Thread: 223 on deer

Originally Posted by Tentman

Shot 3 fallow in the weekend with the 223 and 77 TMKs. All shots offhand at ranges from 30 to 80/90M with animals having already spotted me and shot in that first pause when they look back with that WTF are you doing here thing. All 3 decked but no bang flops due to shot placement or lack of, shooting steep up or down even at short range is challenging for this old fart.

Had two easier offhand shots at 80 and 110ish when the 308 was in hand for two emphatic bang flops, better shot placement on both but does I think point to the fact that there's no substitute for "horsepower ".

I dunno. Anecdotes like this are nice but then you get posts like this -

Originally Posted by Oldbloke

Have shot fallow, but mainly hunt sambar. A few weeks ago took an off hand shot at a small sambar, about 30 yards. Not big, about goat size. Side on 30.06 180gr interlok. Entry slightly behind R shoulder. Exit, L shoulder, smashed. Big exit hole. I mean, about 50mm dia. (I remove the tips of those bullets)

She ran about 50 yards up a gentle slope, jumped an old fence, did a big U turn and fell over. All up about 70 yards. When I found her 5 minutes later still alive so, shot again in the head.

Shot fallow buck last year, 30.06 130gr bullet, 2900fps, 100 yards.

Same placement. Exit L shoulder. Ran about 60 yards. DOA.

A bit bigger is always better IMHO.

Reading that - maybe .30-06 isn't big enough for fallow. Doesn't sound like it works very well. There's posts here recently complaining about the performance of 162gr ELDX from 7mm magnums on deer.


without a decent sample size, looking at the actual real performance including actual realised placement and using an objective measure of effectiveness - it's futile trying to make conclusions.