What caused the Rokslide shift to smallest caliber and cartridges?

[roadrunner]

Hurt feelings... I don't have feelings.

In 1984 you don't think there were people killing antelope, deer, and elk and all other western game with the same gun that was in the truck for coyotes? Back then there were 3 kinds of bullets. A FMJ was just for paper, a hollow point was for prairie dogs, and the soft point was for everything else. Every rancher I know kept a 22-250 in every farm truck until the madness of covid killed their ability to buy a box of shells when they went to town for fuel or feed. I knew several kids in high school who's only gun was a 22-250 and they killed everything with it. The 55 grain soft point 0.224 caliber bullet has been killing everything from Alaska to Florida since before 1950. I know this makes you irrational, but it is irregardlessly true. The 55g 0.224" soft point has killed more game than the TMK has since it was designed. Is the 55g sp a better bullet on game than the TMK? That is an entirely different discussion over the fact that the 55g sp has killed more game than the TMK.

Jay

You didn't answer my question. If the 55 gr SP was adequate then, that has now gained 30 more years in age from " in use 40 years", why all the Renaissance excitement for the 77 gr TMK?

If the 55 gr SP has killed so many big game animals, why aren't the "awakened" using it still instead of the TMK? I've read their posts. I know what they've said.

The purpose to this thread is what changed to cause the small caliber revival. So, what caused it? Since the .224 55 gr SP has been so widely used and all...

 

[wind gypsy]

why does the 22 UM exist?

A good question on its own..

 

[Big_wals]

You didn't answer my question. If the 55 gr SP was adequate then, that has now gained 30 more years in age from " in use 40 years", why all the Renaissance excitement for the 77 gr TMK?

A 55 gr soft is still adequate, but a 77 tmk is optimal. I loaded some hornady 55 SPs last winter out of curiosity, shot around a dozen hogs with em. They work great, you just dont have the range you get with a higher bc tmk or eldm.

 

[ORJoe]

The purpose to this thread is what changed to cause the small caliber revival. So, what caused it?

Probably all the pictures.
And the internet being used to spread the specific point that yes, an elk might weigh 900 lbs more than a deer, but the bullet doesn't process the entire 1100 lbs. It just pokes a hole in the living parts and gravity does the rest.

 

[roadrunner]

When someone has to jump to accusing anyone they disagree with of hurt feelings, well that is a pretty sure sign they are not worth the adenosine triphosphate needed to type a reply.

I appreciated reading your reply anyway, and the great reminder that small is not actually new.

Go back and read posts #1622 and #1623.

Nowhere was it said that small calibers were a new thing and nowhere was it said that small calibers weren't effective, but someone sure had to argue about it, and then we'll begin....

 

[roadrunner]

Probably all the pictures.
And the internet being used to spread the specific point that yes, an elk might weigh 900 lbs more than a deer, but the bullet doesn't process the entire 1100 lbs. It just pokes a hole in the living parts and gravity does the rest.

No it doesn't, it just has to make it beyond the thick winter coat entangled with dried mud or dirt, muscle and bone and carry onward into the chest cavity while expanding to dissipate that energy through fragmenting into those living parts to cause lethal damage.

But the design of the bullet to do that doesn't matter as I've learned...

 

[RockAndSage]

You didn't answer my question. If the 55 gr SP was adequate then, that has now gained 30 more years in age from " in use 40 years", why all the Renaissance excitement for the 77 gr TMK?

If the 55 gr SP has killed so many big game animals, why aren't the "awakened" using it still instead of the TMK? I've read their posts. I know what they've said.

The purpose to this thread is what changed to cause the small caliber revival. So, what caused it? Since the .224 55 gr SP has been so widely used and all...

Asked and answered:

What caused the Rokslide shift to smallest caliber and cartridges?

Hurt feelings... 🙄 I don't have feelings. In 1984 you don't think there were people killing antelope, deer, and elk and all other western game with the same gun that was in the truck for coyotes? Back then there were 3 kinds of bullets. A FMJ was just for paper, a hollow point was for...

rokslide.com

 

[roadrunner]

Asked and answered:

What caused the Rokslide shift to smallest caliber and cartridges?

Hurt feelings... 🙄 I don't have feelings. In 1984 you don't think there were people killing antelope, deer, and elk and all other western game with the same gun that was in the truck for coyotes? Back then there were 3 kinds of bullets. A FMJ was just for paper, a hollow point was for...

rokslide.com

So, bullet design does matter. Otherwise, small calibers are, well...what they've always been. Adequate yet limited as emerging technologies allow for more, many by their own admission in posts on the 77 gr TMK.

