alucarD wrote:Hi all,
I’m in the same boat. Mastered the .22lr and looking to go up to centre fire.
What distances is the .223/.243 rounds good for hitting small to medium game?
Also which rifle brand would be recommended for accuracy & reliability.
Cheers
Both are capable out to around 350m or 400m in most people's hands, with some practice and some ability to read wind conditions. Bullet choice will determine how effectively it drops the game when it hits it. You probably want to handload to shoot with rabbit-head accurately much further than 250m.
Ruger American Predator for me in both of those chamberings. You can drop it into a chassis later on as well if you want to.
Learn to load your own ammo and you increase the versatility of both cartridges enormously. You can reduce your .243 loads and use it as a .223 most of the time, then just feed it some hot 100gn loads when you go after some pigs, goats or deer. Or you can use the .223 (the Ruger has a tight 8"-twist and feeds way over-length cartridges) and load some 80gn to 90gn bullets when you want to reach out and touch things a long way away.
Both cartridges have similar trajectories.
.223 55gn VMax does around 3250fps
Zeroed around 250m it's about 40mm high at 50m, 85mm high at 100m, 95mm high at 150m, 70mm high at 200m, 120mm low at 300m, 300mm low at 350m, and 550mm low at 400m, so out to 300m you only need hold a few inches high or low to be on target, say under or over the fox's head or chest.
Handloading the 80gn ELDM at 2800fps follows virtually the same trajectory.
Zeroed around 250m it's about 50mm high at 50m, 100mm high at 100m, 130mm high at 150m, 80mm high at 200m, 125mm low at 300m, 310mm low at 350m, and 550mm low at 400m, so out to 300m
.243 with the 87gn VMax at 3250fps follows a similar curve.
Zeroed around 250m it's about 30mm high at 50m, 70mm high at 100m, 80mm high at 150m, 60mm high at 200m, 100mm low at 300m, 240mm low at 350m, and 420mm low at 400m.
Switching to a 100gn SP for deer or goats at 2950fps.
Zeroed around 250m it's about 45mm high at 50m, 90mm high at 100m, 100mm high at 150m, 70mm high at 200m, 120mm low at 300m, 290mm low at 350m, and 520mm low at 400m.
Or if you decide to load your own ammo from the start, go with the 7mm-08. A 78gn SP at 3700fps will do everything the .223 does out to 300m (after 300m the reduced BC bleeds velocity quickly), while also doing .308 stuff with heavier 162gn to 175gn bullets.