....Deer fall to pretty much a wide range of arrow weights and poundages, yet when we start throwing bullets at them it becomes a big vs small???? Or with a .22-250, stay of shoulders or better yet shoot them in the head....

I'm with the poster who wrote.... I don't pass on any Deer I would shoot with a 7mm-08, .270, .30-06, etc....and another who said Kid's do just fine with them, but why do Adults think they need more....

This would be a 55grain Barnes, from a lowly .223AI that plowed thru around 4 inches of spinal cord from a head-on shot, at around 120yards....I doubt the shoulders of a big one would have stopped it....

I shot two bucks one afternoon (a young 9 point and a older fat 6 point) broke both shoulders on the 6 and lung shot the 9. Neither had any problems giving up the ghost. This was with the 223 Rem and the 53 TSX.
Is the 22-250 enough for deer? I will let you know this fall as I grabbed a Model 7 predator and will bloody it this fall using the Hornady 55 SP.
I expect a full cooler.
GreggH

Frank Glaser, The Wolf Man of Alaska, when supplying meat for railroad crews, killed over a thousand Dall sheep, along with Moose and everything else Alaska has to offer with a .220Swift....He was a gun guy, and said with the exception of Grizzlies, he thought the Swift was the fastest killer of any caliber he ever used...

310 yards with 60gr. Hornady soft point

Put two in him but the second was just insurance. Both exited. He had survived two arrow pass throughs, so about as tough as they come.

That was a great book. I enjoyed it.

Would recommend it to anyone bored during this virus fiasco.

Ya reckon Ackley and Glaser knew of what they spoke and wrote?

DF

I've got a 1-9 twist 22-250 and I grab it out of the safe about as often as any rifle in there. Works fine.

I've also killed several with slow twist barrels using the 55gr Hornady SP.

Mine is 8 twist, but P. O. and Frank ran std .220’s, no fast twist. They used light bullets and killed stuff.

One can just about duplicate .220 loads with the .22-250, pretty close. Same principle.

Fast twist with heavier bullets works well, don’t doubt what light bullets at 4K fps can do.

Those guys for sure knew.

DF

Yep!!

Long live the Swift......

Great cartridge for prairie dogs to deer!!!

Was for sure cutting edge for its time. Not too shabby today.

I’m thinking it must have been about the first hyper vel factory round.

M-70 was (is) a great rifle and evidently factory ammo was pretty good.

DF

Yeah, they work and if that is all you have use it. Take care to place your shot like should all ways be done. If you have a tight twist and can use the heavy 22's so much the better. Still better is the .24's with 100+ gr bullets or heavier. MB

DF: As a factory round, the 220 Swift preceded it by quite a bit and was/is even more hyper, although not as popular...

Was referring to the Swift.

We had gotten side tracked on the Swift, with Ackley and Glaser info.

DF

Ah. I see that now.. Sorry...