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I grew up shooting a couple of beautiful little Sako Vixens in .222 and .222 mag. You really couldn't ask for anything more than them. Beautiful, accurate as hell, never gave me any trouble. But... .223s come with an advantage that you can't ignore. BRASS. Lots of brass for cheap or even free. Something that cannot be said for the .222s I can do everything with them that really needs doing. With some 53-70 grain copper bullets they kill deer well enough that you have nothing to worry about no matter the size of the deer. If there is any shortcoming at all, it would be that they just do not have anything left on the top end if you have to shoot out past 300 yards. Maybe a 7/8 twist shooting 70 grain TSXs could do OK at 400 yards, but I have managed to shoot deer for 60 odd years without having a need to shoot one that far. With all that free brass I ose them like everything from a .22 lr to a deer rifle. With 4-6 grains of Blue dot and 32-50 grain bullets they nicely overlap most of the commercial .22lr ammo on the market. 4 grain loads can be very quiet, maybe not so quiet as something like CB caps or CCI Quiets, but quiet enough not to disturb neighbors while you dispatch pests. With 12 grains of Blue Dot I have done away with a bunch of raccoons, porcupines, skunks, feral cats and a few foxes and coyotes, one of which I am pretty sure was rabid. That 12 grain load with 32 grain bullets delivers >3200 FPS which means that red squirrels and chipmunks don't leave pieces big enough tp pick up. Additionally, all those little bullets are very fragile which makes for safer shooting. They come completely undone if they hit ANYTHING! I have shot chipmunks less than a foot in front of pieces of wood and the only thing that hit the wood was chipmunk splatter. NOTHING of the bullets managed to hit the wood to leave a mark. Out of a 20 inch 9 twist barrel I can get inch groups at 100 yards with those loads. I only neck size and brass lasts forever, even the 12 grain loads do not seem to need full length sizing. For deer loads I do tend to use more conventional powders like TAC, H300, BLC-2 and Varget. I do FL resize that brass for each use. I find those loads with the copper bullets tend to perform very comparably with 30-30 deer loads but for the .223s being a better choice beyond 100 yards. I have not shot a lot of deer with the .223s, but what I have shot died quickly with full pass throughs even on a huge doe. With free brass and such tiny powder charges it's hard to find anything to complain about. | ||
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Great post. Love to see people think and adapt. Best regards Sir. "The liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreeably to their conscience, is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also of their rights." ~George Washington - 1789 | |||
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I own 10 or so 223s. I shot some deer with them. I prefer bigger calibers for all around deer hunting. | |||
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Yeah, I can see that. I have way too many guns, and I have shot deer with either the ones I have or versions of which I no longer have. About the only guns I do not think are decent deer guns are the smoothbores. Being an engineer I just cannot bring myself to trust a smoothbore to be accurate. I have tested lots of them and sometimes you get OK accuracy out to 70 or so yards, but that doe not by any stretch of the imagination mean that the next shot WILL be accurate. The same engineer tells me that If I put a 53 grain TSX where I want it the is no difference in the degree of dead nor the length of the deer's life between the hit and when it's down and dead due to the smaller caliber. If the shot does not go where I want it, there is no appreciable difference in the 53 grain TSX and a 12 gauge 1 ounce slug. I look at that as just simple facts and simply do not make any allowance whatsoever for luck of any stripe. | |||
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+1 Coming from a completely different angle, I love my 223 as well, but for the same appreciation of COST. My rifle is a Ruger African in 223 built to the same dimensions and weight as a large bore Ruger African. It allows me cheap practice from many different field positions. The cost per round of some of my big bores run anywhere from $5-$20, again, that's per round, not box. My wife and I begin our practice sessions with about a box or two of 223 and end with about 5-6 rounds of our big bore rifles. Works for us! | |||
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Do you reload? | |||
