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

Well so far ive done 2 of the mamba 10 round mags and they both feed well with 75 eldms, I dont know if you could go alot more without running into follower issues but so far these feed. Will put them to the test beating the dog crap out of them coyote hunting soon.
 

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Before I buy a CTR in 223, does anyone know the CTR 223 magazine load to length? Just curious if the allow you to go longer than the standard magazine.

Jay
 
Killed a cow elk this past Saturday. Was a fun hunt on the shoulder season.

Shot with my hand loaded 77 TMK at 220 yards. Put the bullet right where it should have gone. She bolted with the others and laid down within about 40 yards.

Could see no blood on the entrance or off side in the field. Thick coat on her was part of it I guess. When quartering we found the entrance right between the ribs. The bullet started doing its thing in soft tissue. Soup for the most part. The bullet fragmented, which I thought was odd, and made two exit holes. One about a half inch, the other smaller. All of the bullet stayed within the hide.

That makes five kills with the RSS pea shooter. I like this thing.
 
Got into a few pigs Friday afternoon and had something kind of weird happen. Wondered if anyone had ever seen a bullet perform this way.
Bullet was a hornady 55g sp from a facory round. Shot was 60ish yards. This was the 3rd pig I shot so they were moving and I hit her back from where I intended to. When we skinned her we found the wound channel. Below is a Pic of the entrance. It looks like an exit but it's not. Found the exit on the opposite side and it is relatively small, about the diameter of a pencil. Didnt get pics on it. I assume the jacket separated very quickly and the core pushed on through and exited. Wound channel just looks backward. Lungs were a shredded mess and spine was severed. Cant remember ever seeing a bullet behave this way. Good is good. She's dead and already been in the smoker but I was curious if anyone had seen this.
 

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Got into a few pigs Friday afternoon and had something kind of weird happen. Wondered if anyone had ever seen a bullet perform this way.
Bullet was a hornady 55g sp from a facory round. Shot was 60ish yards. This was the 3rd pig I shot so they were moving and I hit her back from where I intended to. When we skinned her we found the wound channel. Below is a Pic of the entrance. It looks like an exit but it's not. Found the exit on the opposite side and it is relatively small, about the diameter of a pencil. Didnt get pics on it. I assume the jacket separated very quickly and the core pushed on through and exited. Wound channel just looks backward. Lungs were a shredded mess and spine was severed. Cant remember ever seeing a bullet behave this way. Good is good. She's dead and already been in the smoker but I was curious if anyone had seen this.
See this a lot with the ELD-M’s in my experience, at least with the 75gr, 140gr, and 180gr, with the entrance being larger than the exit.
 
Got into a few pigs Friday afternoon and had something kind of weird happen. Wondered if anyone had ever seen a bullet perform this way.
Bullet was a hornady 55g sp from a facory round. Shot was 60ish yards. This was the 3rd pig I shot so they were moving and I hit her back from where I intended to. When we skinned her we found the wound channel. Below is a Pic of the entrance. It looks like an exit but it's not. Found the exit on the opposite side and it is relatively small, about the diameter of a pencil. Didnt get pics on it. I assume the jacket separated very quickly and the core pushed on through and exited. Wound channel just looks backward. Lungs were a shredded mess and spine was severed. Cant remember ever seeing a bullet behave this way. Good is good. She's dead and already been in the smoker but I was curious if anyone had seen this.
Yeah. Frangible bullets seem to cause a wound like that
 
See this a lot with the ELD-M’s in my experience, at least with the 75gr, 140gr, and 180gr, with the entrance being larger than the exit.
Had a couple of deer we shot with 147s this year that neither hole was very noticeable. Wonder if they had the same type wounds and the hide was keeping it from being obvious. May try a 73g eldm from the 223 on one of these pigs and see what happens.
 
Yeah. Frangible bullets seem to cause a wound like that
I knew the 55s were fairly soft. Would have thought they would penetrate a bit further before really expanding. They were textbook on the only deer I shot with them this year. Tougher hide may have made it upset earlier I guess?
 
I knew the 55s were fairly soft. Would have thought they would penetrate a bit further before really expanding. They were textbook on the only deer I shot with them this year. Tougher hide may have made it upset earlier I guess?
Hard to know. I’m not super familiar with that bullet. But when I switched to more frangible bullets it did take a while to see the shot side wound into chest cavity bigger than the offside.
 
Had a couple of deer we shot with 147s this year that neither hole was very noticeable. Wonder if they had the same type wounds and the hide was keeping it from being obvious. May try a 73g eldm from the 223 on one of these pigs and see what happens.
May depend on whether or not you hit a rib on the way in or not as well.
 