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As far as the probably more animals killed with a .224 caliber comment earlier, the 30 cal has "probably" done more. Not talking the magnums or '06 either...

 

[Marbles]

Go back and read posts #1622 and #1623.

Nowhere was it said that small calibers were a new thing and nowhere was it said that small calibers weren't effective, but someone sure had to argue about it, and then we'll begin....

Go back and read the post you quoted again, nowhere did it state the posts you reference said small was new. The post was specifically not directed at you, so you should not assume you are the subject of everything in it, particularly when there is a paragraph break and the pieces don't fit.

Of course main character syndrome can be difficult to avoid, particularly in today's society.

 

[Big_wals]

So, bullet design does matter. Otherwise, small calibers are, well...what they've always been. Adequate yet limited as emerging technologies allow for more, many by their own admission in posts on the 77 gr TMK.

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As far as the probably more animals killed with a .224 caliber comment earlier, the 30 cal has "probably" done more. Not talking the magnums or '06 either...

Nobody advocating for smaller calibers has said that bullet design doesn’t matter. The exact opposite is what’s being taught, the very first line in the first post of the 223 thread say “bullets matter more than headstamps”, and then there is a several hundred page thread proving it.

 

[Big_wals]

The only thing that makes smaller calibers relevant is bullet selection. Not just any bullet will work. It's specific, and without it, the small calibers, well...

Whats your point? Even if the 77 tmk was literally the only .224 bullet that would kill big game, everything else “grenaded” on a deers scapula, who cares? Why do you care that a specic bullet works so well?

 

[pathnz]

You didn't answer my question. If the 55 gr SP was adequate then, that has now gained 30 more years in age from " in use 40 years", why all the Renaissance excitement for the 77 gr TMK?

If the 55 gr SP has killed so many big game animals, why aren't the "awakened" using it still instead of the TMK? I've read their posts. I know what they've said.

The purpose to this thread is what changed to cause the small caliber revival. So, what caused it? Since the .224 55 gr SP has been so widely used and all...

.223s with 55gr soft points have been the most widely used round by professional hunters for animal management and commercial meat hunting since the early 1970s in NZ. Commercial harvest numbers are at least 1.6 million deer since 1970. A high percentage of these deer are head or neck shot for minimal meat damage when commercial meat hunting, however the rest are shot through the shoulder/lungs. It works. It is however limited in range and hit probability falls off pretty quickly. The heavy bullets are better.

All the professional hunters I work with still largely use .223s, although many are moving to heavier bullets e.g. 73gr ELDM as they're more effective - the same as the wider shooting world, their general knowledge is slowing improving.

The existence of heavy-for-calibre, aerodynamic, effective .224" bullets is not a new phenomenon either - the 75gr and 80gr Amax were around a long time ago. I was shooting the 75gr Amax with great results back as far as about 2009.

 

[pilgrim7]

It's hard to get over "conventional wisdom" you heard from your dad and uncles around the campfire. The problem is, most of them were just parroting what they had heard from someone else who also likely had little in the way of first hand experience with the subject.

 

[ddowning]

There's 2 that got their feeler's hurt.

If the 55 gr SP's are adequate, why are the shooting messiah's praising the 77 gr TMK's so much?

Don't pretend that what was done "40 years" ago on whitetail back east is the same thing that was done on large western big game at the same time. 55 gr 22 caliber soft point's used on Elk? Bighorn Sheep? Mountain Goats? For reference, that would be 1984.

40 years ago, writers like Jim Zumbo owned the market on big game caliber selection, and we all know what their preferences were. "Fuddlore" I think is the popular term used?

It's funny, really, that when I said bullet design matters, the TMK was the first thing thrown out. I never said anything about it...

Go read the book Alaska's Wolf Man about Frank Glaser. He really liked the 220 Swift and light bullets. It was WAY before 1984. The concept is not new and it does not require modern match bullets. Heavy for caliber, rapid expansion bullets work better because they have high sd's. You get massive damage and penetration. With light bullets, the sd is low and penetration is sometimes lacking.

 

[ddowning]

The ones that were recovered or still intact enough to tell where they were hit were all in the chest/lung area. Lots of damage internally but with one .22 cal hole in they don’t bleed and that makes them difficult to track if they make it more than 100 yards. The one drive he shot 4 times and thought he only killed 2, turns out all 4 were kill shots but the one that dropped within 50 he hit twice, the second one ran 150 yards to where my brother watched it die. The third we found the next day 200 yards in the other direction when someone kicked up some buzzards on another drive.

