Enough gun

[Treeman]

I have been wanting to hunt using a less than adequate caliber for some time now, but morals and ethics have stopped that from happening.
Cody too has been wanting to hunt a Impala with a .22 and I have been telling him its wrong. I have heard myself saying things like "its wrong to do so if you have a better means of killing" - "its a living thing my boy, not a fun and games toy" ETc ETC. BUT ! still the challenge and thought of "I can do it" remains.

Cody has his first rifle still, a ruger .233 with a 20 inch barrel and it is now our cheap shooter which gets just a bit less than the .22 down the barrel - like 100 shots a go. This .223 is fed bulk buy Hornady bullets which I buy at a 1000 per purchase, V Max and Sierra GK 63 gr bullets. The VMax bullets were used for vermin control and the GK bullets for a 7 year olds first animals, Duiker and Duiker and a small w/hog or 3.

I have tuned the loads for all 3 bullets to be within 5 mm horizontally and 4.5 cm vertically - the VMax is 4.5 + and the GK is 3 cm + at 100 m

On this last hunt I took my old 303 along as my bit of a challenge rifle  , but when we got there there was a issue, the scope seems to have died and I can not hit a A 4 page at 100 m. 10 shots later i got the message, scope is ISM, not gonna fix that here and now.
I looked at the 223 and tried to recall all the game shot with it and the results, I reasoned about shot placement and a hole through heart is a whole through heart, its dead - you do not get degrees of dead.

So to cut it short, I shot a impala at about 80 - 100 m.  The shot was perhaps a bit further back than perfect, but far from a bad shot(hanging in photo it looks further back than when leg is in normal position).The shot also was not a good shot, by far. High and back end of both lungs. The 7-08 or .270 would have been  no more than 30 m run same shot.
When the shot sounded, I heard the hit and watched the herd run off, they did an away and cross back in front of me 200 m down run off. Somewhere in the run the ram disappeared, or did it ? - Not sure?

I called the dog up and started a track, but the wind made her do frustrating things, and many a time I thought she was just doing dog things, playing. Going 150 m forward was a 600 m snaking back forth matter, down wind - across, up wind, across, almost back to start 

The animal was found 150 m max from POI and it was lying down. The animal jumped up and darted when we got to it, this run went about 700 m further with a clear by eye blood trail being left along the way. Cody jogged ahead with the dog and I did a by eye follow up after the animal. It was found standing and Cody shot it again - F**** up my perfect meat shot animal with his 7 mm meat mincer.
My shot was as far back as feasible, it was also only taken when I could enter and exit without hitting a leg, the 7 mm just blew it all apart .

Point of post.
If one looks in the photo, the 5.56  GK bullet  exited at about 12 mm or more diameter, it hit both lungs far back - a shot that using an appropriate caliber would caused far quicker death.
 The "enough gun" statement is quite clear to me.

I have not included an entrance photo as there is nothing to see, no hole so to say.

Exit wound with 7 mm damage almost visible to left.
20241019_224420 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

Exit wound, not bad meat damage with 7 mm results seen to left.
20241020_094940 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

Entrance from inside with finger through hole.
20241020_095018 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

[Againstthegrains]

This is my exact gripe about hunting with smaller calibers. It is a general rule, that the less damage done, the longer the animal takes to die. There is no cut off, its a relationship that exists, and the hunter must choose what is an acceptable level of suffering vs recoil and meat damage.

For some the cut off is .243win, others 6.5 Creedmoore and others think 7mm is the minimum.

[Tripodmvr]

I have very limited knowledge of the efficacy of the 6,5mm when it comes to killing ability. From other sources it seems to do well up to hartebeest size game, but even with a 6,5PRC the quick kill rate on a Blue WB seems to be lacking. From my own experience the 270, 7mm and .30 calibres perform well on the bigger antelope. I have shot two Impala with my 223 using 53gr Barnes TSX. I broke the spine on one and killed the other with a heart/lung shot. Penetration was through the chest to under the skin. Very little blood and luckily it was fairly open and I spotted the carcass whilst searching. With Impala I will in future not use less than a 243. My go to rifles are the 7x64 and 30-06 for bushveld hunting and I stick to monometal bullets.

[Treeman]

I will so to say, for research purposes shoot another Impala with the 223, I can not make any deductions from one animal. As clear as the result is, I still find it hard to believe.

