Thread: 223 on deer

Originally Posted by whanahuia

There can be so many factors at play when it comes to individuals. Theres guys who have a wealth of experience, and really any calibre you give them, they will succeed with it. Theres guys who it won't matter what gun you give them, the excitement will get the better of them. I once had hold of a pig a fella had wounded. I asked him to shoot it in the ear with his 222. He came up along side me and shot a neat hole in its earlobe, and after further instruction, said he wondered why Id asked him to shoot it in the ear? He was amping.
Theres guys who go too big because they lack confidence, and really should just do more practice with a standard cal. But most guys really fit in the middle and get out hunting as often as work and family allow. Dont have easy access to a range to do a lot of shooting, or hand load.
When I was doing guided meat hunts, over half of projectiles did not land where aimed. And ranges were never long. Didn't matter if gun was old or new. Cheap or top of line. big or small in calibre.

I read this as saying the same thing at @Scortched earth, just from a different angle.

The thread started with the same standard question as elsewhere - is the .223 enough gun for our medium game? The first answers were the same as other forums - yes, no, maybe. Then something different happened. Because our conditions and laws (and prevalence of medium game) allow relatively easy hunting, we have a luxury very few other areas in the world enjoy - we can experiment.

And this forum has lots of members that like to experiment. Some have shared their experiments on Youtube to general acclaim going back several years.

So this thread has consequently been dominated by those that like to experiment and share their findings. With a liberal sprinkling of general commentary from the community with the usual swings and roundabouts of opinion. This has resulted in something quite unique - a repository of necropsy photos with details of range, firearm, optics, the projectile, the ballistics, the specifics of the animal, the wounding, the mode of death, the works. It's bloody great. There's nothing else like it in terms of real hard won data, much of it accumulated as the thread evolved and contributors influenced others to experiment with different projectiles etc. Its a bloody solid effort really. A condensed version would be really worthwhile.