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Last Sunday my son and I made it out to the ranch to plant some trees, and an antelope hunt broke out. This would be my 5th day of hunting antelope this season.

Went into the season with high expectations, but could not find even a decent buck to go after. We have antelope that are on our property most of the time, but we also share with the neighbors and even Wyoming. Our west fence is the Wyoming / South Dakota state line. I have not shot a buck out there since 07, a few does though. Family loves antelope meat. We only allow one buck per year and I had been deferring to my sons. But this year was my turn.

After spotting a group of 40 antelope spread out on the neighbor's alfalfa field and across the fence onto our property we planned a stalk. With the wind blowing out of WSW we did a huge loop to get the wind somewhat in our favor.

As we tried to sneak over to edge and look down on the field and our property, we could not get to edge to peak over. The antelope in the alfalfa field would have easily busted us. A quick plan B and another loop positioned us at the top of a cut. Sliding down the side of the cut, we could see the antelope bedded on our property. Fortunately there were some pretty good size rocks we could use to get into a great glassing position to survey the situation.

As we were crawling over to the rocks, we bumped a mule deer doe with two fawns. Fortunately they walked out and over instead of going down the cut and bumping the antelope. They did draw the attention of one old antelope doe though. She kept her focus on the deer and never detected us.

After glassing the bunch of nine antelope that we could see, and were on our side of the fence. Son and discussed shooting the buck or one of the old does. It was decided to shoot one of the bucks. Ranged the distance twice, 198 yards, literally a rock solid rest. The buck was bedded broadside facing away. Waited for my heart to calm, and squeezed the trigger. CLICK! Forgot to chamber a round in the heat of the moment. On a positive note, I did not jerk the trigger.

Chambered a round, settled the crosshairs and squeezed the trigger again. At the shot, herd the thwack of the bullet and the buck tried to lurch up, but could not. Chambered another round and put the reticle back on him. Son said "you hit him good". After waiting for about 15 seconds and his head not going down, I squeezed another on off. Same sound of the bullet hitting home, then the buck's head went down. Chambered another round, settled the reticle again and waited. He was down for good.

Rifle is Remington 700 that was a 223, but I re-barreled to a 222 Remington with a 1:9 twist barrel from an unknown maker. Has a suppressor on it with a Nightforce SHV 2-10. The load is a 55gr GMX being pushed to 2995fps. I have shot some deer with this rifle using the 65gr Sierra. All of those have been shot up along with the BL-C2 used in that load.

After the shot, with the suppressor, the rest of the antelope just milled around, and did not take off until we got up to go back and get the Ranger to haul the buck back to the barn.

This is not the biggest antelope, but this report is more about the bullet. Here is the buck, rifle, and nut squeezing the trigger. If you look where the arrow is pointing on the skyline you can see the rocks where the shot was taken.
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

I only recovered one bullet, but it broke the offside humerous.
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Here is the entrance holes exterior and inside the chest cavity.
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Same for exits.
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Here is the broken bone.
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]


Last edited by CRS; 10/17/21.

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Nice write up, thanks for taking the time. I thought from your post emoji that you were disappointed in the bullet but it looks like it did a perfect job. 👍

Edited to add……I don’t know why you’d wanna plant trees, from the looks of your picture you got your work cut out for you. 😁

I’m so used to trees and rainforest that a treeless landscape looks foreign to me, beautiful unto itself but foreign.

Last edited by AcesNeights; 10/16/21.

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Nice buck. Congrats.

Cool recovery and thanks for the report.


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Very cool and nice photos

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I'm surprised you 'caught' a bullet. Performance looks great. I just put together the same rifle- minus suppressor, with a 9 twist. Its going hunting in two weeks!


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Those GMX bullets are wicked little devils.


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Originally Posted by ingwe
I'm surprised you 'caught' a bullet. Performance looks great. I just put together the same rifle- minus suppressor, with a 9 twist. Its going hunting in two weeks!


I think the only reason I caught one is because it hit bone.

I really liked the expansion on the bullet, and by the looks of shank remaining, there is plenty of room for more velocity. May have to try them in my 1:8 twist 22-250.


Originally Posted by AcesNeights
Nice write up, thanks for taking the time. I thought from your post emoji that you were disappointed in the bullet but it looks like it did a perfect job. 👍

Edited to add……I don’t know why you’d wanna plant trees, from the looks of your picture you got your work cut out for you. 😁

I’m so used to trees and rainforest that a treeless landscape looks foreign to me, beautiful unto itself but foreign.


Fixed the emoji, did not put that in there on purpose.

I like trees, and have planted Pears, Plums, cherries, apple, caragana, cedar, spruce, pine, maple, and cottonwoods.

Last edited by CRS; 10/17/21.

