Small Game, Predator and TrappingFrom shooting squirrels in your backyard to calling coyotes in Arizona. This forum now contains trapping information..
I think the "rimfire for coyotes" quote/unquote debate is very similar to the cartrdige debate for hogs. There are guys out there that have been knocking down hogs for generations with small caliber, small cartridges, with well placed shots behind the ear. Then there's the other half that treats a hog like any other big game, taking vitals zone shots, needing a heavy 30cal to punch through their fatty, gristly shield. Both work, but you hear the 30cal guys knocking the 22cal guys year after year, saying they're undergunned.
But it's hard to argue with dead hogs...
For coyotes, there's the 22CF guys that keep preaching that no RF is big enough. In my experience, if you ask these guys where to shoot a dog, again, they revert to their big game mentality, "shoot em in the vitals". It's a no-brainer that a .17HMR won't likely penetrate and produce an exit wound on a dog at 300yrds, but nobody's talking about that range. At 100yrds, putting a 17cal hole through a coyotes skull or heart is child's play.
At the end of the day, it's hard to argue with dead dogs...
So ultimately, there's no denying both work (22CF and mag RF's, even .22lr's occasionally).
It's hard to not have at least a mild case of "magnumitus" when we've been exposed to it for so long. If we look back at hunters that "used what they had, and it worked!" stories, you'll see tons of tales about Bell's elephants, or the .22 Hornet being used for polar bears, or Teddy and his .30-06 making a trip to africa, etc etc. We're so used to blowing exit wounds out the back side of animals and over powering game, we forget how little work REALLY needs to be done to take one down.
A bullet through the heart or brain will kill any animal on earth. A .17HMR or .22WMR (or even a .22LR) can push a bullet through a coyotes skull or rib at 100yrds, and most shooters with modern rimfire rifles and good optics can place a bullet inside 2" at 100yrds. If it has the "stuff", and you can get it there, odds are, it's going to do the job.
And it's dang nice dropping a single X-stitch closing up a single 22cal hole in my hides, rather than "footballing" out a golfball sized exit wound.
It has twice the ME of the 22 LR and the 50 gr bullet has the weight needed to get the penetration required.
RR
This is one of the things I think guys easily forget. A .22WMR has as much energy at 250yrds as a .22lr has at the muzzle. I'm not saying that a 22mag should be used at 250, but in all fairness, nobody is going to argue that a .22lr at 10ft is pretty dang effective, sure seems to do the trick on my trap lines at least.
I actually had this same conversation with one of my cousins over Christmas dinner a few days ago. He's an avid trapper (45yrs and counting) that uses a .22lr to KO animals on his trap line, but he swears a .22WMR is just too "underpowered". It's inexperience talking. He's never used a .22WMR at that range, and never considered the relative energy levels. But he didn't have a good answer for "why will 90ft.lbs. kill a coyote at 10ft but not at 100yrds?"
Beyond that, most guys, even on this board, will agree that a .223rem has plenty of punch even past 500yrds for coyotes, and that accuracy is ultimately the limiting factor for not shooting that far. Relatively speaking, a .22WMR has about the same energy at 100yrds as a .223rem at 500yrds.
Moral of the story, if a .22lr works at 10ft, and a .223rem works at 500yrds, then the .22WMR is dang sure going to work at 100yrds (higher energy than either of the other two cases).
I read this post and can't help but shake my head. I'd say its been six months since i've been on this sight and still the same arguments. The fact is that the 17 HMR can kill a coyote and a 22 mag will kill one just as well. In fact I'd wager that they've probably killed just as many if not more than the 22 CFs.
But the fact also remains that just because you can do something doesn't mean tha you ought to try. I've hunted yotes with a 17 hmr the past three years. The one thing I've found is that body shots generally don't have much effect on them.
This past fall I had to trade off the 17hmr. I had surgery on my right shoulder and my 270 was too much rifle for it. So I traded it off for a 243 win. Head shots had the same result but the body shots with this cartridge had much more deadly effects than the rimfire cartridges.
I would say go for a small center fire such as the 223 or 204 the 22-250 is also a very good cartridge.
I was going to buy me a 223 for my new yote adventures in sw Florida. But I did some research and found that Winchester makes a 110 grain 3006 bullet.
WATCH OUT I can use my 06 weatherby topped with my kahles 3.5 - 10 x 50mm deadly and gives you the ability to hunt late very very late or early very very early.
I was going to buy me a 223 for my new yote adventures in sw Florida. But I did some research and found that Winchester makes a 110 grain 3006 bullet.
100 or 110grn bullets out of a .30-06 SEEM like a great idea in theory, but in application, they fall short. The ballistic coefficients of these stubby little 30cals are terrible, and they have to be loaded VERY conservatively otherwise they'll be over-spun (I had Speer 100grn "Plinkers" that looked like buckshot patterns at 10ft. MV of 3550fps).
I HAVE used 125grn Speer TNT's in a .30-06 (10yrs ago) for prairie dogs. I was right around 3100fps, and they were frankly too light for long range work, but they WERE a little nicer on coyote pelts than 150grn bullets.
Personally, after using several different "light for caliber/cartridge" bullets for coyotes over the last 20yrs, if I'm going to run a .30-06, I'm just going to use 150's either in a highly frangible design, or a fairly HARD design, and leave the lightweights alone. Why shoot a 30cal if you're just going to take the long range capabilities away? Pelt damage with a 150grn A-Max or SST running 2850fps was less for me than a 125grn TNT running 3200fps, and my down range trajectory is MUCH better with the heavier bullet.
Didn't someone offer a 50gr bullet/sabot round for the 30-06?If I remember right it was ultra fast.Right up there with the swift if not faster.
I'm guessing you're refering to the Remington "Accelerators". I haven't seen them in years, but they were a much better idea in theory than they were in practice. If you pushed them "ultra fast", say .220 swift speeds, they were way over-spun (3800fps from a 1:10" twist is no bueno). The recommended load data was in the 3000-3300fps range.
The biggest issue was they were terribly inaccurate. The sabot weighed enough that it effected the bullet pretty severely when it detached. In two rifles I tried them in (a Ruger .30-06 and a custom Mauser .308win springfield dual groove that I built) gave TERRIBLE accuracy. These were rifles that were sub-MOA with 150 and 165grn bullets, but the best I could group with the accelerators was in the "minute of PALM" range at 100yrds.
It's too simple to make it this complicated. If all you have is a .30-06 and you want to hunt coyotes, pick a bullet profile and weight that your rifle likes, then make sure you're either using a hard enough bullet to prevent expansion (limit energy transfer), or using a frangible bullet at a range where it won't exit (over 50yrds, again, limiting energy transfer). Same rule applies for .243win, .308, .300wm, whatever...
Just adding my .02, we here in Southampton Virginia can only use rimfire day or night and shotgun. I carry a shotgun and my son has a .17HMR. Only killed foxes so far and have not had any trouble but I know the yotes are tougher. We hopefully will have more input later as we try again.