Cody and I did a decent look into this animal and something he said made sense. "Dad the bullet damaged the lungs enough to cause it to die, it didn't destroy the lungs killing it" This ties up with my old statement on Gun Site regarding calibers and bullet types. " The wound caused it to die, it did not kill the animal, only caused it to die" Cody may have heard me say this on occasion before.

My next question is, if I had used, say a V-Max bullet, would it have killed faster than the hold together well and exit Game King bullet ?

[Tripodmvr]

My next question is, if I had used, say a V-Max bullet, would it have killed faster than the hold together well and exit Game King bullet ?

You might have 80% good shot placement and DRT kills. If you however hit bone then your quarry might not be found with the superficial wound that will be created due to bullet fragmentation. I would rather use a stronger built that will damage the lungs and possibly arteries and the heart. I would still advise a larger calibre and not take a risky shot with a 223 bullet (aka ertjiepit, pisdruppel)

[Ds J]

Gregor Woods is said to prefer his 375 H&H to hunt. When asked why, he apparently states that things tend to fall over.

[oafpatroll]

Shooting animals with a sub-optimal calibre when you don't have to strikes me as en ethically questionable thing to do.

[Treeman]

Shooting animals with a sub-optimal calibre when you don't have to strikes me as en ethically questionable thing to do.

************************************
The subject, terminal ballistics cause and affect and its related matters have been of great interest to me for more than 20 years. In my search for answers I have collect boards of recovered bullets and information, which I use often to advocate bullets and caliber choice to others. I am involved with the development of a monolithic bullet at present and two in the past, one of which is on the market at present. (likely the biggest manufacturer)
I am involved at present in the development of an lead core bullet and have been before with other makes. All these bullets after bench and target trials need terminal performance measured many times and many ways. We have just realized that the monolithic bullet we working on works wonderfully at the range, but has an habit of not working on an animal at unpredictable intervals. Deepening, widening and even shaping the front hole had great to dismally ineffective affect to consistency. It was later reasoned that the only thing left was the material and that it seems is the answer, the alloy is 100 x more important than the shape or the exspansion hole it appears.
Back to shooting the Impala, I want to know a lot of things, things like you mentioned and Oom Drie about fragmenting bullets versus penetration bullets or both like the GS Custom bullets (which I also tested and opinioned over the years).
Gerrie claimed his .223 bullets were more than adequate for Impala and Blesbuck, I only tested .270 and .458 back then, so I do not know.
The Sierra Game King at about 2900 fps entered and exited behind the shoulders.
 I do not believe it would have made it through one side shoulder and do enough damage.(I am not willing to test this  on a free range animal)
I do believe the GS Custom could enter and exit a large Impala both shoulders, but what would the internal damage be ? Would it be enough for a clean kill ?
The Americans use .223 for Whitetail ?
Using a "enough caliber and weight" bullet may kill it more outright, but one can not measure performance after the point of enough. We now come to the point of which smaller caliber bullet kills faster, this or that ? why ? and this can then be applied to the larger caliber.
I am saying, a cannon ball through the chest kills a man outright, with this we know a kg of steel kills a man dead, we can not measure if a softer steel or shaped ball kills him deader.
If we use a 100 gr ball he dies after 10 minutes. We test a softer ball and find he dies after 6 minutes and then a expanding ball and so on, we can measure the results - terminal ballistics.
I have not really sat down and gone through this shot and its results yet, but I believe my conclusions will be pretty much as suggested above and written before by others.
I am interest in the application of this caliber for "semi culling" where one goes out at night mainly, and removes a few animals from a herd, say small farm or state kind of application. Head shots are not a consideration because a head shot wounding on an estate or golf coarse will make you very famous very fast.
So I am wondering, if I made a .223 bullet that was soft, but not fragmenting, that flattened but held together, would it have an application ? - would it work ?

Like most of these gun, shooting, hunting thoughts, this will likely come to a no usable information ending.

Perhaps I can deduct enough from the one animal shot, perhaps not. The subject and its implementation is still a fascinating matter to me.

[Treeman]

Another question nagging me? If we used a, say 100 g .223 bullet, would it be more effective ? Say a soft 100 g bullet that folded over easily at 100 g velocities - if it expanded to half its length, that would make for a large surface area indeed.
Would that make the .223 a better killer or just a more easily through and through caliber?