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No I don't. I did many years ago when I was young and really poor, but sold all of my reloading equipment to my friend. Hence, I LOVE shooting my 223 African. My 505 Gibbs costs about $20/round for the custom loaded ammo I have made. So, to practice at 223 prices is a joy! Having said all that, I confess that I am at a stage in the latter part of my life (70) financially, where buying factory ammo is not the big deal it was in my 20s & 30s. I wait for really good sales, like 50-70% off (ain't happening these days), and then purchase multiple cases. Still, 223 is a fraction of the cost of DG ammo! Sweet practice ammo with a sweet Ruger African! | |||
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The 223 is a great caliber, but i presently don't own one, I also have a couple of beautiful Sako -46 clip models in 222, and my latest is a 220 swift Ruger which I recently picked up and have not played with for a number of years...Ive shot a large number of deer over the years in culling operations on family ranches in Texas and PG in Africa with the hot 22s including the 223 and culled my own leased ranches over the years. The 22s are all good, even the great little 222 with a 60 gr. Hornady...Not the last word for deer size animal but will do the job if your careful, but so will a 22L.R. under ideal circumstances..one can use about anything, all you have to do is modify your hunt to fit the situation, usually that means get closer..and stay off the shoulders.. Ray Atkinson Atkinson Hunting Adventures 10 Ward Lane, Filer, Idaho, 83328 208-731-4120 rayatkinsonhunting@gmail.com | |||
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I always find it strange when people say. caliber X is fine if you are careful with your shot. I figure I owe it to the animal I'm shooting to be careful with my shot no matter what I shoot it with. | |||
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Might be time to get back after it? In this day and age I wouldn't quit for sure. It's too damned easy to run into times like now when getting ammo of any sort is hard as hell. It's a lot easier to keep a few thousand rounds on hand in the form of powder, primers, bullets and brass than it is to keep few thousand rounds of factory ammo. | |||
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The "big boys" say "it's not hard to get a 223 to shoot well but it's hard not to get a 222 to shoot well". I've actually found them both easy to produce loads that shoot tight little groups so I'm wondering about the validity of that quote....but it's clever. Zeke | |||
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I too love my little 223 Ruger African. What a great rifle! I’m amazed They didn’t sell and Ruger discontinued them, as the ones that rarely pop up on gunbroker are bringing increasingly stupid money. Hunting: Exercising dominion over creation at 2800 fps. | |||
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I don't think it was a case of these Ruger Africans in 223 not selling. As you stated, they are selling at stupid money currently. The last one I saw on the net was asking $2,300! I paid $750 for mine, new. I believe they were a limited run of 250 rifles made for a company that trains big bore shooters, like those preparing for an African safari. The course is like three days or even a week of shooting, and anyone shooting big bores all day for that many days tended to 'tenderize' their shoulders. Hence the shooting/training company asked Ruger to make a run of 223s on their African model, so that clients could practice the skills with 'like' rifles, but absent the recoil of big bores. I bet they could sell another run of these rifles if they decided to do so. Hey wait. That would lessen the value of yours/my rifle. I may want to sell mine some day when the market price hits $10,000.  | |||
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I have not heard this before, and I would like to find out if this is actually true or just hearsay. I have several old Ruger catalogs. The Ruger African in 223 was a catalogued item about the same year that the 375 Ruger came out, or perhaps a year or so later, but was only listed for one year, and there was no mention of a special run for a distributor or training outfit. I read somewhere (Rugeforum.com, and it may be hearsay) that even though the Ruger African was catalogued, no one got real excited about it at SHOT show, and less than a dozen of them were actually produced. If that’s true, then they are truly rare, indeed. I think a lot of folks saw them in the catalog and thought that such a rifle would be cool to have, but just couldn’t justify spending that kind of dough on a practice rifle (myself included at the time, but if I’d had more money at the time, I would have tried to get one). While I can’t verify how many were actually made, I’m more inclined to believe that less than 30 or so were made, rather than 100 or 250, as is typically the case with special runs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the less than a dozen number I read about is true. They are rare birds for sure. Matt FISH!! Heed the words of Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984: "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right." | |||