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Great report and pictures- thanks for sharing 👍


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Originally Posted by CRS
Originally Posted by ingwe
I'm surprised you 'caught' a bullet. Performance looks great. I just put together the same rifle- minus suppressor, with a 9 twist. Its going hunting in two weeks!


I think the only reason I caught one is because it hit bone.

I really liked the expansion on the bullet, and by the looks of shank remaining, there is plenty of room for more velocity. May have to try them in my 1:8 twist 22-250.


.


What little experience I have with GMX and what our JB has shown me, that is typical performance, more shaft left over than Barnes . Works great and I think you'll find it looks identical out of your .22-250


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I've never used GMX's.
I've only shot 1 big game animal with a 22 cal, an antelope about 5 years ago. Antelope tags in Idaho are VERY hard to draw. I'd been reading about guys hunting with 223's. I don't own one but I do have a 22-250 so I thought I'd give it a try. I had some 55gr Sierra softpoints on hand. It's a slow twist barrel and larger ones aren't as accurate.
My shot was only about 75 yds at the most. We found them bedded in a grassy bowl in the lava beds. We sneaked in and just peeked over the top of the rocks right down on them. I got a heart shot. The bullet tore the heart in half, hashed the lungs, and I found it in the far shoulder. He ran about 20 yds.


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Thanks for the info and nice buck.

Pronghorn have some of the strongest bones pound for pound. Looks like the bullets did a great job.

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As I alluded to in the OP, these antelope were feeding on alfalfa fields. IMO there is no better table fare than an alfalfa fed antelope properly taken care of, well maybe winter wheat fed. cool

Moose, axis, and eland can give it some competition though.

I have recovered one 130gr GMX out of my 270. Perfect expansion. Almost used the 180gr GMX out of my 300 H&H in Africa, but the TTSX shot a little bit better, so used it instead. I would have zero issues using T/TSX, LRX or GMX interchangeably. Zero experience with the E-Tips.

Last edited by CRS; 10/17/21.

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CRS,

Well done!

Both my wife and I have used the 70-grain GMX on antelope from 1-8 twist .22-250s. Both rifles were special runs from Whittaker Guns in Kentucky a few years ago, a Ruger American and a Tikka T3x. I used the RAR on the biggest buck we'd seen locally in several years, and it worked fine at around 350 yards, ar a muzzle velocity of 3400 fps. That one got "caught" because the buck was angling away, and the recovered bullet weighed 70.5 grains, because there was some antelope meat under the curled-back petals. The buck went 20-25 yards.

Eileen used the Tikka last weekend to take a doe at 200 yards, and it crumpled at the shot, partly because the bullet broke one shoulder--but like most monolithics it didn't ruin much meat at all. That one exited. (She uses the same handload I'd worked up for the RAR, which for some reason gets around 100 fps less velocity in the Tikka, but the same very fine accuracy. Which is yet another example of why I don't obsess about finding the absolute top velocity in handloads anymore.)


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Thanks for the 1:8 twist 22-250 report.

Boys and I have taken close to 3 dozen deer/antelope with a 1:14 twist 22-250 with 53gr TSX. Barrel was shot out and re-barreled with a 1:8 twist. Have not shot it much but thinking a 70gr GMX or 62grTTSX would be a good combo.

222 and 223 certainly work, but I do think the 22-250 is a better mousetrap. YMMV


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Good shooting. I’ve used the 222 culling does legally for an area plantation. It’s a wicked little round. I won’t post numbers here because you wouldn’t believe it….but it works very well.


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Good report. I bought a bulk box of those from midway a few years back, can’t remember if they are 50 or 55 grain, either way, bought them to use in my slow twist Tikka, but just haven’t gotten there yet.


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Cool write up. I have these on the list to try in my 22-250 and .220 swift. Hard to try others when the hornady SP's work so well though.


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Originally Posted by ingwe
Originally Posted by CRS
Originally Posted by ingwe
I'm surprised you 'caught' a bullet. Performance looks great. I just put together the same rifle- minus suppressor, with a 9 twist. Its going hunting in two weeks!


I think the only reason I caught one is because it hit bone.

I really liked the expansion on the bullet, and by the looks of shank remaining, there is plenty of room for more velocity. May have to try them in my 1:8 twist 22-250.


.


What little experience I have with GMX and what our JB has shown me, that is typical performance, more shaft left over than Barnes . Works great and I think you'll find it looks identical out of your .22-250

Narrower frontal area usually the norm GMX vs TTSX?

I also wonder why no tip on the .224 GMX.

Last edited by 10gaugemag; 10/18/21.

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They're good eating! Congrats!


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I Good report, great to see a 222 in action and nice buck

Personally that is not my idea of great performance in a bullet. Entries look calibre sized and exits not much greater. An alert buck, standing and ready to run might have given a very different result.

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