What is the BIGGEST big game animal you've taken with the SMALLEST caliber?

me: whitetail with a .44 mag

Mule deer with a .22-250.

Feral hogs with a .17 Remington.

Shot through the ear.

Blacktailed deer with a .22 Long Rifle.
Whitetailed deer with a 22/250.
Goose with a .410 shotgun.

took a 7'2" nearly 600 lb black bear w/ a 243

.223 Rem (Factory 55gr Rem Core-lokt) on whitetail doe. Head shot at 20 yards while fawn bleating for coyotes.

Grandpa claims to have killed a deer with a 22LR back in the day. He's full of good stories. I have seen him shoot 22LR empties off of a fence post at 10 yards with open sights so it has to have some level of truth.

A lot of ranchers that I've talked to say 22-250 is their gun for antelope. No caliber restrictions in MT.

whitetail with a .22
moose with a 270 win (doesn't really count as the 270 is a moose cartridge)
hog w/a .22

Ground squirrels with the .460 Wby... Oops, wrong question.

I've taken a few feral pigs with .222. BUT animal size/weight compared to bullet caliber/weight it would be a 12,000+ lb. bull elephant with a 400 grain .416 bullet. That seems like a pretty tiny cartridge when you're looking up at an animal that large. I can't imagine the pucker factor with a bow.

One shot kills:
320 yards - mule deer buck - .222 Rem
332 yards - mule deer buck - .222 Rem
12 yards - 1,100 lb steer - .22 short

My Dad shot a mature bull elk at over 250 yards with his 22-250. One shot kill.

I have shot lots of large animals with a bow, but I guess the broad head makes it a 1.00 caliber.

Killed lots of deer with 223. Cows with 22LR.

Whitetail doe with a .22long standard velocity.


Cal30

I got a spike bull elk with a 243. Ron

Eland bull with 300 Win Mag.

300kg/650lb feral hog, with a .22lr using Winchester SUBSONICS!
I have used the same ammo to shoot a large number of pigs goats and deer on cull operations.
For the naysayers, here is the boar;



Obviously he was a domestic gone wild, I'd seen him around a few times and decided I didn't want something like this in the local genepool.

To answer Kylers question, while it is theoretically a valid one, it's a bit of a spoil sport point.

I can honestly only think of one pig and no deer or goats that got away. There may well be a few I don't remember, but considering I've used the humble .22lr for literally hundreds of kills, I feel comfortable saying the average is at least as good (and better than most hunters) as if I had been shooting with an adequate centerfire rifle to the body. Sometimes I've had to shoot more than once, but not often.

I use the .22lr from 20 to 50 meters, that big boar was around 60m, and the longest shot I've ever taken with it at big game was 89 meters, and then, only because I thought my partner had missed the deer (with a .308win) and it was still standing looking out way. Turns out that after so much careful cooridination on which animal to shoot, he'd shot a different deer altogether which I could see though my scope on 20X...

Reading a few of these I wonder if another question should be posed:

What's the biggest big game animal you've ever WOUNDED AND LOST with the smallest caliber?

People aren't as quick to admit those stories.

Where does a small gun and a large animal become a unethical stunt?... especially at long distance?

Canada Goose at FL150 with a Benelli M1 Super 90 and 2 3/4" #7 shot........(actually it was a 45 degree shot up about 100 meters)

blue whale with a nerf arrow.

I have been hunting/fishing alligators since 1979. Almost all were shot with a 22 magnum including some nearly 12' long. They are on a hook and line and we hunt them commercially. One year we ran out of bullets while in the marsh. I killed about 6 gators with a claw hammer I found under the deck of the airboat. Do not know if that counts for a small caliber.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike70560:
I have been hunting/fishing alligators since 1979. Almost all were shot with a 22 magnum including some nearly 12' long. They are on a hook and line and we hunt them commercially. One year we ran out of bullets while in the marsh. I killed about 6 gators with a claw hammer I found under the deck of the airboat. Do not know if that counts for a small caliber.

crazy coonie...

16 oz claw hammer at how many FPS?

maybe two dozen deer with a .22 lr subsonic lead hollowpoint. Never lost one with it, don't remember shooting any of em twice. Largest maybe 170 lbs.