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I have a standard M77 Hawkeye in blued/walnut chambered for .223. If you can't find an African one of these would make a good substitute. Unfortunately I think Ruger discontinued the wood/blue Hawkeye in this caliber a few years after I bought mine. Tom Z NRA Life Member | |||
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.223 is great. I don't think I have ever used one for a whitetail before...but it is a good cheap round for predator hunting in a world where a lot of people are jumping to 6mm Creedmoor and other $25+/20rd ammo. I still believe most shots are inside 250 yards. I am holding out for one of the .223 Ruger Africans.......one of these days I'll see one come through the Cabelas Gun Library or a LGS/Gun Show. The Howa 1500 has impressed me enough that I will probably end up with one or a Wby Vanguard in 223 to hold me over until I can get the African. "Let me start off with two words: Made in America" | |||
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I agree 100% on the 223. Gotta love it with the Blue Dot loads. | |||
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Pick yourself any decently well made .223 and go to it. It's a good cheap round for anything! By a huge doe I mean one that dresssed out with the hide still on tipped the scales at just over 200. 53 grain TSX at 3300 FPS. I have a Howa 1500 .243 that I also load with BD and light bullets that is very accurate and very versatile as well. | |||
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Somebody will have to help me out here, but was the African safari training company that ordered these Ruger rifles, SAAM of the FTW Ranch? Wracking my brain here... | |||
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Hmmm, They seem to pop up a bit too much for just a dozen or two to exist. I paid $900 used off gunbroker a number of years ago for mine and happy to get it when I did. It is just under an inch at 100 with 69gr SMK. My latest couple of .223 bolt actions are a Ruger SS/International. They were everywhere last spring, and I delayed a bit and almost didnt get one this fall. Cool little rifle. I picked up a discontinued Ruger Scout in 5.56 a few weeks ago. Nice rifle as well. Cant wait to get it out the range soon. Hunting: Exercising dominion over creation at 2800 fps. | |||
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Hi Miles, The .223 Rem is an excellent cartridge. I wish I owned an AR. Actually, if we lived in a free country, I'd buy an H&K 416 with an 11" barrel. I could do serious damage to fawn and calf destroying coyotes with an H&K 416. I load my own hunting ammo. I cannot replicate phenomenal accuracy I get from my hand loads with any factory ammo. I have a Sauer 100 .222 Rem. It'll shoot .5 MOA with 50 grain V-Max and 21 grains of IMR-4198. I have about 500 brass cases, Norma and Lapua. They'll last several lifetimes. I doubt that there is arguable difference in max PBR between the .222 Rem and .223 Rem. I know that even a .222 Rem has taken and will take deer. However, and keep in mind that this is merely my opinion, hunters have ethical responsibility to effect rapid and humane big game kills. I use a .270 Win for all North American big game. A 130 grain Sierra GK and 60 grains of H-4831 will drop Rocky Mountain mule deer in their tracks. 150 grain Partitions pushed by a max load of RL-22 will kill the biggest Rocky Mountain bull elk that has ever lived just as dead as any mega-magnum. But if you're confident that a .223 Rem will effect rapid and humane death on deer, I wouldn't object. | |||
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It took me a while to decide to shoot a few deer with a .223. I shot a bunch of small to middle size varmints with it to see how they felt about it. Maybe more important to the decision was shooting a bunch of deer with copper bullets though. I have never stopped a mono in a deer. Every deer I shot with them not only had two holes in the hide, they also had wrecked internals. I guess maybe one particular deer convinced me. I put an 85 grain .243 in behind the liver and exited the chest between the front legs. It turned the lungs into red soup. Completely. It passed just above the heart but didn't touch the heart.. The heart was ruptured and only held together at the bottom of the left ventricle. All four chambers and valves were exposed perfectly. I couldn't have done a job that well with a scalpel. After the bullet left the chest it followed the spine up the neck and exited near the ear. I figured then that if an 85 grain bullet could traverse four feet of deer and wreck everything along the way that even a 53 grainer would be plenty to kill a deer and then some. Turns out I figured right. They are. I cheated a little though, I hot loaded some with 70 grain TSXs and did a couple with them first. | |||
