A hunting partner has a Brno Fox in .222 Remington that he got from his brother in law who's dad gave it to him some time in the early to mid 70's? The wood is plain and it's got a blurry 4x scope on it, but it has a set trigger that breaks really crisply.



Anyway he's never shot it and he asked me if I wanted to try it out and see if it shoots. I had a pretty good session with it this afternoon, just at 100 yards. Loaded up some 50grain Hornadys with 20grns of IMR4198 to see what would happen.









Crap, I'm wondering what this thing would be like if I could see through the scope. Do all of these .222's shoot like this?

Anyway my youngest just got her hunting license last year and I'm thinking this would be a good rig. Accurate, no recoil, and she's a pretty good shot. I've never killed a deer with anything smaller than a 3006. Do you still take a double lung shot? What bullet/load would a guy use?

Yes, they all shoot like that and a Barnes 45 Gr. TSX is your huckleberry....

I run 60g partitions in my 223 and have found that shoulder shots put deer down right NOW. I had to do some tracking on a doe that was shot quartered away, but dead none the less. She will have a great time, and the rifle will serve her well! I'd consider the GMX too.

Got a few loads ready to try with the 50 gr TTSX...will get back to you guys...

Dunno why, but I always go for a neck shot with the 222-223's. They've all gone down within a step or 2.

DMc

222 Rem for deer? Nope, cant be done, best send that rifle to me.

+1 .222's are only for wall hangin' send it this way so you don't have to worry about it.

Okay, I get it, people do shoot them with a .222. I just never seen it around here.

It is a sweet shooter though.

Slick rig, you have a lucky friend.

Yeah, they have limitations, but they'll kill whatever you put a good bullet, from a good shot, into.

First whitetail I ever saw killed was with a .222.

It even works with whatever 50 gr soft point Federal uses.

How could that be? Doesnt it have to be a Super Duper Premium bullet?

You can't kill a deer with a .222 now of it were a .223 that's a different story.

Oh no, bargin shelf, vintage 1981!

I was kinda thinking the .222 would be a bit light....


But I might try some stunt shooting this fall with my old school deuce....

If you wanna have deer just die of fright, carry a .222 magnum.

The mere mention of a .223AI makes them tremble with fear....or so I hear...

Deuce mags are sooooooooo yesterday....

Excellent rifle in an excellent calibre. For many years our government cullers used these and 222 Sako's for culling thousands of red deer. I personally use the Hornady 6ogn projectile in all my .22's, but I dont think you are gonna have any trouble with most of the suggestions on this thread. Mount either an old steel tube Weaver, or a Pecar Champion and you will have a neat rig. Load some up and go have some fun,
Cheers, Al

.223?

Nobody needs that big a gun for huntin'. And improving it, well, that's just an abomination - it's not even fair.

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.

I think .6 might work.....

I'm working with the 45gr TTSX in my boys .222 but if you think they are expensive you need to check out the CNC lathe turned .22 bullets sold by Cutting Edge Bullets. These are up around $1 each.
I bought two boxes of the 40gr and hope that they perform well and that load development goes fast!
http://site.cuttingedgebullets.com/

I have a tendency to try to get every last thousands of an inch that I can. I think that I would probably spend a thousand dollars on them before I settled on one load.

Thankfully I call development done when I get into the 1/2 MOA range.
I can't hold much better than that anyway. At least not consistently.

I call it done when I know I can hit the [bleep] I want to hit with it.

I thank my upright walking God that I'm not as anal/OCD as many handloaders/shooters.