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.