Speaking of small bores for medium and larger game

[Bill in Oregon]

I started this thread on another forum, but thought some here might be interested in the implications of the continuing improvement in bullet technology as applied to hunting.

https://forums.accuratereloading.com/ev ... 8921012382

[earlmck]

The first deer I killed I was 11 years old, out hunting rabbits with my Remington single-shot 22. Shot him right behind the shoulder and I think at that time of my life I only got to use 22 shorts. He didn't know I was there, just kinda' looked around and laid down and died.

Anyway, you mess up the boiler room and critters are gonna' die. They may not die real quick and if they are scared or mad they may go quite a distance before they die but they are gonna' die. Now if you have a high sectional density bullet that goes clear through the critter and out the other side they are dead quite a lot quicker I am sure. The heavy 22 cal. bullets available nowdays for the fast-twist 22 centerfires are certainly capable of killing most anything you shoot with them. That said, if I were shooting something that might want to charge and kill me I'd a whole lot prefer the old 45/70 over the new 22 whiz-bang.

[Safestuffer]

Small calibers just do not have the weight and momentum for marginal shots i.e. quartering away. If you hunt in an area that allows you to pick and choose your shots thats fine.
I live in an area where your one and only shot opportunity for the entire season might be 20 yards through brush or 400 yards across a clear-cut. Might be a quartering away shot at 400 yards. A small bore just does not have the juice to cover all scenarios that I might encounter and I hunt to eat

[GunnyMack]

I vaguely remember PO Ackley writing about using various 17s to shoot wild burros and if I remember correctly also camels in AZ .

I'll never forget the first animal I shot with myv17 Remington, a cotton tail at 50 yard berm. Upon impact it flew about 6' in the air, skinned from skull to ankles to rib cage.

[Ray]

There are other factors involved that greatly muddle the issue.....

Very frangible varmint bullets of medium (not the lightest avail.) weight at slower than optimal velocities perform quite well on larger animals. How is less more ?

Think a 6.5 jdj with the 120gr. speer leaving at 2400 fps. The inimitable, late mister taffin had a room in his home only with trophies taken with the 6.5 jdj that was as large as the whole 5 rooms we lived in at the time.

Goerg & Dalrymple both used the .221 fireball to good effect claiming that 50 gr. soft points killed better at 2400 fps. than the .22-250 at 3000+. Obviously science demands that the faster bullet has to soon slow to that supposedly ideal velocity range.

Goerg also killed great beasts with the then new .256 win. ruger single-shot built on the single-action frame......A tiny 60 gr. bullet.

j.d. jones once wrote that the 125 gr. .308" nosler ballistic tips & the speer tnt striking at 1900 to 2400 fps killed kudu on a culling operation better than anything that he had ever used......and he had previously used many more powerful cartridges. Those 125 gr. bullets are mere groundhog bullets at 500 fps. faster speeds.

When I was still on the right side of 30, I took many deer with the 60 gr. hornady & the 64 gr. win. at 2900 fps. from a .223 contender. The same 125 gr. speer tnt that mister jones touted failed egregiously at 2900 fps. from a 30-06 starting load charge weight from my n.e.f. handi. Would it have been adequate at the 500 fps slower speed (or longer range) ?

[Lastmohecken]

I have no doubt that a .22 and especially a .223 won't kill about anything at least in the lower 48 in a pinch, but I still think it a poor choice, and limits one's opportunities at best. Sure, an old timer who is cool headed and waits for the perfect shot, can kill their game with a tiny round. I would rather be in Elmer Keith's camp, even if huge improvements make the modern small bores a viable alternative. I want bullet weight, and caliber diameter working in my favor, instead of relying on trick bullets out of the poodle shooters.

[1972RedNeck]

I have no problem shooting elk with my 22-250. Headshots only. I'm a decent shot with my varmint rifles and an elk head is a lot larger than a ground squirrel.

