They're back at it on RS. .223/5.56 using the 69 gr TMK on game!

[del2les]

I think energy still plays a part. But I don't think some of the negative commenters have taken a good look at the terminal photos on RS's thread. They really remind me of some of the terminal results I had with my 30-06 with various traditional premium hunting bullets. Velocity, expansion, crushing, frangible projectiles all cause trauma. It's a blend of characteristics that cause trauma. I'm taking a good look at the trauma.

Typically, the nay sayers have little to no actual experience deer or hog hunting with the 224's and with the properly constructed bullets that take those animals. Many of my varied 224 kills' internals look very similar to those I've shot with 243, 6mm, etc.

 

[BigNate]

One of the more experienced. 224" proponents states the 69gr. tmk penetrates about 20 - 30% less.
I've personally done fine with 64gr Win PP & Nosler 64gr bsb. But all were less than 100 yards.

 

[BigNate]

OBTW, depending on the situation, the Hornady 55gr has been used a lot with good success but usually at shorter distance.
Here's an example, and it's not a tiny southern WT.

Little Man scores his first buck at 10

After 7 days off and on Little man finally picked a buck and it is a dandy. 223 AI with 55 Hornady Sp's at about 150 yds walking. Sure proud of him sticking to his guns and taking 1 of the 2 best bucks we saw. Thanks to Montana's apprentice program.

www.24hourcampfire.com

 

[Petey308]

OBTW, depending on the situation, the Hornady 55gr has been used a lot with good success but usually at shorter distance.
Here's an example, and it's not a tiny southern WT.

Little Man scores his first buck at 10

After 7 days off and on Little man finally picked a buck and it is a dandy. 223 AI with 55 Hornady Sp's at about 150 yds walking. Sure proud of him sticking to his guns and taking 1 of the 2 best bucks we saw. Thanks to Montana's apprentice program.

www.24hourcampfire.com

Yep. I've seen and killed quite a few many years ago with the 55gr around 100 yards and in. I've had some unexpected results, like snapping a rear leg off at the joint, from the exiting bullet, but never lost an animal with that bullet. Killed a lot of coyotes with the 69gr SMK too before the TMKs came to be.

 

[Small Lady]

I have no dog in this fight, but would guess that some people, especially some older people, are going to be against this thinking, out of habit.
They have been grabbing their 338, 300 30-06, 308, or something else, for decades now.
With modern technology bullet makers have made new more deadly, yet smaller bullets, than some of those old legacy models. Education is important, and its threads like this one that are helping get that education out there more to the regular person.
I went to the linked website, and read the entire thread, it has so much great info.
Makes me feel even better about my own choice of ordering a 243. A few people will continue to disagree with me I am certain. They would have me buying a 308 or 6.5 creed, but I feel good about my daily carry becoming a 243. It should stop, anything that I need to stop, including a black bear.

 

[Petey308]

I have no dog in this fight, but would guess that some people, especially some older people, are going to be against this thinking, out of habit.
They have been grabbing their 338, 300 30-06, 308, or something else, for decades now.
With modern technology bullet makers have made new more deadly, yet smaller bullets, than some of those old legacy models. Education is important, and its threads like this one that are helping get that education out there more to the regular person.
I went to the linked website, and read the entire thread, it has so much great info.
Makes me feel even better about my own choice of ordering a 243. A few people will continue to disagree with me I am certain. They would have me buying a 308 or 6.5 creed, but I feel good about my daily carry becoming a 243. It should stop, anything that I need to stop, including a black bear.

The bullet is the hero, not the cartridge propelling it. Bullet selection is a bigger consideration and how the terminal performance will be. The cartridge is just the vessel and gets it there. So the main considerations for the cartridge should be what capabilities you need for the bullet. It needs to push it fast enough to get the range you desire, needs to be cost effective to you, needs to be easy to work with if you hand load, and needs to be easy for you to shoot (recoil management).

A 243 is very capable matched up with the right bullet, as is about any other cartridge.

So the education process really needs to include bullet construction and terminal ballistics. There's way more to it than just "having enough gun". The generational thinking is definitely hard to break.

 

[Small Lady]

The bullet is the hero, not the cartridge propelling it. Bullet selection is a bigger consideration and how the terminal performance will be. The cartridge is just the vessel and get it there. So the main considerations for the cartridge should be what capabilities you need for the bullet. It need to push it fast enough to get the range you desire, needs to be cost effective to you, needs to be easy to with with if you hand load, and needs to be easy for you to shoot (recoil management).

A 243 is very capable matched up with the right bullet, as is about any other cartridge.

So the education process really needs to include bullet construction and terminal ballistics. There's way more to it than just "having enough gun".

Agreed!

 

[7.62 Gunner]

The bullet is the hero, not the cartridge propelling it. Bullet selection is a bigger consideration and how the terminal performance will be. The cartridge is just the vessel and gets it there. So the main considerations for the cartridge should be what capabilities you need for the bullet. It needs to push it fast enough to get the range you desire, needs to be cost effective to you, needs to be easy to work with if you hand load, and needs to be easy for you to shoot (recoil management).

A 243 is very capable matched up with the right bullet, as is about any other cartridge.

So the education process really needs to include bullet construction and terminal ballistics. There's way more to it than just "having enough gun". The generational thinking is definitely hard to break.

There's another thing to consider besides bullet construction and that's mass.
I've been hunting with these bullets and ELDMs in a variety of clibers.
They're incredibly destructive however things can and will go sideways if you hit bone.

I've seen total fragmentation with failure to penetrate on deer and elk shot in the scapula with small caliber target bullets.