How much of the inefficiency of the .223 can be attributed to 55 g bullets and how much attributed to .223 diameter ?

[oafpatroll]

I don't get the motivation. Why would one want to use a calibre like 223 on African game animals? Beyond satisfying ones curiosity I'm not getting the potential benefits.

[Ds J]

Speed kills. Point. That is due to the shockwave, or something along that line. My brother worked on a game farm and shot everything with a 25-06. Why? Because the animals tended to die quickly. In another thread, Treeman mentioned that double speed quadruples the momentum. This must count for something.

Larger holes kill as well. That is due to massive blood loss.

Combine the two - large holes at high speed (338, 375 etc) it makes for very fast kills.

[Treeman]

The part that it always comes back to is damage - destruction kills.
Now to keep the damage contained, like would it not be nice if one could have a coke can size peripheral meat damage and a nice clean kill, or even better a nice hole through animal and no bloody bruised mess at all around it.
From this one .223 animal it would look like bruising is related to caliber, the wider the bore the wider the bruising. The bruising was there alright, but it seems proportional.

[Treeman]

I don't get the motivation. Why would one want to use a calibre like 223 on African game animals? Beyond satisfying ones curiosity I'm not getting the potential benefits.

*********************
In the pursuit of a better bullet, caliber etc, do we follow velocity, or do we follow caliber, or is it mass that counts ?
If a quick kill is all that is required, recoil, meat damage, economy did not matter it would be easy - build a 70 cal vehicle mounted hunting rifle.
Since there are woman that hunt, children, smaller persons and propellant, copper, lead cost by weight. Since carrying big guns around ain't fun and blowing your meat to pieces is not the goal, there are folk that have an interest in better bullets, less recoil and less meat damage, thats how we got to bonded bullets and heavier or lighter bullets, high SD smaller bullets that have replaced the 8 mm and the .375 and the 30 06 in many applications. The new generation 6.5 and 7 mm bullets that outshoot their bigger parent cases, all derived from field observations.
I admit I am at hobby level in my inquiries and tests, but you asked why.
I do it because I am interested, very interested.
In 1995 to about 1999 all I had was a musgrave .223 and older wealthier associates that allowed me to tag along.I had recovered tens of animals for these corporate men before I shot my first own animal. Impala, Bushbuck and Kudu all tracked down and ended with a .223
One day a Telkom big boy had big clients from all over the country down for a Kudu hunt, 3 days later they all had nothing, so Johan said they cant go home empty handed and I should go shoot them something. " You know that gun I see hey? Can you shoot some Kudu?" So he and I in Land Cruiser went to get Kudu for the clients.
That was my first hunt so to say, instead of tapping on the roof and trying to show the client the animal, i got top tap and shoot. I got 3 kudu in about the same hours, look away and behind ear to far side eye (it was a game farm and easy shooting).
I still remember to this day, every . 223 wound had a jacket in it, core separation - that's where it all started, the interest.

[Treeman]

I don't get the motivation. Why would one want to use a calibre like 223 on African game animals? Beyond satisfying ones curiosity I'm not getting the potential benefits.

******************************
Oaf, I have hunted a really lot of animals now, and so to speak it has become a matter of if I see it it is very likely a matter of if I want to or not - not if I can or not. That may sound show offish, but not meant as that, its just practice has been very available to me.
I have started handgun hunting to up the challenge, this is also a matter of why if there are better weapons than a .44 black hawk.
I have moved way back now on the rifles and I am working on hunting using only lead cast bullets. I am busy with a bloke to try make a better bullet there as well, but again, why use lead at 1200 fps when same rifle can launch a mono at 3000 fps.
Oaf, I can not answer that question even to myself in a way I like, I need, like, enjoy, live for the hunt and the challenge. I am and have always been an animals rights for lack of better words kinda guy, I hate tim Wells for what he represents, yet is my slightly different approach any better? Tim wells hunts stuff with blow pipes and other unethical ways, I really do dislike him, but then i say a bow is OK ?
So I have no valid answer to you.

[Ds J]

The answer lies in the challenge, but with borders. See if I can do it - even with a marginal calibre - because I know how to and am also capable of doing so under most given circumstances.

If that particular shot had been where it was intended, the animal would have  expired much sooner.