FMJ bullets are just fine for shooting deer, if you KNOW what you are doing. A guy here in Montana uses M855/SS109 bullets for deer hunting BUT he uses the right type of rifle with the right twist rate. That means 9" twist and a minimum of 20" barrel and maximum ranges of 200 yards.
M195 bullets should use a twist rate of 12" or 14", depending. This is to get yaw for devastating results. The M855 will snap at the cannelure after yaw and give two wound channels about 6"-8" of penetration. Eugene Stoner and Fabrique Nationale designed two devastating FMJ systems for killing. You have to use them just as intended in the proper type rifles, which even the US military didn't get right in the case of the M855/SS109.
If you are the type of idiot that uses V-Max and Varmint Ballist Tips for body shots on deer, then you are too much of an idiot to PROPERLY use FMJ bullets in all likelihood. Stick with the 60-grain Nosler Partition as Nosler made it about as idiot proof as any bullet has ever been.
200 yards is a good maximum range for a .223 Rem on deer of large size, providing you have been varmint hunting and KNOW you can put the bullet EXACTLY where it needs to go. People who just pick up a .223 Rem and go deer hunting with any old bullet are the reson for saying it isn't adequate, and in THEIR case it is absolutely true.
My .223 Rem is 9" twist, 24" heavy barrel, and it stabilizes 75-grain Swift Scirocco II bullets and is very sub-MOA. It is definitely qualified as a deer and antelope rifle if I do my job properly.
The average black rifle .223 Rem user I see at the shooting range is not qualified to hunt big game with their 16" carbine for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact they can't hit diddly squat at 200 yards, besides the fact they know diddly about bullets. Their purpose in life is to provide me with once-fired brass for my varmint hunting purposes, so I encourage their wasteful practices. The average idiot that called me wanting to buy my Colt AR-15 upper was not even aware that AR-15 rifles had an upper and lower receiver. They had absolutely zero knowledge that my HBAR flattop upper was far superior to that 16" carbine upper most ammo blasters end up buying if you intend to hunt with it. A guy with common sense finally bought the upper and knew what he was getting.
Eskimos in Alaska have been killing polar bears with M193 FMJ bullets for years, but they take head shots and know how to shoot and take advantage of the yaw. The amount of ammo the average black rifle user wastes in an afternoon at the range is probably more than they hunt with all year.