[yooper2]

Where I grew up the 22 mag with fmj bullets was favored by native black bear hunters/poachers. I also saw my grandfather kill a nice 8pt buck with a 25-20 loaded with an 86gr cast bullet at maybe 1300fps from a Marlin 27s. He waited until the deer lowered his head for a nibble on something and put that little bullet in the brain.

I do not advocate shooting big game with such cartridges but there is no arguing that they work with proper bullet placement.


Eric

[OldWin]

There are other factors involved that greatly muddle the issue.....

Very frangible varmint bullets of medium (not the lightest avail.) weight at slower than optimal velocities perform quite well on larger animals. How is less more ?

Think a 6.5 jdj with the 120gr. speer leaving at 2400 fps. The inimitable, late mister taffin had a room in his home only with trophies taken with the 6.5 jdj that was as large as the whole 5 rooms we lived in at the time.

Goerg & Dalrymple both used the .221 fireball to good effect claiming that 50 gr. soft points killed better at 2400 fps. than the .22-250 at 3000+. Obviously science demands that the faster bullet has to soon slow to that supposedly ideal velocity range.

Goerg also killed great beasts with the then new .256 win. ruger single-shot built on the single-action frame......A tiny 60 gr. bullet.

j.d. jones once wrote that the 125 gr. .308" nosler ballistic tips & the speer tnt striking at 1900 to 2400 fps killed kudu on a culling operation better than anything that he had ever used......and he had previously used many more powerful cartridges. Those 125 gr. bullets are mere groundhog bullets at 500 fps. faster speeds.

When I was still on the right side of 30, I took many deer with the 60 gr. hornady & the 64 gr. win. at 2900 fps. from a .223 contender. The same 125 gr. speer tnt that mister jones touted failed egregiously at 2900 fps. from a 30-06 starting load charge weight from my n.e.f. handi. Would it have been adequate at the 500 fps slower speed (or longer range) ?

I've seen some evidence of this. I developed a "youth load" for the .308 using a 130gr hollow point Speer varmint bullet back in the late 80s. When slowed down to 2400fps or so (if I remember correctly), it performed quite well and was very mild to shoot. Ranges were shorter, of course, but it worked pretty well. I loaded these for several youngsters over the years, one of which shot a black bear with it.
As an experiment, I sped them up to 2900fps, and shot a couple deer with it. They would completely explode (as expected) and do terrible damage. As I recall, there was no exit.
Following this logic, I have loaded the 125gr Speer TNT for use in 300 Blackout. While I haven't shot a deer with it yet, from what I've read, others have had good performance from this bullet.
As for small bores, while they most certainly will work, I'm not a huge fan for some hunting conditions. I hunt thick woods. The farther a deer runs, the more difficult it is to track and recover. Especially if shot with a round that isn't giving a good blood trail. If you are hunting an open area or can pick your exact shot placement, it becomes a more viable option I would think. It's one thing if it's the only rifle you own, but if not, then why? I think the biggest reason for its use today is its overwhelming popularity as a whole. Not necessarily its suitability for deer sized game.

[Bill in Oregon]

Some very experienced hunters from the early 20th Century thought very highly of the .22 Savage High Power with its 70-grain bullet at 2780 for use on tigers and other beasts.
Today's bullet offerings in .223-224 caliber are vastly better, from the Barnes copper solids to the 80- and 90-grain heavies from Hornady and Berger.
https://www.historynet.com/savage-model-1899-rifle/

[JimT]

Really Small Bore ...

A couple years ago I was on my way to the shop when I saw an armadillo digging around in the yard. I started to get my .22 but about then my 10 year old grandson came sneaking up on the dillo with his Red Ryder BB gun. He did a good stalk, got to where he wanted to be and shot it. It jumped straight up in the air and took off down the fence line. My grandson followed and shot it 2 more times before it escaped the fence and headed into the woods.

I congratulated him on a great stalk!