The big issue is during deer drives when they are hyped up on adrenaline it doesn’t seem to shock them like the larger bullets do and many times they show no indication of a hit continuing to run tail up and uphill with the rest of the group. This makes it difficult to try and track the fatally wounded one out of the group with no blood trail. If he shot one just meandering that wasn’t running or agitated they would either drop or buck and do that dead run dropping within sight so it worked fine for that.

Same issue I had shooting light weight monos out of the 6.5 PRC, I got a ton of damage and they would drop when just shot walking through the woods. However if they were shot during a drive they would carry it for quite a while until they died. The below buck was hit with an 109gr bullet at 3300+ fps and ran around 200 yards before he died, I found him because he didn’t come out the other side of a tree line so I figured he dropped in there. The bloodshot is on the entrance side.

View attachment 750708

I live in what was a shotgun only state. When I started hunting I was the only one that knew how to kill a deer without a deer drive in my group of 20+ people. Deer hit with 20 gauge and 12 gauge slugs also run like they are not hit only to tip over after a bit. It happened with expanding type modern slugs as well as the old foster style. The same thing OCCASIONALLY happens with a smokeless ML that shoots a 300 grain bullet that pretty much grenades at 2700 fps. Deer are just able to run with massive damage at times.

 

[HandgunHTR]

I live in what was a shotgun only state. When I started hunting I was the only one that knew how to kill a deer without a deer drive in my group of 20+ people. Deer hit with 20 gauge and 12 gauge slugs also run like they are not hit only to tip over after a bit. It happened with expanding type modern slugs as well as the old foster style. The same thing OCCASIONALLY happens with a smokeless ML that shoots a 300 grain bullet that pretty much grenades at 2700 fps. Deer are just able to run with massive damage at times.

Especially ones that are already in "Flight-mode" from the drive that is going on.

 

[Bdmunro]

Same issue I had shooting light weight monos out of the 6.5 PRC, I got a ton of damage and they would drop when just shot walking through the woods. However if they were shot during a drive they would carry it for quite a while until they died. The below buck was hit with an 109gr bullet at 3300+ fps and ran around 200 yards before he died, I found him because he didn’t come out the other side of a tree line so I figured he dropped in there. The bloodshot is on the entrance side.

We had some issues with a 6.5 Weatherby Magnum on mule deer. Those bullets we're traveling so fast and would zip right through occasionally without causing a ton of damage. This resulted in a "Did you hit it" scenario more than once. One deer didn't seem to react at all. Just kept walking over the rise. Eventually we did find a dead on the other side.

 

[Mountainrancher]

We had some issues with a 6.5 Weatherby Magnum on mule deer. Those bullets we're traveling so fast and would zip right through occasionally without causing a ton of damage. This resulted in a "Did you hit it" scenario more than once. One deer didn't seem to react at all. Just kept walking over the rise. Eventually we did find a dead on the other side.

What bullet was it? Generally speaking “bullets traveling so fast they zip right through” is what people would call fudd lore. Velocity initiates expansion/fragmentation. They might of over expanded back to caliber size or sheared petals leaving a very small shank to travel the rest of the way through the animal, but I highly doubt they didn’t expand at all if that is what your inferring.

 

[Reburn]

What bullet was it? Generally speaking “bullets traveling so fast they zip right through” is what people would call fudd lore. Velocity initiates expansion/fragmentation. They might of over expanded back to caliber size or sheared petals leaving a very small shank to travel the rest of the way through the animal, but I highly doubt they didn’t expand at all if that is what your inferring.

While I would say you are right 99.9% of the time. There are bullets that dont give reliable expansion and sometimes expand very little and / or very late or just completely act like FMJ. I cant remember which ones but I know I have asked about a bunch of bullets and been told that on some of them. Please forgive me I save memory space for the ones that DO work and why / how they work.

 

[pathnz]

While I would say you are right 99.9% of the time. There are bullets that dont give reliable expansion and sometimes expand very little and / or very late or just completely act like FMJ. I cant remember which ones but I know I have asked about a bunch of bullets and been told that on some of them. Please forgive me I save memory space for the ones that DO work and why / how they work.

In no case will a higher impact velocity for the same bullet result in less expansion/deformation c.f. a lower impact velocity.