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).