While obviously effective under the right circumstances, people using a 223 and tmks need to be aware of the limitations to that combo.

 

[Chrsm]

There's probably been more deer killed with a .22 lr than most other calibers. It still doesn't make it my go to weapon for deer. I am a bowhunter and that is my go to weapon for all game. I've shot several deer with the bow that jumped at the shot , then went right back to feeding and after a couple seconds just dropped. That tells me it's painless. If it hurt them they would have ran.

Tell that to the next deer that runs by you with a bolt hanging out of his shoulder

 

[Petey308]

There's another thing to consider besides bullet construction and that's mass.
I've been hunting with these bullets and ELDMs in a variety of clibers.
They're incredibly destructive however things can and will go sideways if you hit bone.

I've seen total fragmentation with failure to penetrate on deer and elk shot in the scapula with small caliber target bullets.

While obviously effective under the right circumstances, people using a 223 and tmks need to be aware of the limitations to that combo.

Mass is part of construction, and yes I talk about mass A LOT in many of the threads I talk about this sort of thing. A good deal of starting mass with soft constructed bullets is always good, particularly for high impact (close range) shots. The more material there is, the better the balance will be regarding expansion vs penetrating, since these bullets will come apart very easily. Once you run out of material, you run out of penetration lol.

 

[Petey308]

Here's something I've written before I'll just copy and paste that gets into it more technically.

SD rule of thumb with soft bullets:

What's most important with soft constructed lead core bullets such as Hornady ELDM, Sierra TMK/SMK, Bergers, Barnes MB, etc, is having sufficient mass so that there's enough bullet to do the job they need to do.

A soft constructed bullet like that is going to come apart really well just in general (as I think most know and agree with), and with higher impact velocities and also higher resistance upon impact, that effect is increased. So you need a sufficient amount of mass so that as the bullet is expanding and shedding weight from the forces being put on it after impact, it won't end up coming completely apart before it does it's job properly. Hopefully that make sense.

A shorter/lighter version with less overall mass may come apart at such a high rate and without leaving enough significant material, before it can do sufficient wounding or to a sufficient depth, that it results in an animal that runs a long ways and possibly gets away from you or doesn't even die at all.

A longer/heavier version with more mass will still shed weight pretty rapidly upon impact, but with it having more material and mass total, it'll end up traveling further and doing more damage in the end. What is left after it slows down on its expansion will still have a good deal of forward momentum too thanks to the increase in mass and will also ensure a good amount of hydraulic force is still being applied.

So with all that said, I tend to use the figure of sectional density as a rule of thumb to determine if the bullet has sufficient mass. It's not the same way people have looked at SD for years though. I don't believe much of that crap, as most of it comes from misunderstandings and lumping all bullet types together. I'm simply using SD as my way to quantify and determine sufficient bullet weight/mass for caliber. My rule of thumb for most medium sized game species, and when using a soft constructed bullet, is to start with at least an SD of .260 for best reliability, consistency, and overall favorable results. For large game, like really large deer, elk, moose, etc I prefer .280 or more.

You can easily find a particular bullet's SD with this formula:

Bullet weight / 7000 / caliber / caliber = SD

So an example would be a 123gr .264" bullet:

123/7000= 0.017571428571429

0.017571428571429/.264= 0.066558441558442

0.066558441558442/.264= 0.252115308933491

So rounded up, the SD is .252


A further example would be something like a .308" 168gr TMK, which has an SD of .253 and then a .308" 155gr has an SD of .233 (so definitely on the low end). One thing to consider is as impact velocity lowers, so will the rate of expansion. So for a 500+ yard shot, either of those would actually work great because impact velocity would be much lower and help balance out expansion rate vs penetration. Close range shots would be dicey though due to the increase in impact velocity and overall resistance they'd encounter.

A 175gr .308" bullet would have an SD of .264 and would be the lightest I personally would be confident with for scenarios where close shots are probable.

If lighter is all you can find, a tougher constructed bullet might be a better choice. One with as high of a BC you can find so that calculated impact velocity at your max range is still 1800fps or higher, if possible, due to how those type of bullets typically behave. That's a different subject though lol

 

[Petey308]

As a caveat to that mass rule of thumb, that obviously contradicts what we're talking about here with 69 and 77 grain .224" bullets. You'd need around 92gr in a .224" to get .260 in sectional density.

So that's where the discussion about them producing more blood loss than anything else comes in. Plus, I've seen the more narrow 22cal bullets behave a bit differently and have a bit more structural strength as a result and still penetrate well with less sectional density than in my time of thumb.

 

[Petey308]

@Petey308 do you think you could do a cross section of the 69 and 77 TMK for a comparison?

As requested. They measured exactly the same regarding jacket thickness. So as anticipated, the only real difference is the slightly longer ogive of the 77gr and the obvious increase in mass.

You're looking at a 11.6% increase in mass and a 12% increase in BC with the 77gr TMK vs the 69gr TMK.

 

[NZTahr]

The great thing about the RS thread is that it's mainly about application and results rather than theory and conjecture. A point that ought not be missed though is that there is actually a cluster of bullets that perform similarly - the 73/75/80 ELDM and 77TMK (and such like) and then another cluster that are lighter or different but still "good enough" for clean kills and performance out of all proportion to their size (e.g 55 grn Game King types and some softer more "explodey" monos).
Ive shot deer out to 300 hundred yards with the 55 Gamekings etc with careful lung shots. And many even further with the first cluster I mentioned.
Bullets have changed, but more-so attitude and application