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

I know folks that swear by the center fire .22s and are careful shots. It’s a more than adequate gun for them BUT they’re typically in the open and either are a good enough shot the deer are DRT or they can see the deer fall after a run. Where I hunt, I really like an entrance wound and an exit with a good blood trail. Lots of palmettos and I’ve trailed many deer where there was never a drop of blood on the ground, it was all on the palmetto leaves. A centerfire.22 won’t reliably give an exit, so I won’t use one but they’ll certainly kill a deer, I just don’t like to spend that much time looking for them.

Cousin who purchases an orchard permit in WVa each January, was out with his wife's family up from Florida each year.
That one year back in the 70s, they weren't seeing anything to take for the week. Got home the last day and his wife tells him there is a dead buck up by some apple trees, from out of the kitchen window.. about a 250 yd shot.

Ben asked her what she shot it with, and she said the one rifle you left behind here...it was loaded, so I shot it in the head from here....Adults didn't believe it, so they sent the two nephews up there to see if there was a deer up there. They came back with their pants on fire, telling the adult males there was a big old dead buck up there... The Men folk go up and sure enough there is a dead buck. They at first couldn't figure out where she hit it, until one noticed that one eye was gone and the off side ear had a big hole in it. She had said she aimed at the eye.

Ben takes several deer a month, every month, all year, with that orchard permit, that the state charged $2.00 for back in the early 70s.. just purchased it at the county court house. It was good for up to 25 deer. His boys grew up on venison, and pork.

After a couple of years, Ben quit using his other rifles and just used that Rem 700 in 22.250. All he ever used for ammo, was Remington ammo with a 55 gr SP. He quit shooting deer 2 seasons ago, in 2022. Killed the largest buck yet, and decided it was time to hang it up.. its just them and his grandson... Ben is 73 now and is moving slower these days. he's sold off all of his rifles long ago.. but kept one shotgun and that Model 700 in 22.250. That rifle has taken 20 something plus deer a year since about 1974 or 1975. Multiply that by 47 years or so.

So Ben will certainly tell ya a 22.250 will take a deer down, all day long.

22-250 will work well to 200 yds. If your a reloder try some 65 grain game kings. They work we'll out of our 223s. My boy started with the 223 and the deer he's killed may have ran 40 yds. Best wishes and hopefully they tag something

When I lived in Texas, the 55 grain TTSX was responsible for a truckload of gut piles. I was shooting a 22-250 and a 223. The little partition worked well too!

The .22-250 is best known as a varmint round so that should tell you something. It can surely kill a deer but there are scores of better cartridges for deer hunting. Would not be a good feeling at all having a deer get away wounded and then you wondering if maybe you should have used a more potent round.

JFC. Out of curiosity, what spurred you to come back and post so much after a 6.5 year absence?

The only big game I've shot with mine is an antelope a few years ago with a 55gr bullet. It hammered him. Mine has a 12 twist and craps out above 60 gr. It weighs a lb. more than my 30-06 so I see no earthly reason I should use it.

Back in 2000, I was recovering from a neck fusion. I shot 220 Swift with a muzzlebrake (at my wife's insistence!) and the then available Federal Premium factory 220 S using the 55gr Trophy Bonded Bearclaw. Shota mule deer in Utah, and down in Texas shot an axis doe, and two nice BlackBuck antelope. Only issue I had was the wind blew that little blunt Bearclaw around like crazy! That's my only complaint. My older girl cousin has used the 22-250/33 sp factory for SE Texas deer for decades. Small deer, usually shot off corn feeders up close anyhow. We were all raised by Great Depression Survivor Dads that were adverse to wasting any meat, at all! ha. I personally knew grown men ( when I was a 30-30 users as a teen) who laughed at my Big Gun while they used the 22 Hornet, .222, and then the Nam Vets used the Ruger Mini 14 on everything!

The 22-250 was once used quite a bit on the prairies. I 've used one from time to time with very good results.
However I have never heard of anyone ever using any thing lighter than a 55grain bullet (in 22-250) on deer or antlope.
Most of the people I once knew who used to use the 22-250 have graduated to the 243 or 25-06 due to the fact that more and more areas are requesting a 24 or larger cal. for deer hunting.

I meant 55gr soft point, not 33gr. That sounds like a 204! ha

Country you hunt is a very valid reason to use a bigger diameter bullet. In my experience, bigger diameter bullets from 338 and up leave a great blood trail, if not anchoring on the spot.

Where I typically hunt, 100-150 yard recovery is no big deal. Bigger diameters definitely cause more meat loss. But losing a deer in thick cover is the most meat loss you can have.

