.22CF for Deer

JohnnyR

Well-Known Member
Afternoon gents,
I looking to get a .22CF for foxing and roe, mainly roe but only have experience with a 22-250, used a friends occasionaly.
I use a .308win for Larger deer and just got rid of my .243 to move down to a .22CF.
Fancy a .222 but unfamiliar with sensible ranges etc to be shooting roe at, so any feedback would be great.
Cheers
 
In the bad old days in Ireland, we were restricted to centrefire .22's for all deer stalking. I had a .22-250 for a good few years, good round on even big Sika but bullet placement vital. I still use a 5.6x57RWS occasionally. Good with a 74 grain bullet though rifles and ammo hard to source. The .222 has a great reputation though I have only ever fired one a few times. Can vouch for the .22-250 though... a friend of mine still swears by his, raised eyebrows at his HCAP shooting test!
 
morning, an a little biased on this but have gone through the same as you
I similarly ditched my .243 as a "one gun roe and fox rifle" the .222 works a treat
Was nervous as hell with my first .222 roe as people had said...
"oh they pencil if you dont get the bullet right",
"they don't penetrate if you hit bone",
"oh they always run",
"oh they don't have enough energy for roe unless its short range"
and the classic....."it's not a humane choice"

Having slotted numerous foxes my first shot at roe with it was off a pair of borrowed limulus sticks at a young spikey cull buck at around 140 yds. witnessed by PKL on here
It took three steps and dropped.
Bullet went in exactly where planned, missed both shoulders, entered just behind the elbow, straight through, entry and exit of around 5 and 20p size
huge destruction internally, massive blood loss.
Very happy chappy.

I have since taken roe with body shots between 30yds and 185yds. (that one was a little further away than I thought!)
Only one neck shot to date, all the rest chest, avoiding spine and shoulder if possible, I don't aim for heart or spine as the buggers up the meat.
Of the 40 odd deer with this calibre I have genuinely never had a deer run, the one above is the one that got the furthest
all the rest drop...straight down!

its hand of God material!
can't explain it
Desperately trying to get a video of this but so far I have run out of battery 5 secs before pulling trigger, forgot the SD card, forgot the camera, didn't have time to turn it on before the shot...... will get one eventually

I use 60gr Hornady Soft points as I managed to get them to stabilise and they give much better downrange energy than 50-55gr
heavy for calibre bullets in .222
zeroed bang on at 100yds with 52gr Amax my rifle is 1" high with 60gr SP's - can't get better than that ( I was +1 and +2" until recently
I get a effective zero of 175yds and am good for point and shoot to 230yds (250yds is 4.5", -300yds is -10")

The .222 can be reloaded to produce accurate ammo with a hammer and a spoon it is that simple
even the crappy loads were around an 1"-1.5" off sticks!

only trying to push heavy for calibre bullets faster than needed did I get larger groups

I use CCI400's and N133 as they are easy to get hold of.

It is without doubt my favourite calibre by far.
 
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It is a very accurate caliber. I friend of mine has a CZ which shoots one tiny ragged hole. His wife uses it on deer, coyotes, and when they go elk hunting out West, they shoot prairie dogs with it.

bewsher500,
What rifle do you have in .222, and what is the twist rate?

The 60, 62 and 64 grain hunting bullets from Winchester and Speer are as lethal as a .243 out of my AR-15 with 1:9 barrel, and very accurate.

I just finished restoring a Savage 1899 saddle carbine in .22 Hi Power, and hope take a deer with it this Fall.
 
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Another vote for .222.

I too was a little nervous with the first body shots on roe, but it turned out fine (this was with 55gr SPs).

Not quite 'hand of god', but certainly no serious runners (furthest has been 10m). The one thing I've noticed is that, with a mod, it's so quiet that they react very differently to the shot - a flinch as if stung, then confused peering around for a second or two, a few hesitant steps, and then they roll over. Their friends stand there looking perplexed until they see you moving.
 
Afternoon gents,
I looking to get a .22CF for foxing and roe, mainly roe but only have experience with a 22-250, used a friends occasionaly.
I use a .308win for Larger deer and just got rid of my .243 to move down to a .22CF.
Fancy a .222 but unfamiliar with sensible ranges etc to be shooting roe at, so any feedback would be great.
Cheers

Are you ready for c500 pages??

Cheers!

K
Ps: The 222 is a cracking little round.
 
morning, an a little biased on this but have gone through the same as you
I similarly ditched my .243 as a "one gun roe and fox rifle" the .222 works a treat
Was nervous as hell with my first .222 roe as people had said...
"oh they pencil if you dont get the bullet right",
"they don't penetrate if you hit bone",
"oh they always run",
"oh they don't have enough energy for roe unless its short range"
and the classic....."it's not a humane choice"

Having slotted numerous foxes my first shot at roe with it was off a pair of borrowed limulus sticks at a young spikey cull buck at around 140 yds. witnessed by PKL on here
It took three steps and dropped.
Bullet went in exactly where planned, missed both shoulders, entered just behind the elbow, straight through, entry and exit of around 5 and 20p size
huge destruction internally, massive blood loss.
Very happy chappy.