[Bill in Oregon]

Jim, when my daughter was on the reining team at Baylor, there was an armadillo that hung out near one of the horse barns. Ellie said the little toot used to bark when annoyed.

[GunnyMack]

I forgot about the fox I shot with my Rws .177.
When Parker had her litter, almost 3 years ago there was a fox sneaking around the yard each time I put the puppies out.
The closest gun to hand was my RWS 350. I snuck around the corner and shot it at about 45 yards. I put the gun back in the house and then went to look for it. It had taken all of 3 steps and dead. I was greatly surprised.

[Scott Tschirhart]

I’m not saying that I would hunt a moose with a .223. But there’s plenty of whitetail deer that are taken every year.

I gotta tell you, I think I could cleanly take a whitetail within 200 yards with the Hornady .17 Hornet load. Will I? Probably not. But I’m sure I can do it.

[Lastmohecken]

I remember many years ago when I killed a doe two days in row, both head shots, both at approximately 200 yards. Both dead right there. I shot them in the head because I didn't want them to run anywhere, because it would have gotten inconvenient for retrieval very quickly if thay ran a ways. I was shooting a .270, but I have no doubt a Hornet would have resulted with the same results. But I was shooting standing unalarmed deer. I kill 4 or 5 deer every year, or at least I have for quite a few years, but they don't always give me standing shots, and I forgot to say that I shot those two off of a fairly solid rest. But I have killed far more deer off-hand and often on the run, some at bad angles to boot. I want a gun capable of making the worst shot, because I don't have the patience or maturity to always wait for the perfect shot that quite often does not develop. I am only 68 years old, maybe I will grow out it, but I doubt it.

[GunnyMack]

I just remembered again!
Im not certain but I believe it was Courtney Selous that got stuck in the bush away from his camp. He built a fire and an elephant came into camp. The only gun he had was his 275 Rigby ( 7x57 Mauser) .
The story read he pulled a soft with his teeth, inverted it back into the case and shot the elephant dead with a brain shot.
Its time to re-read all my African hunting books!

[mickbr]

Ive shot hogs with a 22LR to the base of the ear and boileroom shot them with a 22mag. The latter over baits at night where plantations meet forest, shots usually only 20-30 yards or so.They die if your shot placement is good. They would run after the hit and we would find them a short way aways into the trees in the morning. Not suggesting they are ideal calibres for such, just that a certain style of hunting exists where they can work.

[Ray]

I just realized that above when I cited to historic handgun hunters with using the .221 fireball to good effect, I said Dalrymple, thinking Byron of outdoor life fame. I was incorrect. I meant Jim Dougherty the famous pioneering modern bow hunter and handgun predator hunting enthusiast.

[AJMD429]

.
When I was a gradeschooler I had a 22 LR, and was responsible for killing groundhogs to protect the garden and wild dogs to protect the sheep.

One night a pack of wild dogs was attacking a raccoon (this was before we had chickens and raccoons were bad-guys), and I felt sorry for the raccoon, so I went to shoot the wild dogs. There were three, and I only had two rounds of 22 LR at hand (since I was only 8 years old I had custody of the rifle in my room but my mom had all the ammo boxes and I just got allowed a few at a time - but I occasionally stashed an 'emergency' round or two).

I was proud that I had one-shot humane kills of the two wild dogs, but the third that ran off returned in an hour or so to the same tree, and when I went to my brother's room (he was in college and he had his own ammo) to steal some 22 LR, all I saw was these funny looking ones crimped on the front (turns out they were birdshot). So I grabbed a few (three) and headed out to shoot the final dog.

Of course the chest-aimed shots didn't help at all, barely distracting the frenzied dog. Three shots from only 25 yards, all to the chest (or wherever the birdshot really goes at that range), and the dog was unfazed.

I went back to the house and felt bad for the raccoon, but later felt bad for the dog - I hope I didn't mess it up too bad.