I can’t see a 77 LRX at 22-250 velocities having much trouble exiting on deer. But whatever.

Louisiana deer or British Columbia deer?
White Tail doe or large Mule Deer buck?
50 yards or 350?

Yeah, depends on the deer, depends on the bullet, depends on the shooter and depends on the rules where ya hunting.

More questions than answers.

DF

Have never shot a deer in LA or BC.

Did shoot a WT doe at 410 yards with a 22-250 and 53gr TSX.
Biggest bodied deer I ever shot was a stag mule deer with a 222 and 65gr Sierra.

Any of them.
Some guys make this stuff way more difficult than it needs to be.

Another stupid thread. If you have to ask this question, you need a bigger gun.

Mid Missouri. 15-300+ never seen even 250# deer handle a 50-60 grain bullet through the lungs.

Even a large mule deer buck isn't a very large animal.

Have posted this several times. Never felt undergunned or worried if the cartridge was up to the task.

I know my shooting abilities and know game is just flesh and blood whether 5 pounds or 500# it all dies pretty easily when the vitals are damaged.

Crazy guys think it takes so much horsepower to kill a critter but an arrow has little energy and kills via the same method as a bullet but we need huge amounts of tissue damage for a bullet to kill.

The .22-250 certainly can kill a white tail. That's not a question that anyone should ask. The question is whether *you* can kill a deer with a .22-250 under your usual hunting conditions. It's far better to use a rifle with which you are very familiar and very comfortable than anything else. If I was teaching a new hunter, I'd prefer to give them a .22-250 they were able to shoot often and become proficient with than to give them a .30-06 they were going to shoot less than 20 times a year. Even though I regard the .30-06 as the "one cartridge to rule them all" for North American game, a lot of people just won't use it enough because it's a bit expensive and kicks a fair amount.

Growing up, I never had the luxury of having specialized rifles the way I do now. I had a .270 Winchester which I used for everything. I shot ground hogs with it all summer and then shot white tails with it in the fall. Later on, I picked up a .25-06 with which I became even more proficient. I'd shoot at anything in North America with that .25-06 with 117/120 grain bullets knowing that the bullet is going to go exactly where I want it to go with that rifle. I'd be better off with that rifle than with any of my others (which I frankly don't need, but it gives me joy to have them).

The smallest caliber I have ever personally used on a deer was a .22 LR. A deer walked up to me with no face the day after black powder season ended - someone had tried a headshot on it and blown off its lower jaw and most of the snout - he was clearly in extreme distress. I ran to the truck and grabbed my Nylon 66. I shot him between the eyes and he dropped. That doesn't make .22 LR an ethical deer cartridge. But proper shot placement matters more than anything. I found out later that one of my neighbors had shot the deer with one of those scope-mounted modern muzzleloaders that sends a heavy solid copper bullet at something like 2600 FPS. It doesn't matter what you use if you miss the vital parts. But it makes me sick to think that his weapon counts as a "primitive weapon" while my .45-70 or .50-70 Govt doesn't.

And even with proper shot placement and a good bullet, there is no guaranteed one-shot drop that works every time. I've seen a deer run 800 meters after taking a .270 Winchester to the heart and lungs. We followed the blood trail from point of impact to the downed animal. It was a good strong blood trail the whole way. My brother swore he placed the bullet just right. Under my breath, I was cursing my brother for gut-shooting the damned thing, but it turned out he shot the damned thing through the heart and both lungs. The deer didn't have much inside his chest cavity besides pink and red clots, but he still ran. That kind of stuff can happen no matter what cartridge you use.

I've also had a deer show no sign that I even hit him with my .25-06, leave no visible blood trail, but drop dead after 50-60 yards. I could have sworn I somehow missed him, but out of diligence I started sweeping back and forth the direction he ran. I found him crumpled behind a fallen tree. Again, solid shot through the heart. Bullet performed as expected, but not every deer will drop with one well-placed shot.

Here in Virginia, it's illegal to use rifles below .224 on deer. It hasn't stopped a lot of bubbas out in my neighborhood from using a .223 or .22-250, but I have too much to lose to do something contrary to the laws of the Commonwealth. As someone who carried a 5.56 and depended on it for my life - and know that it works just fine on 150-250 pound animals - I would never doubt that a hunter can kill deer with that caliber. I've never understood why the Commonwealth forbids it, but it's been that way forever. I think a certain amount of the hate stems from the old-fashioned distrust of the 5.56mm NATO when compared with the 7.62 NATO. I still run into a few old-timers who grumble about how the military should have never switched from the M14 to the M16/M4 platform. I suspect it's the same old-timers who wrote the hunting regulations back in the 1960s-1970s.