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

I can;'t help you on that cause Ive only used that bullet in a .223 and .223AI...

Old friend Dober turned me on to that bullet, which he has used with great success in a .22-250...deer antelope and bears-up to big ones!-

Another favorite for the deer and antelope of his is the 60 gr. Hornady HP.

Check out the Hodgdon website for tons of data with that bullet

http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/rifle

Ove had good luck with that bullet and 34.0 grains of varget in several different rifles.

I have read so many reports on the 22 cal. bullets that I am convinced they are a better deer caliber than the larger calibers. There is something about how the bullet enters the body and just turns the insides out and kills from shock and tissue damage. The reason I am bringing up this old thread is cause I believe the day is coming that we will face enough reloading shortages that it will all but force us to use less components. No one that thinks a .223 Rem is too small thinks a 30-06 is too small for a 800? lb moose. If an 06 is big enough for a moose , a .223 rem is big enough for a 200lb. deer. In just 5 yrs. we saw a box deer ammo go from $18 a box to $30 a box. In 10 yrs the .270 WIn/ 30-06 ammo will be $50. Gun powder will almost surely be $70 lb. , cases being copper and zink will be more and primers will be $15 /100. I think the .223 Rem, with small rifle primers , 25 gr powder is going to be a more popular big game cartridge.. Heck , the day may come when we can't even find large rifle primers. I dont need any , but have not seen them in over a year neither. I went from a .270 Win. to a .243 WIn. and I am convinced it does more tissue damage and has more shock than my .270Win. I am sure it is cause a .270 Win. is just much bigger than we need for deer. After a while bigger is not better. I think the smaller calibers with the new deer bullets are better killers than the larger calibers. My ...270 Win. puts them down a little faster with a shoulder shot. They drop right there, when they run 30 yds with a .243 Win shoulder shot. However , I have seen the .243 WIn puts them down faster when it goes through the heart/ lungs , and even kidney shots drop them faster than my .270 Win/ 130 gr. No?

I had injured my shoulder working in the oil patch. A group of us went to Montana and purchased mule deer doe tags when they had an over abundance. I was using my 22-250 with a 55 sierra boat tail bullet. There were some deer standing on the ridge of a watering hole. Picked out the biggest doe and shot her behind the front shoulder at about 150 yards. I lost her at recoil but the man with me said she took off with the others. He was wrong because she has simply dropped down off the ridge.
It was a super clean deadly shot but I didn’t choose the 22-250 as a deer rifle based on that. As a matter of fact I hunted with mainly 30 caliber for about 50 years and dropped one this year at 560 yards with a 308.
My suggestion is to use what you feel comfortable with. Edk

I do too. I also looked at IMR powder on Grafs. I think the IMR 4350 is $65.00 lb. now days... This might be part of the reason so many are going with smaller calibers. Components are really getting expensive , and to make matters worse, they are getting hard to find.. Lots of small rifle primers,, but large rifle are nowhere to be found. Luckily I dont use many large rifle and have plenty. I just wonder what it woudl be like if my primers went bad, or got wet, or a fire.. There would hardly be a way to get large rifle.

It is all about shot placement.

I think Elmer would want an X-bullet for prairie dogs 😳

I used a boat paddle Ruger 77MKII for a couple of seasons with plan old 64 (?) grain Winchester Power Points and had no trouble killing deer or anything else with them. Still got the rifle but haven't shot it in 20 years . Really prefer something a hair bigger but yup, they kill deer just fine if you hit them where your supposed to just like a .458 Win Mag would.

In a .375 Whelan.

I shot a doe with a 22-250 this weekend (last weekend of MLD season) and she never took a step.
Load was 31.3 gr. Varget and a Hornady 80 gr. ELD-X bullet. I was very pleased with the performance of this bullet and will be using alot more of them.

That guy use to be my neighbor and that deer was a giant

Why would you want to use such a small caliber on a deer sized animal. There are so many calibers more suited for deer and larger animals. Next the fools will be out there hunting deer with a .22.

A 22-250 is a .22 caliber.

Not like a deer is a very large, hard to kill animal.

I can't tell much difference between a 22-250 or 6mm. Both kill whitetails with very little drama.

I can't tell much difference in anything even up to 30-06 except for a few times they looked like they were actually hit a little harder with a 30-06 but there was still a 30-50 yard death run.

My most impressive DRT kills though were with a .270 and 130 grain Sierra Gamekings at less than 50 yards. Put a lot of hair in the cool morning air with the sunlight making those hairs look like little stars.

I wouldn’t feel super comfortable using one on the big Midwest whitetails but the smaller southern deer I think a 22-250 would be fine!

I've mentioned it before that I'd not want a .22 centerfire as my primary deer rifle for all conditions, as we get so few shot opportunities at mature bucks per season where I hunt and shot presentations aren't always ideal. With that being said, a decent .22 bullet certainly seems to work just fine when you can pick a decent neck/shoulder/lung shot placement on a deer or hog. With a suppressor it almost feels like shooting them with a .22LR.

The .22’s with the right bullet are more than adequate for our WT’s and hogs.

Where I hunt, the powers that be like 6mm and up. Now, I could use my .22-250, 8 twist, with 75-80 gr bullets. If I didn’t hit one such as they drop DRT or don’t travel far, OK.

If a less than great hit, they’d probably squawk about .22 cal deer guns. But kids kill WT’s all the time with .223’s.

Go figure.

DF

Yep to all of that. And I have killed dozens of deer with .224 cal. cartridges. I don't use them anymore. I ain't scared of .30 cal recoil and with a medium weight for cal. bullet they do tend to penetrate, provide a larger exit more dependably and put more blood on the ground more often than any .22... If you hunt from a stand in more open conditions and can pick your shots over food plots, feeders or crop fields the .22's are fine.

Kids aren't normally still hunting or tracking in heavy cover and taking shots at bad angles. I killed my first deer at the age of 12 with a .22 LR bullet to the head. Anything can work under the right conditions.

Good point.

I use a 7-08 and it suits me fine.

See no need to push the envelope.

DF

This guy didn't know the difference. 15-20 yards. 22-250 loaded with a 60 grain Partition. Through the blades and a 50 yard death run.