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For a ute, will a .223 suffice for a deer?
thanks

.223 Has killed many a deer. Good shot placement goes a long way.

Yes.. Federal makes 4 different whitetail rounds..

http://www.federalpremium.com/products/rifle.aspx

55 gr middle of body behind shoulder just watch where it goes ..want be any blood but will pile up in bout 40 -50 yds...jelly on the inside... Bri has put a many of them down with her 223

Loaded with 53gr Barnes bullets it's murder on deer

Shot placement is crucial. Trust me on this...

That's all my dad hunts with. Shoot them behind the head or neck

I'm actually working on a load with the .224 70gr Barnes tsx now. You'll need a faster twist to stabilize it though. 1-8 or 1-7

I've shot a couple and so has my wife with my .223. In the neck will obviously kill them. In the ribs as mentioned is devastating as well. I use 50gr V-Max exclusively with my .223 because that's what it likes. It's definitely not the right choice if you are specifically using it on deer. If you are off just a bit, you will only injure a deer. All deer I've shot were in the neck. My wife shot one in the ribs and as mentioned, it went 20 yards and piled up. Not a drop of blood. A tiny bit of hair where it was standing, but that was it. But inside it looked like a bomb went off.

Cwink mentioned much better bullet choices. Nosler makes a partition bullet that would be much safer. Even still, if you can, move up to a .243. It is a much safer choice. Especially for a youngster just starting out. It's easy to say bullet placement is key, but if a nice buck comes out, veteran hunters will struggle at times to hit a target as small as the effective kill zones you are talking about with a .223. A .243 with a big game bullet will hold up much better if you hit the shoulder and a big deer.

.223 is just fine for deer, dont let anybody tell you any different........amazes me how many people think you need a large caliber gun to kill deer with.......load them up and let them have fun!

Hell for the most part,it'll kill the hell out of the Taliban

adame wrote:Hell for the most part,it'll kill the hell out of the Taliban

I was thinking about the same thing. And a Taliban is much bigger than a deer.

(Plus they're easier to clean and the season ended on them yesterday. )

Baby girl shoots a handi with federal premium 60 gr Nosler Partition. She is 3 of 3. complete pass thru on all. inside looks like it was hit with 30-06!

Monte64us wrote:Baby girl shoots a handi with federal premium 60 gr Nosler Partition. She is 3 of 3. complete pass thru on all. inside looks like it was hit with 30-06!

it is all in the bullet tumble. That is why makes it so nasty.

adame wrote:

Monte64us wrote:Baby girl shoots a handi with federal premium 60 gr Nosler Partition. She is 3 of 3. complete pass thru on all. inside looks like it was hit with 30-06!

it is all in the bullet tumble. That is why makes it so nasty.

60 Grain bullets should not tumble out of any standard 223. If it did tumble you would not get complete pass thru. Once you get close to 70 grain bullets they may start to tumble because the rifling in the barrel is not fast enough to stabilize the bullet. This is something that YOU DO NOT WANT. If you see this on paper targets you need to shoot a smaller grain bullet.

The .223 should pass through on all deer if you are using a well constructed bullet designed for deer. You are shooting a 22 caliber round traveling at about 3,300 FPS. A small projectile traveling at high speed will penetrate more than a larger one when using the same bullet construction.