Hunting With .223 Home Swaged Bullets From .22 Cases

[Prospector Howard]

I've noticed members mentioning hunting with these thin skinned bullets every once in awhile and I'm kind of thinking that some have misconceptions about hunting with them. When I first started swaging them, I did quite a bit of testing to see how they might work for hunting. From what I've experienced, (shooting them into water jugs and wet newspaper); they basically explode on contact. Even the water jug test was very disappointing, with no weight retention at all; just pieces left in the jug. I even tried soldering the core to the jacket using flux and a torch, and that wasn't much better. The only game I'd consider hunting with .223 is Javelina (our local small pig), but I figure my .243 is better suited for that task (especially for longer shots). I guess there are some out there that like to blow up rodents, but that's not my bag; I hunt for meat on the table. Anyway, if you're thinking of hunting with these highly frangible bullets for decent sized game; you're probably going to be sorely disappointed and end up with alot of fur flying and a very unclean kill. If you hunt with .223, you may want to save your good hunting bullets for hunting; and shoot the swaged bullets from .22 cases for practice at steel targets and such (we all need to practice). Just my 2 cents, and I'll probably be viciously attacked now.

[Cane_man]

good to see you are still on CB! good insights as usual backed with experience :guntootsmiley:

[yruiz]

No argunment here. I will say that you are right. I've tried coyote hunting with them as well and even with a steel bb and a small rifle primer as a partition, they still didn't give me one shot kills like the sierra gamekings that I have been shooting for years.

[newcastter]

Here comes the vicious attack!!! No really, I completely understand,respect and advisde the caution being advised by Howard......however I have experienced the complete opposite when using COWW as a lead core. I have shot through 3-4 1"-1-1/2 thick phone books and it goes through them all and not a trace to be found as it continued to penetrate into the earth. Thats my experience. I dont think I want to test it out on an animal (cats not included) though, until I have a little more experience with my new set of dies mixed with WW.

[newcastter]

No argunment here. I will say that you are right. I've tried coyote hunting with them as well and even with a steel bb and a small rifle primer as a partition, they still didn't give me one shot kills like the sierra gamekings that I have been shooting for years.
HaHa, you did what with what???

[Bullshop]

Match the cartridge to the bullet. They work good for hunting with a 22 Hornet for the things one would hunt with a hornet.
They are absolutely perfect for my 22 Cooper on fox. On a broad side shot they penetrate to the hide on the off side and show classic mushroom expansion.
I use them for coyote hunting in my 221 Fire Ball. With a solid hit they don't shoot through and since I shoot coyotes for the fur that is what I want.
They work about the same as the Sierra Blitz or the Hornady SX or the Speer TNT.
We also have a lot of cotton tail rabbits where I am living now and I will not hesitate to use them on rabbits for the table. Since shots at rabbits are generally close usually less than 25 yards and head shots are the norm there is no problem there even using a 223.
For bigger animals than a coyote I would rather change calibers to 24 or 25 than change bullets in a 22.

[300savage]

the reason i mentioned it is mainly because i amn interested in shooting them out of my 16 " ar15.
i lose quite a bit of velocity out of that rifle and so i am not as worried as i would be out of a longer barreled bolt uhaction.
plus i am intrigued by what you all do here and hogs are a good testing ground for odd ideas.
if i get one through the onside shoulder and it goes to pieces in their lungs thats fine

[Bills Shed]

Match the cartridge to the bullet. They work good for hunting with a 22 Hornet for the things one would hunt with a hornet.
They are absolutely perfect for my 22 Cooper on fox. On a broad side shot they penetrate to the hide on the off side and show classic mushroom expansion..

+1 for using the right projectile for the job. The jackets are thin and will expand. They are excellent on the light skinned animals that I hunt. The pills basically self destruct on Anything under 100 meters. They go in and pulp the internals. After that as the velocity decreases they mushroom beautifully.
These pills have taken, rabbits, Wallaby, cats and the odd wild dog with absolute authority within 200m with the K-hornet 9558295583.
This was pulled out of a wallaby (under permit) shot at about 150m. Removed from the far side of entry from just under the skin.

