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

Joined
Nov 3, 2017
Messages
1,600
Location
AK
Where are people getting loaded ammo from? Anything in AK? I’ll be headed to L48 in a couple weeks so I can ship to where I’m going and fly home with it too if anywhere has it ready to ship.

Headed out west wolf hunting in April on snow machine. Talked to my hunting buddy last night and he already saw bear tracks while flying this weekend. Don’t want to carry two rifles and plan to bring an AR w/ a 16” 1:8 for our primary target. If I can find some pills, I’ll test this theory on Brown Bears inside 300 yds if the opportunity arises. But I do not load and will be too busy to learn to load my own in the given time, so does anyone have an easy button?
Welp, we gave it a shot. Ordered ammo based off some recommendations here (thanks) and picked it up in L48 few weeks ago. Got all sighted in and went west last Sunday. It was -10F when I landed. Wind blew for two days and air temp hit -13 Tuesday morning. We spent all Tuesday morning digging and thawing out the plane and building a runway to go see if we could locate any bears or wolves. Five hours of flying and not a single bear or bear track spotted. Weather must’ve scared em back in. Fine line of needing it nice enough to get animals out and cold enough to maintain snow. Found a pack of 10 wolves and had plans to chase them, but the next 3 days brought ground blizzards with gusts up to 50 mph. We will give the 77TMK brown bear run another shot next year!
 

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ShaneMo

FNG
Joined
Apr 9, 2024
Messages
4
Very informative thread (obviously). I started from the beginning and got to page 64 or so before joining Rokslide. .223 bolt gun in my near future. At the moment what ammo would you guys recommend for deer out of 1:9 twist 16” AR. Shout out to all contributors for the education.
 

ianpadron

WKR
Joined
Feb 3, 2016
Messages
1,951
Location
Montana
The new Howa Mini is a shooter. The micro action plus factory threaded barrel, coupled with the fact I could put a barreled action into a Stockys stock for the same price as a factory Tikka, made it a pretty easy decision.

First shot to get on paper was about 5 mils low and 1.5 left, made an adjustment...

Resulted in top hole. Quick windage adjustment and shot the far right...felt pretty sure about my adjustment so shot again, still right.

One more tweak, center punch, then 4 more as fast as I could cycle the bolt just because I was having so much fun. First time shooting a suppressed .223....what a trip.

Really appreciate the fellas who have provided insight and advice on this and related threads. I've seen my shooting improve 10 fold in the last year and a half, and am sure the .223 will help keep the skills sharp.

Ammo was AAC 77 grain OTMs in 5.56, can't beat that for $10.99 a box.
 

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ShaneMo

FNG
Joined
Apr 9, 2024
Messages
4
The new Howa Mini is a shooter. The micro action plus factory threaded barrel, coupled with the fact I could put a barreled action into a Stockys stock for the same price as a factory Tikka, made it a pretty easy decision.

First shot to get on paper was about 5 mils low and 1.5 left, made an adjustment...

Resulted in top hole. Quick windage adjustment and shot the far right...felt pretty sure about my adjustment so shot again, still right.

One more tweak, center punch, then 4 more as fast as I could cycle the bolt just because I was having so much fun. First time shooting a suppressed .223....what a trip.

Really appreciate the fellas who have provided insight and advice on this and related threads. I've seen my shooting improve 10 fold in the last year and a half, and am sure the .223 will help keep the skills sharp.

Ammo was AAC 77 grain OTMs in 5.56, can't beat that for $10.99 a box.
The Howa 1500 is top of my list so far. I can’t seem to find any tmk ammo available other than in a box of 500.
 

FCCDerek

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jan 15, 2020
Messages
170
Location
North Idaho
Got a really good deal on this Rem 700 in 223. I've got a Pork Sword folding chassis coming for it and 1000 77TMK's to load for it. It's got a Timney trigger, 2.5-15 Trijicon Credo HX scope, Area 419 scope base, Seekins rings, and a Griffin Armament suppressor. She's a sweet shooter. I've only ran factory ammo through it so far but the Sig MK262 clone ammo printed sub moa groups through ten strings of fire. Should be a solid rifle. I've got Varget and StaBall 6.5 to use with it. Anyone used either of those for loading 223? I've never loaded 223 before. Only 224 cal I've loaded is 22CM.
Rem 223.jpg
 

kkp005

WKR
Joined
Jan 4, 2021
Messages
389
Location
Texas
Got a really good deal on this Rem 700 in 223. I've got a Pork Sword folding chassis coming for it and 1000 77TMK's to load for it. It's got a Timney trigger, 2.5-15 Trijicon Credo HX scope, Area 419 scope base, Seekins rings, and a Griffin Armament suppressor. She's a sweet shooter. I've only ran factory ammo through it so far but the Sig MK262 clone ammo printed sub moa groups through ten strings of fire. Should be a solid rifle. I've got Varget and StaBall 6.5 to use with it. Anyone used either of those for loading 223? I've never loaded 223 before. Only 224 cal I've loaded is 22CM.
View attachment 698805
I use Varget / 77 tmk’s in a tikka and have excellent accuracy
 
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