ORIGINAL: Beware_of_Dawg
I've heard a couple people here say that a .223 is a capable rifle for deer hunting... What's the difference between a .222 (which I own one of) and a .223?
Two main differences-all the .222's I've seen had 1/14" twists, which means that ypor deer bullet selection is limited to bullets no longer than a 55-grain flatbase. The longer ones won't stabilize. Same is true of the older commercial .223's which generally have a tist of 1/14" or 1/12". If you have a .223 with a 1/9" or faster tist, you canuse the 60-grain Nosler Partition of the 64-grain Winchester, bot of which are tought enough for deer shooting. In addition, the .223 has about a 100-FPS advantage over the 222 in muzzle velocity with any bullet you load it with.
ipscshooter
Keep in mind that a generally accepted rule of thumb for deer rifles is that they have a minimum of 1000 ft. lbs of energy at impact.
This "foot-pound" business is basically BS. It is NOT how many foot-pounds a bullet carries, but how that energy is applied to the animal that determines whether the varmint is gonna bite the dust. I would much rather hit an elk, for example,with a .58-caliber round ball at 1200 ft/sec or more than any 17-caliber bullet, even if the .17 is showing higher Ft/Lb numbers......
I'd like to remind everyone that the Inuit hunters in Alaska, anyway, used to kill their polar bears with the .22 Hornet. Most of them have now up-gunned to the .223!