Deer hunting with an ar.

[dennishoddy]

Ok SoonerP226, back to you.
[emoji91]

 

[Long Barrel 44]

A good carpenter would use the right size hammer.

Lol. True so very true.

 

[steelfingers]

Shot placement yes, but if I knew I might be reaching out to that distance I would have taken a different caliber or did the work and got closer. Not sure I would ever use the AR platform for hunting for a lot of reasons. I have used a 223 bolt action rifle and it worked just fine but not the rifle of my choice for deer hunting.

 

[Oklahomabassin]

My AR is chambered for 6.8. It's a great round for mid-sized game, but the ammo can be expensive and hard to find.

Bought a bunch (1k) of Federal XM68 90 grain bonded soft point for $.46/round shipped to my door. I could easily get $30/100 selling the once fired brass. That is cheap and affordable hunting ammo.

Ha! To the guy that needs a bigger gun than 6.8 for deer, needs more time practicing at the range. I killed 3 deer, 1 hog and 1 coyote. 4 of those were head shot, one in the vitals. NONE stepped another step.

 

[dennishoddy]

Its all about the choice of bullet, and placement. Nothing different than any other caliber.

WAY BACK in the day, saw a guy shoot a doe with a .458 Winchester Magnum. Shot was too far back, and he lost her because there was no blood trail.

The most successful elephant hunter in history, W.D.M. Bell used a 7x57mm rifle to kill hundreds of elephants as he was an advocate of shot placement over big bore power for killing efficiently.

Walter Bell killed 1,011 elephants in the course of his career.

In my past, I was in the boat of big caliber for big animals. Not any more after personally doing autopsy's on more deer than I can count and seeing what small caliber high velocity rounds do to innards.

All that said above relates to deer sized animals using .22 caliber ammo like the OP was wondering about, like the .223, .22-250, etc. Speed kills.

 

[Tumbleweed]

Bought a bunch (1k) of Federal XM68 90 grain bonded soft point for $.46/round shipped to my door. I could easily get $30/100 selling the once fired brass. That is cheap and affordable hunting ammo.

Ha! To the guy that needs a bigger gun than 6.8 for deer, needs more time practicing at the range. I killed 3 deer, 1 hog and 1 coyote. 4 of those were head shot, one in the vitals. NONE stepped another step.

I'm a 6.8 fan also. I have killed 3 deer with different 6.8 rifles and all shots performed great. See my post in the deer gun season contest thread. I got my first suppressed kill with my 6.8 this year. I have friends that have used 5.56 ARs to kill deer with no problem, but I like a bit more caliber.

Oklahomabassin, If you don't have a steady buyer for your once fired brass I'll buy it off you. I'm assuming it's most/all federal.