Unfortunately they are using 77 SMK which is incredibly unreliable for fragmenting below even 2200 FPS. Past 200 yards from even an 18” barrel, it’s going to icepick often and almost certainly once past 300. Great target bullet, crappy at everything else. Mystified because it’s a tad better than...
Tikkas to me would be about BCM. Grab a full upper from BCM for around $700 and do whatever you want for a lower. Their ELW 16” with 13” MCMR is what I use (subbed my own equivalent 16” barrel) for deer hunting inside 400 yards with a Razor 1-6. Works fine and it’s light. Shoots around an inch...
Things I do:
High quality barrel. WOA, Douglas, Krieger, Bartlein. AR Performance (Blackstone), etc
Lap the receiver
Use a thermal-fit upper receiver or use stainless steel shim stock to thermally fit the barrel
Free-float handguard with a reputable barrel nut design that doesn't need a ton of...
I think a big factor here is these deer have heard a lot of suppressed shots already. In one herd of 20 ish in a field, only half moved after one round from my Mk12 with an AEM5. The other half just loitered. This was a day time shot as well. For night time thermal use those that loitered just...
I am on the opposite side from where an ultralight T3X and fixed scope are recommended. Using 223 should reap rewards of the cartridge, and a semi-auto is far nicer to use. A 1MOA performance is plenty adequate for <500 yard kills.
Primary rifle and some recordings off the clipon.
Using a suppressor just obfuscates the shot a fair bit, but in day time animals are still as reactive to it as unsuppressed in my experience. If you want a follow-up shot you need to set your kill zone to be predictive of the animal movement once they’re in the middle, and be able to hit runners...
Ran a deer cull in Mississippi this week using the 77 TMK over 24.0 gr TAC from 16” and 18” barrels. Chronographed to 2720 fps from the 18” barrel. Used thermal, nv, and day optics for kills. Tally was around 16 in three nights by myself, but many less than that recovered due to terrain. My goal...