Like Mike, I've killed alligators commercially, usually with a .22magnum. I've killed seven with the aforementioned 16oz hammer, quite the thrill holding an eight foot gator by a foot of line(teeth end!) and bopping him in the head with a hammer. Do it right and it's easy, miss...an all hell breaks loose. You can't PUSH a gator with a trotline....

troy

Wild Hogs with a 22WMR(behind the ear)
Whitetail buck w/ a 22lr(throat at close range)

One-shot-flops

Reloader

I have seen some pretty big red deer taken with a 22/250 and even a 222rem.

The biggest beast I have seen shot was a 1 ton (roughly) Holstein bull with a 38 special.

If the wounding comments are directed toward me than I will say that I have never lost an animal with a centerfire rifle. I only shot 2 deer with my 222, as a snot-nosed 15 and 16 year old kid.

I lost one deer shooting a 50 cal ml at 55 yards, using Hornady Sabots. Also lost one deer using a 50 cal and round ball at 60 yards running away. (This is my worst shot ever, taken in the heat of the moment on a buck I had been pursuing for many days. I looked for him, but never found him after 4 days of looking. Punched my tag and didn't shoot another.)

Large bore rifles don't necessarily kill any better, they just allow piss-poor shots to be followed up easier, sometimes.

Exotic Sheep/Deer w/.22RF (40gr)
Montana Mule deer buck w/.223 (55gr) dropped like a sack of potato's.
Bontebok with same in RSA. They are the size of an average whitetail buck.

White tail with a 30-30 (170 gr.) about 4 times. Black bear with a 7mm (7x57)once. None of them moved beyond where hit. It's always bullet placement, isn't it?

5x5 bull elk W/41 mag

Wild pig over 300lbs W/223.

Raccoon huge SOB with aguila 22 cb's along with a number of possums with same

Turkey 19lbs W/ Sheridan 5mm pellet rifle.

Mallard W/ wrist rocket sling shot and a nice healty rat with a blow gun.

That does not count all the critters I have dispatched with a shovel.

Mule deer with 223 (60 gr Sierra)
Argentine Water Buff with 300 WM (200 gr Speer)
260 lb hog with my knife

1500 Pound Alaska Bull Moose---100 Grain Magnus snuffer blade, shooting 288 FPS, alot slower than a bullet!

Killed in my miss-spent youth: Several does with a 22LR. Lots of deer and a few antelope with a 30 M1 Carbine with 110gr HP's. There were a surprising number of DRT's.

As an irresponcible semi-adult: Deer and antelope with a 223, no matter if you think it's a stunt or not, if done right, very very deadly. (Bullet of choice for me, 60gr Nosler Partition, though I've got a friend that swears by 64 gr WW bullets in his 22-250.)

A couple of kudu cows with a 7.62x39, the first, one shot, dead in about 20 yds (did put another in it as it went down but still had it's head up), the other took two and went a half mile. Note: The 123gr Hornady's work great on whitetails and did great on the first kudu, the 150gr Sierra's didn't expand worth spit on the second (when was the last time you heard someone complain about Sierra's not expanding...)

Wounded and Lost Dept: None with so-called marginal calibres. Most lost, archery equipment. Total lost 7.(Not bad since my life time kills are in the hundreds.) Most spectacular with No Way it Would EVER Happen Calibre; mule deer doe, 125yds, 338 Win Mag with 250gr Nosler Partitions, seemingly square in the chest as she faced me. The doe dropped at the shot, obvious DRT, except NO deer when I got there. Blood absolutely everywhere, blood trail so good a client could follow it. (OK, sorry just a nasty ex-guide snipe.) I did for over a mile until it went on to posted private land. Warden took hours to get there, couldn't get hold of land owner, ended up snowing that night, end of story.

From the stories I've heard from my friends the main reason marginal calibres seem to fail is shot placement plain and simple. All my 22LR kills were head shots at under 50 yds, most were under 25yds from tree stands.(Down angle to top of skull, DRT every time.) The 30 Carbine worked great on side on heart lung shots under 100 yds. Learned this the hard way, shot one poor doe over 12 times when the first shot, frontal chest, failed to put her down. The rest was piss poor shooting on my part, I was 13. It was very unsettleing and I was extremely selective after that. What was worse my mother and grandma gave me a real raft since the meat was shot to hell.

