Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints which 40 gr .223 bullet for mild loads?

I know not everyone is a fan of the Blue dot loads in the .223 Rem, but I am heading for a ranch with a good rock chuck population but also a large number of expensive exotic animals that the owners don't want to upset with LOUD shooting. I probably could take a few shots with their preferred rifle in 22 mag., but would prefer to use one of my own and have found a decent load with 8.0 gr of Blue Dot Powder and the 40 gr Sierra HP. My question is which bullet do you think would give the best performance at the low velocity I will be loading for? (Around 2100 fps 8 feet from the muzzle) I have 40 gr Nosler Ballistic Tips, 40 gr Hornady V-Max 2nd's with the blue tip, and the 40 gr Sierra HP's. If I had more time, I would probably try to work up a quiet load with a 55 gr Sp or 52 gr HP, but I am going next week and the 8.0 gr load with the 40 gr Sierra or V-Max is right around MOA with my Weatherby and seems only a little noisier than a .22 Mag. Opinions?

The ideal bullet would be the Sierra 40 grain hornet bullet. The problem with the hollow point would be the probability of ricochet, it being a fairly tough bullet, that is why I don't use them in the hornet anymore. I would think any of the more frangible bullets would work also.

40 VMs are a good plastic tipper, 40BKs are better but spendier. Always been satisfied with the 1385 Sierra 40 HP as a "cheap" bullet.

Thanks for the replies. I was leaning toward the Sierra, since I have some on hand, and I prefer to use the plastic tips at full velocity for the aerial display.

I just shot the Nosler BT lead Free 40 grain .224 bullets, in a custom Savage on a sage rat hunt, with superb results. Because they are lead free powdered metal core they are frangible and don't ricochet. Of course I used 21.5 grains of RL-10x which boosted them to 3,345 fps - maybe a tad too loud for your purposes. Otherwise I'd try the 36 grain Barnes Varmint Grenade which works the same and is very accurate.

40 VMax won't ricochet for the most part. That would be my choice.

I use the 223 blue dot loads for my Ruger Compact rifle w/ 16.5" bbl. 40 gr Vmax, CCI small pistol primer and 11.8 grs of Blue Dot. The gun is zeroed for 100 yds and I use for close shots. works fine on PD's up to 200 yds, farther out I use a different rifle. I haven't chrono'd these but estimating 3000 fps at the muzzle. No complaints with the Vmax, have also used Hornady 50 gr SXSP, Speer 50 gr TNT and the Hornady 45 gr Hornet SP with equally good results.

+1 for the V-max

+2

I've found this bullet to be very accurate and quite devastating, even at .22 Hornet velocities.

I'm envious of that set up... always thought about getting one of those for that exact reason..

to answer the OP, all of the bullets mentioned will work well..

for this season I have been loading up 17 grains of SR 4759 with 50 grain SPSXs and have been getting absolute eye popping accuracy out of a Remington VSS in 223...

I always seem to have Season D'jour Loads each season...always trying something different, just to see how it works.. but still not abandoning ideas that worked well in previous seasons..

Well I started using the blue dot loads after reading your posts about it several years ago. The Compact rifle makes a great truck gun since it's under 3' long and since blue dot likes light bullets and short barrels it's worked very well. Plus it doesn't ring your ears if you have to make a quick shot without hearing protection. Used it on a turkey with a 50 gr SPSX, low neck shot right between the "Y" in the wishbone, don't know how much damage it would have done if I hit "meat".

I wound up going with the Sierra 40 gr HP and 8.1 gr of Blue Dot. Unfortunately, the conditions were pretty brutal, winds gusting to 25-35 mph. Hard enough to hold my body steady, much less the rifle. My friend who owns the ranch prefers to hunt from a Polaris 4 wheeler and the chucks have been shot at enough to not stick around when the vehicle stops, so my count wasn't great. I did recover one very large chuck that I hit at about 80 yards, and it didn't cause much in the way of damage. Looked more like a big game bullet wound channel. Next time I will ask if we can hunt more remote areas where I can use my full house loads and I will try to take them at longer ranges when they are sitting still. Trying to pop running chucks at 60 yards with a heavy barrel .223 with 6.5-20X scope wasn't the optimal choice. He uses a Ruger 77/22 Magnum with a Bushnell Elite 3200 3-9X. A better choice for his tactics. I probably would have been better off with my S&W MP15-22 with Nikon Prostaff 2-7x32 with CCI Stingers and 25 round magazine. At least it would have been more entertaining for us and the rockchucks!