I have since taken roe with body shots between 30yds and 185yds. (that one was a little further away than I thought!)
Only one neck shot to date, all the rest chest, avoiding spine and shoulder if possible, I don't aim for heart or spine as the buggers up the meat.
Of the 40 odd deer with this calibre I have genuinely never had a deer run, the one above is the one that got the furthest

all the rest drop...straight down!

its hand of God material!
can't explain it
Desperately trying to get a video of this but so far I have run out of battery 5 secs before pulling trigger, forgot the SD card, forgot the camera, didn't have time to turn it on before the shot...... will get one eventually

I use 60gr Hornady Soft points as I managed to get them to stabilise and they give much better downrange energy than 50-55gr
heavy for calibre bullets in .222
zeroed bang on at 100yds with 52gr Amax my rifle is 1" high with 60gr SP's - can't get better than that ( I was +1 and +2" until recently
I get a effective zero of 175yds and am good for point and shoot to 230yds (250yds is 4.5", -300yds is -10")

The .222 can be reloaded to produce accurate ammo with a hammer and a spoon it is that simple
even the crappy loads were around an 1"-1.5" off sticks!

only trying to push heavy for calibre bullets faster than needed did I get larger groups

I use CCI400's and N133 as they are easy to get hold of.

It is without doubt my favourite calibre by far.

Difficult to explain to people who have never seen it,
 
bewsher500,
What rifle do you have in .222, and what is the twist rate?


Its a BRNO Fox Model 2 with a shortened circa 19-20" 1:14" barrel
on paper it shouldn't stabilise 60gr bullets

load testing groups shrank from 2-3" to a reasonable circa 3/4"-1" with 20.8gr N133
its only when you get past that charge that the start spreading exponentially with each 0.2gr increment
fine tuning OAL brought it down even more
 
I suppose the reason for their effectiveness is the dump all their energy into the deer, whereas shooting with a bigger bullet it goes through and unless it expands nicely they don't dump a lot of energy. I have shot a couple of foxes with 7mm soft points and they have run and have a 7mm sized hole on both sides.

How ow quiet is the 222 without a mod - especially with a long barrel. Am thinking of installing an Einstecklauf in my combination gun and it would be a 26" barrel.
 
I had a Sako 75 in 222rem. It was also a 1-14" twist barrel. I worked up sub inch handloads with bogh the Sierra 63grain SMP and the Nosler Partition 60 grainer.
I never did use them on roe, I chose my 6.5x55 or 308w instead. The 222 became a 17 rem for foxes but I still have the old barrel.
 
Home Page will tell you a lot.
I have shot foxes at 175-200 yards with one.
Very nice calibre, not too noisy, minimal recoil.
Designed for 50gr bullets, I use Nosler ballistic tips with 21.5 gr of Vit 130. CCI BR4.
 
I suppose the reason for their effectiveness is the dump all their energy into the deer, whereas shooting with a bigger bullet it goes through and unless it expands nicely they don't dump a lot of energy. I have shot a couple of foxes with 7mm soft points and they have run and have a 7mm sized hole on both sides.

How ow quiet is the 222 without a mod - especially with a long barrel. Am thinking of installing an Einstecklauf in my combination gun and it would be a 26" barrel.


I used to think this too
but I am getting solid exits on all shots even those through shoulders

I have tested mine without the mod (POI is 3" right 1" down incidentally!)
very tolerable,
does make the rifle lovely and pointy without the lump on the end
 
The .222 was always a cartridge that I fancied trying, but for years never quite got around to it.
It wasn't until I sold my .223 and 25-06 to part finance a semi custom .308 build that I saw a nice wee .222 for sale on here. It was bought initially as nothing other than a stop gap whilst waiting on the .308

However I found it to be fantastically accurate and unbelievably effective on the roe.
It had already had had a bit of work done on it but I sent it off to JaggerSA to have it pillar bedded, the barrel chopped to 18" re-crowned and a coating job done on it.

It now shoots tiny groups all day long. . . It's the first rifle I've ever had which could shoot the drawing pins out which hold the paper target to the wooden support.

I agree with what has been said above, on roe it is fantastic, very few runners and little damage to the carcass.

I tend to drive a 50g bullet fast, other than heavy for calibre bullet slower, not to say I won't try heavier and slower at some point though.

If reloading, I find H322 to be the top dog for accuracy with BLC2 not far behind it.
 
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Back in the day...and way before my day I'd add...prior to the BDS promoted ban on calibres below .240" the .220 Swift was used by some for hill stalking. Sufficiently popular that recollections of its use was regularly written up in Notes From The Hill in was it Guns Review or Shooting Times?
'
 
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