Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Anyone Ever Shoot a Deer With a 223 FMJ?

I'm well aware that the 55 Grain FMJ is not the ideal bullet to take a whitetail with but wondered if anyone has poked one in the lungs with this bullet and the results. It's a long story.........

I've killed a deer with one but not a whitetail, but that was a unique situation, long ago and far away.

223 fmj is designed to wound and disable, not kill, men. As a method to remove two men from combat. So why would one use such a round by choice on deer, particularily large northern deer?

A good round for night dogs and larger varmint.

It certainly has the ability to kill, but not optimun.

I have killed coyote with my deer rifle, coming on to them in a deer hunt, but can't think of a time where I would be hunting smaller game and be forced to use that caliber on a deer.

During tough times my dad killed a lot of deer with a 22 LR but it's neither legal nor optimal. In a survival situation I would easily kill a deer with a 223 FMJ but otherwise I would use a better and legal bullet.

55 FMJ in the 223 (and 222) have killed piles of deer (caribou) in Alaska. Of the folks I've loaded ammo for, when I've replaced their ball ammo with 64 PowerPoints, they have virtually raved about the improvement. Expansion seems to help.

I wonder how many marched off, died and were never recovered?

There was an African gentleman that was using chunks of curtain rod in a muzzle loader to shoot elephants.

He killed some too. Until one stomped him and threw him up in the top of an Acacia tree.

LOL

I have seen a huge batch of Sitka blacktails killed with the 223 and a variety of bullets. Most do not go far...

Why do it?
Make your long story short.

There are so many deer that come into my town during winter that the cops shoot them with .223s and the meat goes to a program to feed needy people.
Don't know what bullet they use.

I shot a couple deer in my errant youth with a Mini 14 and FMJ rounds. With a good lung shot they expire about as quick as with anything else.

Why even try it with a rd designed to wound?

The only time I would ever try it would be in a situation like R H Clark describes and thankfully I've never been in that situation.

Just buy a box of "premium" bullets (TSX's, Partition's, etc.) and go hunting. The .223 is a fine deer round used within it's limits and with the right ammo.

I've shot a couple of coyotes with FMJ because it was loaded in the rifle. Shoulder shots are the way to go on coyotes with FMJ and I'd guess it would be the same with deer...but have no desire to test that theory. I don't think I have any ammo with FMJ bullets anymore....

I'm with the others. I wouldnt do it unless I were really hungry and had nothing else to use.

Well I'm embarrassed to admit many yrs ago I have.
After dressing 4 deer I shot in 5 mins I'm not sure I swallow the whole designed to wound theory. They may have been, thought to be designed that way, but let me tell you even that relatively small bullet does huge amounts of damage when they go tumbling thru a deer size animal. So much so that I even had a comment telling me I shouldn't use guns like 30-06s on deer, I didn't inform the guy it was a .223!
Three deer dropped instantly & one ran approx 60 feet.
I do have to admit, although it was yrs ago, I kinda remembered the bullets being 68-69 FMJs?
I also would not recommend it with FMJ or even any .223, unless circumstances dictated no other choice.

I would think that if they were tumbling, it was because they were too heavy to be stabilized by your barrel's rifling. A longer and heavier projectile usually needs a tighter spin to stabilize.

I could be wrong in this since I have a half crazy friend who served in Vietnam that swears they were designed to tumble and create a larger wound channel. I know they could not be designed to tumble in flight since it would ruin any accuracy, but it may be possible that they could become unstable upon contact with flesh by design. Maybe someone will give us the truth of the matter.

If it's all I have, that's one thing. If a guy has a choice it's a stupid idea.

Fmj's are illegal for hunting anything here in Indiana.

The early FMJs used in Vietnam were absolutely intended to tumble upon impact. The very earliest M16/AR15 rifle had a very slow twist(1 in 14)and all this was by design.

I have taken several deer with .223 FMJs while collecting on a military reservation where I was forced to use a government issued rifle and ammo. Since all I took were head and high neck shots at relatively short ranges, all of them dropped like rocks. A couple, shot through the lungs at longer ranges by the MPs accompanying me, did run a ways before dieing. I certainly would have used some other bullet if I'd had a choice...

Friend of mine started his kids off deer hunting with a H&R .223 single shot with a straight 6X off brand scope. And they used plain old what used to be white box 55gr FMJ. They hunted a great area and the kids killed a bunch of Alabama whitetails with it. He also popped a very large cur dog and another smaller that were after his cattle. As he put it they just "went to sleep" along with assorted coyotes that wandered thru the farm at the wrong time. He didn't know you couldn't kill stuff with them so they worked just fine. He also busted a buck about 180lbs or so hunting with surplus 30-06 ammo left over from a Garand match. He didn't realize that wouldn't work either.

They will kill stuff, but why do it if there are other alternatives? They will not kill quickly unless placement is excellent....like in the brain or neck vertebrae.