.223 for bear, mountain goat, deer, elk, and moose.

[LimeSpoon]

In my younger years i lost a few because i flinched from 7mm RM recoil. Im done with magnums.

I also brought my .243w with 95 NBT and 108 Berger elites. Tempted to try the bergers to see what it does.

@form
could you shed some light on my last post related to the no blood at all "issue".

I think I can answer that question for you, it's been discussed here and elsewhere.

The truth is that while I think 77 gr TMK has shown itself pretty well to be a robust killer of most North American game provided decent shot placement, it can't be relied upon to exit consistently and even when it does, it can't be relied upon to produce a blood trail consistently.

For most people this probably doesn't override considerations like recoil, weight, platform benefits, etc. Most people probably wouldn't be using a bullet that consistently produces a blood trail regardless.

For some people this aspect of bullet performance may be very important, especially in dense brush. Sad to say but in these cases 77 gr TMK, or really just about any .223, is probably not the optimal choice.

At the end of the day smaller calibers are still less powerful and have less horsepower to work with than larger calibers. For the purposes of simple, nominal lethality, this isn't usually a practical limitation for most game at most ranges. But if you want the bullet to do some other things beyond just kill quickly with good shot placement, you're going to run into issues.

 

[ihookem]

I lost one once while shooting a 308. It happens.

Lost a few with my bow too. Yep , it happens , but never lost one when it went through the boiler room. As for 22 cal. being so good for deer, I think the reason is , cause it's the perfect size for deer. When I used my .270 Win. Deer would go 100 yds full bore when shot through the boiler room. Now I use my .243 Win. and they just dont go as far . It turns the inside to mush , and the .270 Win didnt seem to do that .

 

[deer_hunter132]

The 40 acres we have to hunt is realistically two spots of open field with thick trees/brush. You cant see a full grown cow thru the stuff at 15yds. Its great deer habitat but im concerned with the lack of blood for tracking.
That being said, will the 95 NBT or 108 berger be better for leaving a blood trail?
The other option is quick follow up shots, which the AR is good for, unlike my .243 bolt gun.

 

[Formidilosus]

@form
could you shed some light on my last post related to the no blood at all "issue".

Lack of blood trails happens with all calibers and bullets. Your #3 deer you don’t know what happened, as it wasn’t recovered. #4 doesn’t seem like you know which shot was which, and so you still can’t say.

No matter what, 3 deer is an insignificant sample size to base blood trails on. With about 150-200 normal deer- the vast majority fall within sight. Of those that run, the vast majority leave a usable blood trail. Very few actually leave no blood trail.

My experience is that for the most part when people say “no blood at all”, there usually is a blood trail- but they aren’t good at trailing and if it isn’t buckets poured out, then it’s “no blood” to them. Not saying this is you to be clear.

 

[Formidilosus]

The 40 acres we have to hunt is realistically two spots of open field with thick trees/brush. You cant see a full grown cow thru the stuff at 15yds. Its great deer habitat but im concerned with the lack of blood for tracking.
That being said, will the 95 NBT or 108 berger be better for leaving a blood trail?
The other option is quick follow up shots, which the AR is good for, unlike my .243 bolt gun.

Generally the 95gr NBT exits. The 108gr is hit or miss, though in most southern deer it probably will.

 

[deer_hunter132]

Lack of blood trails happens with all calibers and bullets. Your #3 deer you don’t know what happened, as it wasn’t recovered. #4 doesn’t seem like you know which shot was which, and so you still can’t say.

No matter what, 3 deer is an insignificant sample size to base blood trails on. With about 150-200 normal deer- the vast majority fall within sight. Of those that run, the vast majority leave a usable blood trail. Very few actually leave no blood trail.

My experience is that for the most part when people say “no blood at all”, there usually is a blood trail- but they aren’t good at trailing and if it isn’t buckets poured out, then it’s “no blood” to them. Not saying this is you to be clear.

I suck at finding blood. I need buckets or for the deer to drop. I know my limit.
Honestly, i rubbed the #4 deer with my hand to find a hole/blood after i found him and it took me a minute to find the one hole. No joke. Not a drop of blood on his fur.

 

[Formidilosus]

I suck at finding blood. I need buckets or for the deer to drop. I know my limit.
Honestly, i rubbed the #4 deer with my hand to find a hole/blood after i found him and it took me a minute to find the one hole. No joke. Not a drop of blood on his fur.

