Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .223 General Purpose Load

General purpose for my 223 means small to coyotes sized animals. I like a soft 40 to 50 grain bullet pushed with H4895, I 4895 and BLC2 variously. I would put together load specifically for deer if I didn't have a bigger gun, not saying the 223 doesn't do good duty on deer chip shots.

My "standard" .223 load has been 55 Hornady SP + 26.8gr. CFE-223. Dammed accurate in my 1-9" AR, and equally so in my Browning Low Wall 1-12". It's the recipe I followed when I loaded up a couple thousand for "comfort", although I'll confess to liking a bunch of lighter bullet loads too for the Browning strictly for varmints/paper punching.

CFE-223 temp sensitive? So what? I ain't bench shooting if it's colder than about 40 degrees or hotter than maybe 90 degrees anyway, and if I go afield for eastern whitetails and it's 20-30 degrees outside so what if the bullet impacts an inch or so off because the powder is sensitive to the cold. Colder than that and I'm sitting someplace warm anyway, with a drink and a good book.

I bought some bulk Hornady 62 grain BTHP from Midsouth as a cheaper alternative to Barnes of the same weight. Using the same stiff load of Varget they go to same POI as the Barnes and considering how well they work on feral hogs I would use them on anything in Louisiana. One day I spotted a big blue sow in a food plot and accidently picked up the .223 from the back seat instead of the matching Weatherby Vanguard 2SS in .30-06. The .223 true to form put her on the ground. The Barnes is an excellent bullet also at about 5X the Hornady bullet price.

I like 62 grain Bear Claws or 62 Barnes with CFE 223

Always interesting to hear what a .223 is "adequate" for. One of my friends here in Montana has used one for years on everything up to and including elk, and not at "chip-shot" ranges. He's killed at least one cow elk at 400+ yards. But he started hunting when very young on his father's ranch, and had both his hunting and shooting skills refined by the U.S. Army, where they were put to use in the Middle East.

Several years ago Phil shoemaker introduced me to a couple of brothers in their 20s from "bush" Alaska. AR-15s are pretty popular there for hunting, especially for kids, due to the light recoil and stocks adjustable for length-of-pull. The brothers had not only killed plenty of black bears and caribou with theirs, but moose and grizzly.

Can't remember what ammo they preferred, but evidently they didn't handload--at least at the time. Not long before they'd been in Anchorage and decided to pick up a case of ammo at a big sporting goods store. When the clerk (like many sporting-goods clerks apparently an expert on everything) found out they intended to use the ammo on big game, he refused to sell to them. So they bought it elsewhere....

.223 out of a 16" barrel had no problems killing two hogs yesterday at 60 and 165 yards... both about 300 lbs that had to be drug out with the atv. But, they were both head shot.

Reminds me of the young man from Barrow who came into the shop one day. When asked if he’d been hunting lately he showed a pic of a pretty damn big polar bear that was fully dead. His reply when asked what he shot it with was, “my Mini 14”. He later said that he was using that yellow box ammo, referring to the UMC 55gr FMJ we had on the shelf.

My hypothesis is that it is all about what weight rifle is shooter adequate to carry.
Men 10 pounds.
Boys 5 pounds.

Now find the best rifle in that weight class for accuracy and range, work backwards, and say that is adequate for what ever they are hunting.

As an example, the most common elk cartridges must be adequate. So if we scale off those cartridges, the size of the elk, the size of mule deer..... then 223 is overkill for the largest mule deer.

Why is this false?
Because the 223 did not fully utilize the man's rifle weight carrying capacity.

So then all those bigger rifles you own are going up for sale? If I shot everything with a 223 I would have no reason to have all the other rifles I own. But that won't happen until the 223 can do everything my 7-08 does as well or better. Or my 243, 257 Roberts, 7x57, 308, 270 etc. No rules subsistence hunting is a lot different than what hunting I get to do. Did Phil give up his big guns and switch to a 223?

I could certainly do that with ease here in my environs. But, I don't have bears, moose, elephants, etc. to contend with, nor particularly long range deer killing either.

A 60 grain Partition would be hard to beat.

with the one in 9 twist, I'd ted to lean toward the 68 grain BTHP and Up to the 75 and even 80 grainers... that would add longer range ability to the list....

if you are chasing velocity.... then I'd be looking at RL 15....and accuracy is never bad with it...

If you are chasing accuracy first, and velocity second, then I'd take AR Comp....its suppose to be even more temp insensitive over RL 15 if severe temp swings are a concern.

of course I am referring to my experiences with the heavier grain bullets... 68 to 80 grains...

we kill a lot of mule deer, antelope, and plains whitetail with a 75gr eld or 77gr tmk

don't know how you can improve on bang flops.

do 7mm-08's quarter it for ya?

i'm sure boomers like the 300 pack it out too?

I have a CZ 527 like the OP, my fav load for that rifle is 55gr BT's with VVN133.
It also likes 65gr SGK's with Varget

What kind of cases are you using to get in 27gr of Varget ?????? I'm crunching at 26.5gr

It would be hard to beat.........except for the fact I have never been able to get them to shoot well in any rifle I have tried them in.

RL-15 is temp insensitive? 😂😂😂🤣

55 grain Hornady SP over 25.5 grains of REL 15.

NOT A COMMON USE FOR THE POWDER I GATHER. I DO HAVE LOTS OF IT. SEEMS TO WORKFINE. I GOT IT OUT OF LEE'S BOOK.

They are generally a deer bullet, I have always been able to get deer accuracy out of them. If you haven't been able to get deer accuracy out of them, try my load. In my Savage LWH, they give sub 3/4 inch groups with 25.5 grains of W748 and a Remington 7 1/2 primer.

I've used Varget in the past and suspect I will continue due to the shortage issue. Does anyone know if Dogtown bullets are still being made? IIRC either Midway or Natchez?