travismxi
Active Member
- Nov 14, 2010
- 207
From bow hunting and shotgun hunting heavy i believe a deer will die faster with a muzzy 3 blade for the trifecta then a 1oz. slug. just what it seems like to me.
And IMO does far less damage. Ive seen Rage's rip deer apart far worse than any small caliber rifle.
Sure it does but does it have 4 razor blades sticking out of the sides?
From bow hunting and shotgun hunting heavy i believe a deer will die faster with a muzzy 3 blade for the trifecta then a 1oz. slug. just what it seems like to me.
Placement is everything, a 223 will be less likely to kill quickly over a slug on a shot that only damaged a vital for lack of better words. Slug kills in my experience are devastating.
It's all about how much energy you dump into the vitals. Every shot is different, but a 70 grain Barnes TSX properly placed traveling at 3000 FPS will expand and dump a whole lot of energy into a deer, which in itself is a relatively easy animal to kill. Whether it is more or less than a slug isn't really important. What's important is that it's plenty to kill a deer quickly. Sometimes heavier caliber bullets fail to expand properly and in turn do not do as much damage as smaller ones. The most devastating wounds I've seen on deer were from 95 grain Winchester X .243 shoulder shots. Also with shot placement being paramount I don't know anyone who can shoot a slug gun as accurately as a well built small caliber rifle/AR.
I have taken 5 deer with the Ar and hand loaded TSX bullets 4 62 grain and 1 70 grain. All were heart lung / shots , all were 1 shot kill's , all bullet's exited. No deer ran farther than 60 -70 yds. I can't speak for other bullets but with the TSX the .223 does the job just fine..
I'll chip my very limited experience in here. I'm not a hunter primarily. However I did have a nice and young 105-115 lbs. buck in my front yard not too long ago, about 45-50 yards out. I'd been craving some deer meat and jerky, so I grabbed the first loaded rifle and took a quick shot, rifle was a 16" AR-15, round was a 62 gr HP. Off-angle broadside shot, just ahead of the front shoulder at a slight downward angle. Took out heart and right lung, just shredded it. Buck made it maybe 25-30 feet before dropping and moving on to the next life.
I will agree with others, .223/5.56 will take a deer down, but I'd probably opt for a slightly bigger caliber just to make sure.
View attachment 47808
My thoughts on .223 for deer.
Everyone agrees that .308 is a fine deer round, even at 500 yards. Everyone would agree that the venerable .30-30 round has been possibly the most popular deer rounds in history and is marginally more powerful than .223 at close range.
.223 by comparison has about the same power at 100 yards, as the .308 at 500 yards. I believe that as long as you keep your shots under 150 yards with a .223, there is no reason not to consider it.
I think it would be irresponsible to even contemplate taking deer at beyond 300 yards with this round, as it falls below 500 ft/lbs of energy with most ammo and simply is not suitable for longer shots.
My own property, love being secluded.
If nothing else, I already had this line worked up for any possible 'visitors' - "Sorry Officer, he was trespassing..."
It's all about how much energy you dump into the vitals.