[Prospector Howard]

From what I've seen about hog hunting in Texas, I think I'd be looking to use .308 as a minimum size cartidge on those things. Man, some of them look huge! What's the old saying about bringing enough gun?
the reason i mentioned it is mainly because i amn interested in shooting them out of my 16 " ar15.
i lose quite a bit of velocity out of that rifle and so i am not as worried as i would be out of a longer barreled bolt uhaction.
plus i am intrigued by what you all do here and hogs are a good testing ground for odd ideas.
if i get one through the onside shoulder and it goes to pieces in their lungs thats fine

[300savage]

well your exactly right if a person wants to retrieve his hog. but there are other times like tonight when i just want to get lead in as many as i can.
i am waiting right now for the dogs to start barking which will tell me that the destructive suckers that tore up part of a pasture last night are back. when that happens i am stepping on my quad with a spotlight and mini 14 and i am going to try and shoot as many as i can get bullets in as fast as i can.
aint pretty work, but its what we have to do sometimes.

[teddyblu]

300savage
used to do a lot of business with Bill and Dave Christsan bros. They operated the Southern clay products
from your city. maybe before your time
Larry

[300savage]

Larry i knew Bill fairly well and liked him.
he passed away from heart disease a bit more than a year ago i believe though i cant remember the date.
he was one of the good ones.

[R.Ph. 380]

300Savage,

You need night vision and a suppressor on a 300 AAC Blackout. Knock a whole herd down and they wouldn't know they were going missing.

Bill

[300savage]

well i ended up falling asleep. its 2am now and the dogs woke me up finally, however when i stepped outside there is pea soup fog in the pecan bottom where they are and its cold as a witches nipples.
pigs win this round looks like.
but there is always tomorrow, and i am going to set a couple traps.
thank goodness for pigs,, life is so good that without them i wouldnt have a dang thing to gripe about.
now if i could just get the dogs to shut up so i can dream about clear full moon warm nights when i can slip through the pecans and blast the snot out of a few.
or maybe just one.
bassturds .. nite all.

[firefly1957]

No flames from here either i have thought the same but they do perform very well at lower velocity at 2500 f/s they stay together and mushroom quite well. My use of them has been mostly on paper and a few pests when i want them to explode on impact i have even made some with shot cores i found that "Compressed"#9 shot was useless for anything bigger than a possum but "Compressed"#2 shot did have great promise. Most of my experimenting was in 223 Remington i also shot in .221 fireball pistol and in 300 savage and 30-06 in sabots . The bullets did shoot well in the sabots at very high velocity (I did not chronograph exact speed) they had even less penetration in water than from a 223 but were a bullet from the 223 smeared on a old brake rotor from the sabots they left a 1/2" deep crater. I would like to try those on coyotes.

[Bullshop]

I think it would be interesting to get after them with some of the old prison guard guns like the 401 and 351 Win self loading.
How about a real Thompson?
I think they made extra long mags for the old 401 and 351 guard guns. Even an old model 8 Rem would make it interesting.
I have some old load data for shooting the Lyman 280gn RN in a model 8 35 rem.
That should work in layers if you can be like Mathew Quigley and get two idiots to line up in his sights.
How about a Rem auto in 358 Win or 35 Whelen?
I better quit now cuz I am getting an itch to come down and give aid to your cause.

[R.Ph. 380]

I think it would be interesting to get after them with some of the old prison guard guns like the 401 and 351 Win self loading.
How about a real Thompson?
I think they made extra long mags for the old 401 and 351 guard guns. Even an old model 8 Rem would make it interesting.
I have some old load data for shooting the Lyman 280gn RN in a model 8 35 rem.
That should work in layers if you can be like Mathew Quigley and get two idiots to line up in his sights.
How about a Rem auto in 358 Win or 35 Whelen?
I better quit now cuz I am getting an itch to come down and give aid to your cause.