Shot a number of deer, Javalina, and antelope with the 22 on our ranch as a kid. shot my first 3 or 4 elk with a 25-35 Win carbine, another few with the 30-30. In later years I shot Deer with the 222,223,22-250, 220 Swift,6x45, and 22 hornet..IN my cowboy youth not many folks had big rifles. I remember lusting for my uncles magnum, a Sav. 99 in 300 Savage caliber, swore to myself that someday I would have one..

Today I use mostly big guns..

Two red stags in OZ with a 222, 50 grain bullet.
Both were shot through the lungs and neither went over 20 feet before going down.
I was amazed at the penetration, both bullets found under hide on opposite side of chest and both mushroomed and held together like an advertisement.

Not very jazzy, but two whitetail does while predator calling with my 22-250 and lots of wild hogs behind the ear with the same rifle. I usually use my 7mm-08 for both.

Bob

"Eater" spot & stalk 22-250 hog. I love Texas!

Bob in TX

First of all, I want you to know that I nearly spat out good rum on my key board -because I laughed out loud at the line at the bottom of your post about "room for all of God's creatures... right next to the mashed potatoes". Lord! In my neck of the woods today, that would bring out the bunny lovers with torches!

It was interesting to read that you took white tails with a 22-250. (I also saw where DesertRam took mule deer with the same caliber) The reason these posts caught my eye was because in my youth (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) I was a chuck (woodchuck) hunter using a 220 Swift, 48 gr.bullet. (I never reloaded). I often was tempted (in violation of NY law which prohibited use of a 22 caliber, whether rimfire or centerfire, on deer)to take down a white tail but I just was too doubtful about it because there simply was no penetration of the Swift as far as I could see, even on a small animal."Explosive" effect,yes -from the high velocity bullet (moving at 4140 fps as I recall) You and DesertRam certainly prove that a quite similar caliber {a wildcat in my youth}was adequate to take down deer. I know something now that I didn't know when I got up this morning.

Mtn lion 22 lr.

My son killed a kudu with a .243

While I am not proud of it and probably wouldn't try it again, I did take a 150 pound boar hog with a .22 CB Short from a 24" marlin 39A. I had the gun along to thin out a couple of feral cats which were causing problems in a suburban area, and as I was leaving home, the hog stopped in front of the truck (on our private drive) at no more than 20 yards and remained motionless. The gun was dead-on at that range, and through the 2-7x scope, I had a perfect and steady sight picture; otherwise, I would never have even considered firing a shot.

The bullet traversed the brain and lodged against the skull on the off side and dropped the hog on the spot.

Growing up on a farm, I've killed many stock animals at point-blank range, including some large hogs and butcher calves. The little .22 LR though the brain does the trick every time, though in a hunting situation, it's best left for squirrel-sized critters.

Next on the list for me would be a few larger hogs taken with a 23" Contender in .223. This was done in a populated area, and I needed a bullet that had enough penetration to take out the lungs but not exit. The .223 with a Sierra 53 grain Sierra HP worked just fine for that application.

Keep in mind, however, that this is a specialized load and was only used under controlled circumstances -- and if the perfect shot was not available, I did not fire. That little bullet will not kill a big hog if you try to shoot through the shoulder. It is not made for that.

Beyond that, like Bob in TX, I have taken a few whitetail with a 22-250. Given proper bullets, a 22-250 will completely penetrate the chest cavity of our smaller central TX deer.

Here's a hog I took with the 223/53 grain Sierra HP at 100 yards. The bullet demolished the lungs but did not exit -- just the performance I required. At the shot, the hog whirled and made app. 35 yards before piling up.

But just for the record, most of the hogs I kill are with either a 140 grain, 6.5mm bullet from a couple of different calibers or a 150 grain Ballistic Tip from a .308 WCF. The .223 was used due to the area I had to take a few nuisance hogs in.