I have a RSS and it loves 73 Eldm's and shoot a lot of deer with it. I also use a 16" AR for hunting with TMKs but it is like 11+ lbs. Therefore, I want to use my BCM 12.5" AR more as my general purpose ranch rifle. It would be more maneuverable in the SXS and blind with a can and much lighter. On our property it is hard to get a shot over 350 yard so the 12.5" makes sense. Most shots are <150. The best the stock BCM barrel does is 2.5" 5 shot groups. Most groups are over 3", and I'd like it to be 1.5" or less. I also want to shoot 62 grain gold dot handholds in the 12.5". (I like to smoke pig shoulders and the tmks and eld's do some damage to shoulders.) Can anyone suggest a replacement 12.5" AR barrel that is known for better accuracy than the BCM? Also does anyone have a pet load for the 62 GD using TAC or XBR...and what is a good BC to use for the 62 gold dot? Speer lists one that I believe is way to optimistic for that bullet.

Also, sorry for the convoluted post. I just finished an intense 3 person panel interview and my brain is wrecked.
 
I have a RSS and it loves 73 Eldm's and shoot a lot of deer with it. I also use a 16" AR for hunting with TMKs but it is like 11+ lbs. Therefore, I want to use my BCM 12.5" AR more as my general purpose ranch rifle. It would be more maneuverable in the SXS and blind with a can and much lighter. On our property it is hard to get a shot over 350 yard so the 12.5" makes sense. Most shots are <150. The best the stock BCM barrel does is 2.5" 5 shot groups. Most groups are over 3", and I'd like it to be 1.5" or less. I also want to shoot 62 grain gold dot handholds in the 12.5". (I like to smoke pig shoulders and the tmks and eld's do some damage to shoulders.) Can anyone suggest a replacement 12.5" AR barrel that is known for better accuracy than the BCM? Also does anyone have a pet load for the 62 GD using TAC or XBR...and what is a good BC to use for the 62 gold dot? Speer lists one that I believe is way to optimistic for that bullet.

Also, sorry for the convoluted post. I just finished an intense 3 person panel interview and my brain is wrecked.
I had a 12.5” criterion core barrel that I used to build an upper for buddy and it’s been doing great for him — usually <1.5” with anything better than bulk ammo and quite fast for its length too
 
I have a RSS and it loves 73 Eldm's and shoot a lot of deer with it. I also use a 16" AR for hunting with TMKs but it is like 11+ lbs. Therefore, I want to use my BCM 12.5" AR more as my general purpose ranch rifle. It would be more maneuverable in the SXS and blind with a can and much lighter. On our property it is hard to get a shot over 350 yard so the 12.5" makes sense. Most shots are <150. The best the stock BCM barrel does is 2.5" 5 shot groups. Most groups are over 3", and I'd like it to be 1.5" or less. I also want to shoot 62 grain gold dot handholds in the 12.5". (I like to smoke pig shoulders and the tmks and eld's do some damage to shoulders.) Can anyone suggest a replacement 12.5" AR barrel that is known for better accuracy than the BCM? Also does anyone have a pet load for the 62 GD using TAC or XBR...and what is a good BC to use for the 62 gold dot? Speer lists one that I believe is way to optimistic for that bullet.

Also, sorry for the convoluted post. I just finished an intense 3 person panel interview and my brain is wrecked.
I have a sionics reduced gas port 12.5 inch barrel, I’m getting ~1.6 moa 10 shot groups with 73 elds. I also is gassed better with a can too.
 
Well so far ive done 2 of the mamba 10 round mags and they both feed well with 75 eldms, I dont know if you could go alot more without running into follower issues but so far these feed. Will put them to the test beating the dog crap out of them coyote hunting soon.
Shot my first match with the mambas this weekend... plagued with major feeding issues the whole thing 🤣 seems like the follower binds up when your running it hard causing failures... back to the drawing board
 
Shot my first match with the mambas this weekend... plagued with major feeding issues the whole thing 🤣 seems like the follower binds up when your running it hard causing failures... back to the drawing board
That sucks.

I thought the mamba mags were the answer for 10 rounders.

Hope you get it sorted out.
 
Shot my first match with the mambas this weekend... plagued with major feeding issues the whole thing 🤣 seems like the follower binds up when your running it hard causing failures... back to the drawing board
That’s interesting, we all used mamba mags at S2H and were shooting thousands of rounds of 223 collectively with the mamba mags and I don’t recall a single issue in those 5 days. I have two of my own that have been flawless.

Makes me wonder if you got a bad one? Is it a factory Tikka?
 
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