Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting anyone thinking of using a 22centerfire in MN for deer this year?

Nut,
I'm up here on White Earth Reservation.
We've been legally able to use 22cal and buckshot for a number of years now.
Our season runs earlier than firearms season and lasts into December.
While calling pred's with a fawn bawl we get does running in from time to time.
For some of us it is a target of opportunity.
While on Uncle Sam's payroll I hunted in states that had obscure laws to a boy from Ponsford.

Common sense amongst hunters to choose what is proper for harvesting game makes some experts uneasy but the less we have to be regulated the better!

By the by,my primary is a CZ550FS in 9.3X62 with 250grain TSX!

Mike

Mike,
I hunt a few miles south of Red Lake Reservation. Many years I only get to hunt opening weekend, and some years it was bucks only for us. I wanted a rifle for deer, black bear, moose, and maybe an elk so I picked 35 Whelen.
Awhile back I got to hunt caribou, and the Native Alaskan kid at the Army Surplus store in Anchorage told me he hunts with a 223 Mini-14 for caribou. He hunted for the whole village.
I guess I am old fashioned but at 53 yrs old what can you expect?
Regards,
Jim

[quote=Bulletbutt][
whelenut; I've seen the same thing happen to an elk...it was shot in the jaw with a 30-'06, and luckily it ran towards me and I finished it off. Head shots are for those who can hit the part of the head that kills the animal, whether it's with a 22-250 or an '06.[/quote

I am considering on the proposition. My 223 will shoot more than accurate enough to do it out to 200 yards, but, it won't do it with the 70 grain TSXs I would use. I have put the lights out on a number of them with head shots. I have never missed yet and this will be my 49th year. My father taught me to do it and I taught my son. He's already killed three like that and none ever heard the gun go off.

You have to have a gun that will unequivocally do it. You have to be able to do it and you have to have a cooperative deer. I load my own. I won't keep a gun that won't give me less than an inch.

Over the years I have tracked and recovered and tracked and lost a lot of deer shot "in the chest". I have never tracked a head shot gone wrong. A three legged deer can go forever and a hell of a lot faster than I can. Last November I tracked a "chest shot" doe almost 1/4 mile and she'd already gone almost that far when I picked up the trail. You can miss shooting at the heart or the head. The good part about missing a head shot is that there are so many more misses you can make that the deer doesn't suffer for.