You're gettin' an itch? I'm sitting down here half the state away. My daughter was born in Victoria, I served as Security Officer for N.A.S. Chase Field in Beeville, TX. Gonzales is just about 4.5 hours south of me here in DFW. I used to wander the rivers in that area looking for glass shrimp to sell to the 5 & 10 cent stores. Would like to be in the old home area. Shootin' some bacon would just be icing on the cake.

Bill

[Chuck Walla]

I think I'd have to agree with the prospector and yruiz on this. I've been yote hunting with a friend of mine a few times with bullets made from rimfire cases and they didn't do a very good job at all as far as my friend and I experienced. Big entrance wounds most of the time, pretty much ruining the pelts, and had to shoot more than once every time. As far as trying to kill larger game like a 3 or 400 pound pig, seems like a worse idea. I'm looking to get a set of dies to make these bullets from rimfire cases myself right now, but mostly to use for plinking and target shooting--that way I don't waste my good bullets. They're getting too dang expensive. Shooting rabbits with them seems like too much gun, .22 lr is plenty good for that. I'm new here so don't jump down my throat now, it's just what I've seen first hand.

[Bullshop]

I shoot coyotes with them in the 221 FB and so far never needed more than one. Broad side hits behind the shoulder are perfect as they don't shoot through.
When I first started swaging about 30 years ago I shot a doe mule deer in the neck at about 50 yards with one from a 22/250 and it pretty much took the head off accept for a little hide on each side of the hole. The 22/250 is a bit much for them.

[Gunnut 45/454]

I think if I was to use my .223 Rem swags I'll stick to the 60-63 gr or 70 +gr to get enough mass to ensure penertration an do only broadside shots. And anyone who thinks yotes always drop in one shot haven't hunted them much or only do headshots.:roll: I've lost a few with perfect broadside with very exspensive varmit bullets used. If and when I get the time and weather I'm going to see what my bullets will do on yotes-bet on it.:-D My lighter bullets 40-55 will be used for Wisselpigs and such.

[Prospector Howard]

I've always been the type to bring enough gun for whatever I'm hunting. I'm sure this has been debated to death before, but hunting deer or larger game with .22 cal isn't something I'm a big fan of. As far as I've seen it's not even legal to hunt deer with .223 in some states. I don't often get a 50 yard shot at anything like a deer or javelina anymore so it's .308 or 8mm for deer and .243 for javelina. A light 223 bullet is going to lose alot of energy at longer shots like past 200 yards, so to miss that trophy buck because I didn't bring the right gun, seems like a bad idea. Then add into the equation a highly frangible thin jacketed bullet, and you've just made it more questionable. .223 to me is really a varmint round, and isn't some magical bullet that a certain senator from Kommifornia (Diane Fineswine) believes can kill anything on the planet including elephants; so we aren't to be trusted with guns that shoot this magical bullet and she has to confiscate them (what a tool). Some members have had some bad experiences trying to hunt with the swaged brass jacketed bullets, so it might be a good idea to use some caution in hunting with them. Also, good hunting bullets aren't impossible to get (yet). It's probably good advice if you do hunt with .223 as some members said, to save your good hunting bullets for hunting and save your money, and shoot the swaged brass jacket bullets for target shooting and such.

[303british.com]

Until recently, I never bothered with lightweight .224 bullets made from 22LR cases. I experimented with different weights when I started making them, but quickly settled on 60 and 65 grain bullets. The only modification I've made was to change the nose of the 65 gr to an RT.

With the 60s, I've never had a problem taking coyotes. The closest would be approx. 50 yd.; the longest, a bit over 200 yd. These 60s have been launched from either my 222s or a 223. I do not own a 22-250 or larger rifle.

With any cartridge, you have to match the bullet to the job. I'm not sure what most of you are building, but the heavys hit, penetrate and mushroom. They do not explode on the pelt. Once they're inside Wiley, they make a mess however. I would not use a .224 bullet made from rimfire cases if I wanted to keep the pelt (fmjs are an exception). I would not hunt anything bigger than a coyote with them either. For Ontario (eastern) coyotes and foxes, they work.