Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .222 for deer?

Perhaps you are right....where can I get one of those 17 hornets?

It can be done of course but there are better choices out there as you know.

Yep. The .223AI is a better choice!

50gr Remingtons work too.

Im thinking adeuce with a 1 in 14 twist and a 55 gr Horn would be model perfecto....

Between the speed and the RPMs it wouldnt tear the bullet apart....it might overpenetrate though.....

PM Savage_99 and ask him. He's a big fan of 22 centerfires on deer. And who was that kid that was crazy?........err......I mean........crazy about 22 centerfires for deer hunting? Anybody remember him?

Yes, and salvage.99 dotes heavily on pf actions too.
Laffin'

Skunk cartridge... better put a bayonet on it for when them wounded deer charge you....

Won't happen if you shoot 'em right tho. Probably. These crazy bastids up here (Eskimos) think the CF .22s and .243 are suitable for caribou, moose, 300 lb seals, 1,000 lb. polar bears, somewhat smaller Griz....

No body has been et in quite some time as to the latter two.

But not me - the .260 (I do own and have used extensively a .243, but not the .22CFs) to .338WM are my meat (literally). But then I get laughed at some...

A well placed, virtually recoil-less caliber will do things more effectively than a badly place shootzenboomin one, especially with a novice shooter or one who is recoil shy.

Westcoaster;
Hopefully this finds you and yours doing well on this time changed Sunday morning.

If you ever make it back down here again I'll donate some bullets for you to try in that BRNO if you are interested. Off the top of my head I've got most of a box of 55gr Hornady, an untried 50 pack of 55gr TSX and another fresh box of 60gr Partitions.

There might be some other older X's about somewhere too....

We used to hunt whitetails on the hay fields of the chap we bought horse hay from - partly as a favor to him as there were a bunch of them. Anyway, we're out of the horse thing now and I never did kill any whitetails with any of above bullets loaded into our .22-.250AI like I meant to.

If you all aren't coming this way in time for you to work up some loads, fire me off a PM with the destination and I'll send 'em up to you.

All the best to you all in the upcoming week Westcoaster.

Dwayne

PS;
A few years back someone on HuntingBC - and I think it was my cyber friend Todd Bartel perhaps - did some reporting on the little 45gr TSX's out of a Hornet on deer.

His photos certainly made it appear like the deer involved were well and truly - and most sincerely - dead.

Then again Todd is up near Vanderhoof and we all know the deer up in the northern half of BC are so much smaller than the giants we've got running around the Okanagan.

Best again to you all.

These are the results of a Hornady 60SP from a 223 loaded down slightly. Deer dropped at shot:

Exit


Exit skinned


Entrance skinned

Thanks for posting that...my contention all along about using little cartridges for deer is that they'll blow a hole in a woodchuck you can stick your rifle into...if you plant the same bullet in the vitals of a deer...you get pics like yours! It works.

Hmmmm....you mean my doe was no fluke with my .223 Hog Hunter with iron sights? Are you also telling me I may have been over gunned and probably better off with my Rem. .222 BDL Varmint ? Is that what you say?
Sonofabitch!

Deer are small and easy to kill.

Looks something like this representative photo.....no scope yet....

Unless a person happens to shoot one in the paunch, of course. Of course, even a field mouse shot in the paunch with a comparatively small projectile can be difficult to kill. So, it's all relative.

And here's the proud Dad pic of the subject in question:

I've personally yet to see a .222 that didn't shoot sub MOA and I've owned 4 of them. All four of mine were economy grade rifles too, a Rem 788 and three Savage 340's. I killed the 2nd biggest buck of my life with the 788 in 1993. One 50 gr. Nosler solid base "expander" behind the shoulder from 125 yards and he dropped like a lead balloon. He dressed 172 lbs.

My dad and I are about 6-8 deer in on .222's and haven't lost any. Bullets have been 63 grain sierras and barnes tsx's. Both work but I wouldn't like to shoot a big deer in the shoulder with the 63 grain sierra. I tried the 60 grain partition and it wouldn't stabilize completely in 2 out of 3 different .222's that I tried it in. I am going to try the 64 grain winchester powerpoint and the 55 and 60 grain hornady bullets in hope that I can find a cheaper alternative to the tsx bullets.

Any of the tsx's from 45-53 grains should work in the .222 although the 50 grain ttsx may or may not stabilize. It only works in 2 of 3 of our .222s.

You should look for the 64 grain nosler bonded solid base to come out this june. It should work quite well out of the 1-14 twist barrels.

On a side note I am out of the 53 grain tsx bullets that I was shooting at deer. I am going to replace them with the 45 grain tsx bullets in hope that I can stop one of them in a deer.
This way I can use imr 4198 in both my 40 grain and 45 grain barnes loads.

That aside the most accurate load that I have for the 222 is a neck sized ww case with the regular 50 grain hornady flat base. Seat it out to 2.32 ish and propel it with cci or ww primers and 24.8 to 25.2 grains of blc2. My unbedded 788 and 700 adl both shoot this into .2 or better on a regular basis.

I also killed my biggest deer with a 222 Rem. back in 1992.
8 point weighed about 180 live weight. Remington M722

I messed around with the 45 grain x bullet today. Powder was h335 because it models out fast and meters nice.

Cases were lee neck sized remington and cci br4 primers.

I used data from the nosler manual for their 50 grain ballistic tip. Three cases were loaded with charges from 23.5 to 25.5 just to determine where the top end of the pressure range was. At 25.5 I decided that I was at the limit of where I wanted to run the loads. I loaded three each at 23.5,24.5, and 25.5 grains using the front drive band for my seating depth.

23.5 gave me a 3 inch group, 24.5 gave me a 2 inch group, and 25.5 gave me a .6 inchish group. I called it good enough because I don't have time to mess around and because I can't afford to mess around when the little 45 grain barnes costs 50 cents a piece. I would have run the imr 4198 powder because that is what I run in my 40 grain v max loads but I had forgotten to bring it to my cousins house where I do my loading.