ORIGINAL: Dirt2
P.S. I'm on my way to the library to get a book about an old elephant hunter who killed over a thousand elephants with a .25 caliber rifle.
I believe you will find that it was actually a 6.5x55 swede (.264" bullet) but I digress!
Anyone that thinks a deer at 100 yards quartering to with a 223 shouldn't be taken is mistaken. A 223 will absolutely turn that buck inside out. If you make that shot the buck will most likely drop like a ton of bricks. You undoubtably find that the bullet sprawled down the spinal column producing massive shock to the central nevous system.
Why do you think the military uses the 5.56 nato? I mean do you honestly believe that they use a completely inferior round. The reason they use it, is because its an effective round. The round has a tendancy to travel along bones until all energy is gone. thats why shots in the lower extremities have proven fatal and the bullet is generally recovered in the chest cavity even thought the entry wound is in an extremity.
I don't hunt deer with a 223. I have a 280 for that. But I know first hand what a 223 can do to a deer. Never underestimate what the little round can do in the right hands. As a matter of fact I witnessed a large doe bang flopped at 95 steps with a 22 hornet by a 8 year old boy. I told him to hold on the point of the shoulder on a broadside shot, and thats where he hit. Deer floped like it had been hit with a 338 win mag.