Deer Hunting with the .223 Remington

The .223 Remington is one of the most popular cartridges in the United States. Deer hunting is the most popular form of hunting in the United States. Put these two factors together and sooner or later hunters are going to hit the woods with their .223 Remington in pursuit of deer. While the .223 Remington is far from ideal for deer hunting it is not as ridiculous as many maintain. Let's take a look at the numbers.

The general rule of thumb is that a cartridge needs to produce 1000 foot pounds of energy at a given distance to effectively take a whitetail deer. The .223 Remington firing a 60 grain Nosler Partition as loaded by Federal produces 3160 feet per second at the muzzle and 1330 foot pounds of energy. The energy at 100 yards is 998 foot pounds and at 200 yards is 736 foot pounds. (Ballistics from federalpremium.com) While this level of energy is not impressive to say the least, let's look at the numbers of the 30-30 Winchester. The 30-30 Winchester is a great deer cartridge that has filled innumerable tags over the years, yet its ballistics are not spectacular either. The 30-30 Winchester fires a 150 grain bullet at 2390 feet per second and generates 1902 foot pounds of energy. At 100 and 200 yards the energy numbers are 1296 and 858. While the 30-30 Winchester does produce better numbers than the .223 Remington, the difference is not that significant. (30-30 ballistics from remington.com) And then there is my .45 Flintlock whose round balls barely generate 1000 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle, yet has killed about 20 deer. And then there are all the deer that fell to the .25-20 and .32-20 Winchester and the .44-40 Winchester, none of which even come close to 1000 foot pounds at the muzzle. While ballistics are interesting and are useful as a basis of comparison, they do not tell the whole story.

With a proper bullet at a proper distance shot into the proper area, the .223 Remington will take deer just fine. While I have never killed a deer with a .223 Remington, I have seen a hunting companion take many with the .222 Remington. Use a Nosler Partition or other sturdy bullet, keep your shots to about 150 yards, and place the bullet properly into the lungs and the .223 Remington will work fine in the deer woods. While other light kicking guns such as the .243 Winchester, .260 Remington, or 30-30 Winchester are far superior choices, if you have no other choice use your .223 Remington with confidence.