If that’s the case, why not shoot them I bit farther forward to disrupt the CNS and drop them immediately?

 

[deer_hunter132]

Ill try that. I havent mostly because i get deer fever, this spot is making me shoot awkwardly, but it comes down to my ability. I likely can make the shot, i prefer the extra oopsie room for a misplaced shot.
Ill give the front of shoulder shot a try, since these are 80-100yd shots.
I just got some 64gr soft point pulls from american reloading; does that type of bullet pass thru at a reduction of internal soup?

 

[Formidilosus]

Ill try that. I havent mostly because i get deer fever, this spot is making me shoot awkwardly, but it comes down to my ability. I likely can make the shot, i prefer the extra oopsie room for a misplaced shot.
Ill give the front of shoulder shot a try, since these are 80-100yd shots.
I just got some 64gr soft point pulls from american reloading; does that type of bullet pass thru at a reduction of internal soup?

It’s not the “type” of bullets as much as which specific one. Readily available option that generally does exit (at the cost of longer incapacitation time) is 62gr Federal Fusion.

 

[deer_hunter132]

I might try the 95 NBT on the next one. The TMK does kill if it hits the spot. Seems like it goes in like a pencil, gets in the chest and just explodes the organs and then is done. Effective, just no blood on these deer (or buckets if you will). I wasnt expecting that. I wish things werent so rushed and i had time to explore the damage more.

 

[Formidilosus]

I might try the 95 NBT on the next one. The TMK does kill if it hits the spot. Seems like it goes in like a pencil, gets in the chest and just explodes the organs and then is done.

That’s not really true though. The 77gr TMK often leaves exits and good blood. You’ve shot 3 deer with it- that isn’t enough to draw any conclusions on. The first 4 deer that I ever shot with Barnes TSX’s, I recovered all 4 bullets, the deer all ran 80-100 yards and left the least amount of blood from any deer I had ever shot with rifles. If I stopped at those 4 deer I would have stated that Barnes don’t exit deer and don’t leave blood trails- however the next 30+ all exited, no bullets recovered, and very good blood trails.

 

[PeasantCommoner]

Public land doe opening day, -90 yards
Tikka roughtech ranch 16” 223
Swfa 6x w/ holosun 407a3 , nf rings
Krg echo
Yhm t3 w/ Cole tac cover
Factory Hornady 73gr eld
Found jacket opposite shoulder,
It winced, tried twice to take a step, but couldn’t then fell over.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice!
What mount are you using for the holosun?

 

[np307]

My experience is that for the most part when people say “no blood at all”, there usually is a blood trail- but they aren’t good at trailing and if it isn’t buckets poured out, then it’s “no blood” to them. Not saying this is you to be clear.

I know I'm not the one you were replying to but just want to add that the deer above I used my dog to find, I literally could not find a single spec of blood. Even when I found the deer, it wasn't until I pressed on the chest cavity that a little bit of blood finally appeared.

I've got plenty of experience with bad blood trails from muzzleloaders. The buck I killed during muzzleloader this year has just a pinprick every 6-7 feet for probably 30 yards and then finally the deer was coughing up blood and it got easier to trail.

After the dog found the deer I tried back tracking to the hit site and still found absolutely no blood. Obviously at that point the track is contaminated and it's possible that the dog churned the ground up where the blood was so I can't authoritatively say there wasn't any.

I knew it was a possibility though and I've seen yall say that you usually get blood trails so I'll stick with the tmks a little while and see. I was very happy with the internal damage.

 

[ihookem]

I suck at finding blood. I need buckets or for the deer to drop. I know my limit.
Honestly, i rubbed the #4 deer with my hand to find a hole/blood after i found him and it took me a minute to find the one hole. No joke. Not a drop of blood on his fur.

Deer -Hunter, I took a kid hunting once and he shot a nubby. It ran off and we followed the blood . He used a .270. The blood was fine, but I showed him blood on the grass and he could not see red blood on green at all and hardly could see red at all. Found out he was partly colored blind.

 

[deer_hunter132]

I wish i had the color blind excuse.
Sometimes i have to just get hit with stuff point blank mid face to see it. I cant look at necropsy pics and know what happened either. "Wet behind the ears" as its sometimes known. Im ok with that, im learning, sometimes the hard way unfortunately.
I wil say, having quick follow up shots and knowing others have the same "cant find blood" or deer got away with "larger" calibers (.22/6mm/6.5mm failure thread), i still grabbed the .223 this morning.
Ill keep shooting until i cant see dead deer on the ground.