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by theback40: I always find it strange when people say. caliber X is fine if you are careful with your shot. I figure I owe it to the animal I'm shooting to be careful with my shot no matter what I shoot it with.[/QUOTE Outstanding! Well said!] | |||
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Hi JTEX, Get close enough, and you can kill elk with a spear. As you know, most serious equipment for sustaining life is protected by skeletal structure. Ribs closest to heart and lungs are most robust. A .22 LR will kill the biggest elk that has ever lived if you're within reasonable distance, AND you're 100% certain that you can slip a bullet between ribs and puncture it's heart. And therein lies the questionable part about .224 caliber rifles. If you're sure a bullet fired from one will not veer off course after striking a rib thus assuring destruction of heart and/or lungs, you're good-to-go. I've seen what 130 grain Sierra GKs fired from a .270 Win will do to deer ribs and their oxygenated blood pumping equipment. I've seen what 160 grain Partitions fired from a 7MM Rem Mag will do to much heavier Rocky Mountain bull elk ribs. I don't have a lot of knowledge about heavy .224 bullets. My limited knowledge is heavyweights for that caliber are designed to punch holes in paper. However, if a bonded heavyweight is available for .224 caliber bullets, it'd probably breaks ribs and stay on course. It's not about what big game hunters can do. It's about what big game hunters should do. | |||
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I have killed a bunch of deer with lead core bullets. I have killed a bunch with copper monos. For me there is no comparison. The copper monos in every case that I have killed deer with penetrated all the way through the deer. Heavy ones. light ones and all of them in between. Not only that, but I have never seen one fail to penetrate in a very straight line. I have seen them go through a lot of bone and still exit. One I shot with a 110 grain .270 TTSX made a fist size hole in the on side shoulder blade then edgewise through 4 ribs then took a fist size chunk of spine out, then 2 more ribs and a quarter size hole in the off side shoulder blade and then out and may still be circling the earth for all I know. That was at almost 300 yards out. I have seen more than a couple of lead core bullets deflect off ribs and not cause much damage. The last lead core I fired at a deer was a factory load Hornady Lever evolution 160 grain 30-30. It was aimed for the heart. I hit a rib and deflected nearly straight up under the hide, through the chops and out above the spine. I have never had to shoot a deer a second time with a mono. I have never recovered one in a deer. They are uniformly accurate. They wreck what they go through. They go all the way through. Penetration of lead core bullets only starts to approach that of the monos when you have heavy jackets and bonded cores or partition style bullets. It never does equal them, much less surpass them. Monos are far and away the best bullets I have ever had for reloading to kill deer with. | |||
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I usually avoid trying to hit heavy bone no matter what I use. In this case though, I had a quartering to me shot on a big bull eland. I figured the 375 H&H with Winchester failsafe ammo was up to the task. It broke the shoulder, then traveled down the leg and excited at the (elbow) joint. We caught up with it after a bit of a chase, and finished it. If I had been using a traditional bullet, I wouldn't have tried the shot. I have had a few erratic bullet issues using mono's. I don't use them anymore and just pick my shots. For some reason they are just bad juju for me. | |||
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I couldn't put my finger on why, but The Failsafes were the only mono bullet I couldn't get comfortable enough with to shoot critters with them. I still have a box or two of them left, I think in 25 and 243. I even managed to shoot a few (very few) varmints with some 25 caliber solids. Just never got comfortable with the Failsafes for reason(s) I don't even remember anymore. If it didn't take a couple boxes to work up a load I might go find them and give 'em another try, but I am pretty sure there's only a partial box of each | |||
