Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Hunting Deer With Smaller Calibers

I was wondering the same thing myself.

I have the same question for you as in my response to mjbgalt above. Is common sense not common anymore because people may shoot deer with bullets considered inadequate or is common sense lacking because some push their opinions onto others who have had consistent success breaking shoulders with those “inadequate” bullets?

There is always more than one way to look at these things.

That is the democrat mantra for most things. Legislate to the lowest common denominator is a bad approach.

That’s exactly right. Also I still haven’t heard of people that use them having trouble. It’s those that don’t that make such a big deal about it. It’s kinda like politics if you think about it. You have all the hard headed ones who haven’t done it saying what should be used and why they “think” that. Meanwhile people all over the world are just out here” doing” just fine with what we like.

Yes sir

No way! You mean you just become proficient with said rifles and go do your thing and forget the WWW says it’s not good enough….


Craziness.

I mean, in any group there will be people fugging it up for everyone else, like shooting deer with varmint bullets or wounding deer and blaming the 223 instead of their marksmanship.

I was responding to the post about people shooting bullets not made for the purpose, not the bore size.

Makes sense now.

My uncle is quite old now but he was an outlaw in our area back in the day. Nice fella, but he shot alot of deer with a 222 Rem and 222 Rem Mag. Pretty sure he loaded the 55 grain Hornady in both of them, but man he was pretty surgical with those rifles. As a kid reading gun magazines and other stuff I assumed my uncle was making up these kills cause the magazines all said you needed "such and such" to properly kill deer.. Turns out maybe most of them writers weren't too different than alot of other folks and never actually used said little cartridges to hunt.

[bluefish]
With a 243? Exactly none.


Again, thanks for the lengthy response. But your two sentences in this quote says it all.

Again.....the OP directed his questions at only those who choose to use 243 and smaller centerfire for deer, and why they do so, and if they pass shots because of it. He didn’t ask why anyone doesn’t like them, or where they hunt or how big their deer are, how tough the hunting is, all their nostalgic reasons for hunting, etc.

Or.....why they wouldn’t use them, hate them, despise them, or if they heard one time about how their brother’s sister’s uncle shot a big deer with a small caliber rifle one time and didn’t find it. Or, how one can deduce from how a .270 ruined meat that a .22 centerfire will too. Everybody knows a .270 is gay, and shouldn’t even be used under any circumstances.

My guess is that there will be plenty more threads directed specifically at those who hate small cartridges.

Well, you know hardly anyone on this site can keep an opinion to himself, including yours truly. I'm as guilty as the next guy for steering the thread off the rails. For that I apologize to you and the other forum members.

Well put.
To be fair, I used to be SOLIDLY in the “how dare you do that” category when it came to 22 centerfires. (And that even though I shot my first couple dozen black bears and 50+ deer and a moose as a kid with a 6mm Remington and never lost anything to any shot placement- ideal or not).
But low and behold I discovered the ‘Fire and saw multiple threads every year by Stick and Threadkiller and Ingwe and Steelhead with pictures of dead stuff and 223AI’s. So I bought one, and started stacking up heartbeats with it. And then bought another one, and added more heartbeats to that one. And building yet another one, for the same purpose, as a backup so I can send #2 in for a new barrel and not be without one in the truck.

No fuss, no muss, simply slap [bleep] dead. Easy to load for, cheap to shoot a lot, easy to carry, just easy, efficient, and effective.

The nice thing about those little rifles - they let you be surgical. They're handy so easy to get into position. Zero recoil so you're unlikely to flinch or err in the shot. Easy on scopes too - so mechanical issues are decreased. 222 is a cartridge known for accuracy (owned BR till the PPC came) - so there's the deal - you have a scalpel and used as such, very lethal.

I’ve got his Sako 222 Rem Mag. Full length stock, Lyman 6x Permacenter on it. For awhile I couldn’t find brass so I made some with 204 Ruger. Worked great. I’d like to update the scope but I can’t bring myself to.

I’ve got the same rifle sitting next to it in the safe in 222 Remington. Those little Sakos are gems.

Agreed Teal, use the tool the way it was meant and they do the work.

I wonder how many deer, elk, bear, etc got sent to the coolers from
The old 250 Savage? That thing used an 87 or 100 grain bullet at a pretty pedestrian speed compared to todays stuff. I mean other than 10 grains of bullet weight what is the difference between it and my 223 with 77 TMKs? Nobody ever whines about the old Savage being a weak sister.

I know BC is important...but...

The same guys who geek out over the 6arc's 100 grain bullet at 2700fps, tell us the 250 savage sucks, with it's 100 grain bullet at 2900 fps...

So...a hole in the lungs is a hole in the lungs.

I am sure at some point a projectile would be too small in diameter to do enough damage, but it's far down the list from .224"

I had a 77 bicentennial 250 for several years, ran 100 gr corloks in it, hellava buck rifle, killed a couple bear with it too. Still regret letting than one go

An old friend of mine in Alaska killed 8 bull caribou and nearly 20 wolves with his 17rem and the 25 grain Hornady. I assumed headshots and he said oh no you just shoot them through the lungs and they’ll stiffen up and fall over. I’ve killed some pretty good sized pigs with mine. Speed kills.

Yeah...and because of you I had to try it.....it worked so good on pigs I had to buy a second .17 Remington as a dedicated pig gun!


This one tipped the scale at a bit over #200

Hey man, I dig the ARC myself but I also have a little 250.. different uses.