 

[HandgunHTR]

I am full of questions as it is my first .223 and hoping others will chime in. I haven’t read this entire thread but have looked at a bunch of it and expected more penetration. Still happy with the final result.

Additional info- shot from a high tree stand.

That looks like just part of the jacket. If the offside ribs are bruised, then some bullet fragments made it close to there. Did you take a good look at the lungs to see if there were multiple wounds indicative of bullet fragments?

 

[HandgunHTR]

I know I'm not the one you were replying to but just want to add that the deer above I used my dog to find, I literally could not find a single spec of blood. Even when I found the deer, it wasn't until I pressed on the chest cavity that a little bit of blood finally appeared.

I've got plenty of experience with bad blood trails from muzzleloaders. The buck I killed during muzzleloader this year has just a pinprick every 6-7 feet for probably 30 yards and then finally the deer was coughing up blood and it got easier to trail.

After the dog found the deer I tried back tracking to the hit site and still found absolutely no blood. Obviously at that point the track is contaminated and it's possible that the dog churned the ground up where the blood was so I can't authoritatively say there wasn't any.

I knew it was a possibility though and I've seen yall say that you usually get blood trails so I'll stick with the tmks a little while and see. I was very happy with the internal damage.

I will chime in here and say that the lack of blood on this one was most likely due to the fact that you took out the pump right away. If nothing is pushing the blood out of the arteries, you won't get any into the chest cavity, and nothing will leak out in the very short time the deer was on its feet. I would suspect that if you took some luminol and a black light down there you would find a spray behind where he was standing, but it would be a light mist type spot. After that, he was dead too quickly to get anything else. The fact that you had to push on the chest cavity to get anything out helps prove this theory.

I don't want to get too off topic here, but this exact scenario is another argument for suppressed hunting. While you may not be able to find blood, you will hear them run and crash, so you can reliably know that the deer is down and the general area. It is much easier to grid search a 20-50 yard area then a 50 acre area.

 

[Swamper]

That looks like just part of the jacket. If the offside ribs are bruised, then some bullet fragments made it close to there. Did you take a good look at the lungs to see if there were multiple wounds indicative of bullet fragments?

Unfortunately I did not. Lots of jelly but didnt try to separate anything but the heart. Will keep that in mind for next time and take a closer look.

 

[primarchtimmy]

407 yards with my SPR 20in Wylde Barrel, using 77 ACC TMK. I botched the shot, had winds at 8.5 mph 2 hours before she showed up. Winds were at 13.5, so a double lungs shot. Ended up being a spine shot and it obliterated the tenderloins.

 

[np307]

I will chime in here and say that the lack of blood on this one was most likely due to the fact that you took out the pump right away. If nothing is pushing the blood out of the arteries, you won't get any into the chest cavity, and nothing will leak out in the very short time the deer was on its feet. I would suspect that if you took some luminol and a black light down there you would find a spray behind where he was standing, but it would be a light mist type spot. After that, he was dead too quickly to get anything else. The fact that you had to push on the chest cavity to get anything out helps prove this theory.

I don't want to get too off topic here, but this exact scenario is another argument for suppressed hunting. While you may not be able to find blood, you will hear them run and crash, so you can reliably know that the deer is down and the general area. It is much easier to grid search a 20-50 yard area then a 50 acre area.

Yes, lack of heart pumping contributed to the lack of blood trail. But the lack of an exit wound also heavily contributed to it. I've blown hearts out on deer before with other rifles and still get some level of blood trail.

I also did hear the direction he ran but I don't believe he crashed. The ground was not kicked up where he was laying and he was on his belly with rear legs tucked under him. Also he was facing his back track.

Like I said, I was within a few yards of him a couple times. His direction of travel was within 10 yards of what I marked on GPS immediately after the shot.

Furthermore if you talk to any dog tracker they will tell you that grid searching is the best way to push a gut shot deer and render them unfindable. Without much hit evidence, it's hard to know what kind of hit you're dealing with. The mule kick and the fact that this deer's back half was covered at the shot were the only reasons I gridded at all.

Again, I'm not attacking the tmks. Just giving another data point.