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I had a couple bad experiences with Barnes also. It's not the bullets, just my luck. They are used to successfully by people to not be good. Might be the way I squint through the sights or something.  | |||
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About 30 years ago opening day crept up on me before I had a chance to load any rounds but I did have some FMJ in 223 for my Mini MKX. I hit that deer at 75 yds + Geneva Convention be damned, I said please hit me with a hollow point. That 55G.totaly destroyed that deer. Hit below the shoulder ran the backstrap, exited on one hindquarter + bloodshot everything. Was able to make some jerky but in large, it was a waste of meat. Never mistake motion for action. | |||
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Premium bullets in the 22s and to a lesser degree in the 6mm are poor choices in that the cross section is still small no matter the shot and bullet reaction, and they don't leave a blood trail as a rule and may run quite a ways..I have used my 6x45 and 222 on deer and antelope and they have killed best with a cup and core bullet as opposed to a monolithic..and some folks love monolithics so its a crap shoot... It is said by many you must place your shot correctly with a 222 for instance, and thats a fact, the reply is you must do the same with say a 35 Whelen and that is also true..but a gut shot with a 35 Whelen or any large caliber is more effective and tends to put game down much better than a varmint caliber or bullet, most of the time anyway, again its a crap shoot.. Ray Atkinson Atkinson Hunting Adventures 10 Ward Lane, Filer, Idaho, 83328 208-731-4120 rayatkinsonhunting@gmail.com | |||
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I was running a trap line and had a bobcat in the trap, ($650 back then in Colorado but thats another story). so I used a solid in my 223 to make a tiny hole, it blew its head off so to speak and ruined the value for all practicle purposes..bone splinters can be devastating in many instances.. By the same token, I shot a fox behind the shoulder with the same load and could not find him.. My dog and found him the next morning about 200 yards away in a hole..good dog!! Ray Atkinson Atkinson Hunting Adventures 10 Ward Lane, Filer, Idaho, 83328 208-731-4120 rayatkinsonhunting@gmail.com | |||
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Dang Ray did you really think a hyper velocity round. No matter what bullet at close range would not destroy the pelt value. Or was it one of those let's see what happens moments. Then afterwards it was O crap I just lost a lot of money. | |||
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About 30 years ago opening day of deer season crept up on me + I hadn't loaded any 223s for my mini MK X, so I just grabbed a few FMJ ball rounds. When I hit that deer at 75 yds I destroyed most of the meat, + I recall thinking at the time, "Geneva convention be damned, hit me with a hollow point." Never mistake motion for action. | |||
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I just picked up my first 223 bolt action - a Ruger 77 Davidson’s exclusive. It’s a bit odd. Black Zytel stock with wood inserts in the grip and forend and blued action and barrel. Sort of like an all weather rifle but not stainless. Apparently it’s a prettty rare variant so I’m on the fence about even shooting it - it’s as new in the box... Maybe an African is what I really need... | |||
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IMO they are the ugliest stock Ruger ever made. | |||
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Cannot disagree... The wood can easily be swapped out for black plastic ones though. | |||
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But by far the toughest stock made. | |||
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BRASS is a spot on reason to love 223s. A few years ago, I decided to get a new varmint rifle. I looked at lots of different calibers, and finally decided that to amass enough brass for a serious prairie dog or ground squirrel shoot, for any caliber other than 223 I would spend a ton of money just on the brass. So I picked up a Savage & bought a BUNCH of new Federal and used Lake City brass that was all processed. It's working great. | |||
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I have a good buddy of mine who had an old friend recently pass away + left him all of his reloading supplies (too many to mention) but a case in point here was that he had 2- 55 gal. drums full of 223 + 308 brass.( separate of course) Jimmy will be fixed for quite some time. Never mistake motion for action. | |||
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