I've let him shoot my .22, .17 HMR and 243. He did quite well without issue. You deer hunt with a .223?
72 year old friend wants to deer hunt for the first time but needs a rifle.
- Thread starter slas
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Seems like a good guy. Hope is gets to drag something out of the woods.
Swamp, a .223 in the hands of an experienced hunter will do fine. But in the hands of a newbie could be bad.
As for the .30-30, with 150-gr. bullets the recoil isn't much worse than a .243. And the larger, heavier bullet could make up for inexperience with shot placement.
As for the .30-30, with 150-gr. bullets the recoil isn't much worse than a .243. And the larger, heavier bullet could make up for inexperience with shot placement.
I have a 200 yd range we'll be visiting several times before season starts. I won't let him go unprepared.
Can I be your friend.
No biggie with a rifle getting a scratch or 2 while hunting, heck my kid knocked my rifle out of the tree stand this year. All I could do was laugh, gave her a hard time for doing it on purpose so she could shoot anything that came along. May look into an AR in 6.5, 6.8...Not much recoil, and pretty cheap.
Yes I deer hunt and have shot HUGE hogs with the .223 55 v-max 1 shot kills on everything.
I had to track many deer for a friend, I would say 90% of his deer needed tracked. 30-30 and 30-06 were the weapons used.
I loaned him a .243 and told him where to shoot the darn deer. He shot one and it needed tracked because he willy nilly took a bad shot.
I had him practice shooting often and now he uses his AR with 55gr V-max and no more tracking by me.
He now waits for the shot and finally figured out the season is long and that deer or others will be back and present a better shot.
People need to quit relying on bigger is better and thinking a bad placed shot with a big hammer is going to work.
It absolutely is not going to work every time.
We owe it to the animal we shoot to put the shot in the right spot.
Practice Practice Practice.
Shoot crouched behind a tree at a target, shoot standing. Shoot in the prone position, shoot off a bench and shoot in heavy wind and light wind.
Get proficient with your weapon of choice and the deer will fall in their tracks or usually within eyesight.
I have many calibers to choose from and really like the small bullets.
How? A bad shot is a bad shot no matter the caliber.
.30-30 has taken a lot of deer in Oklahoma; it's not great at long distance, but at the distances you see, especially in the eastern part of the state, it'll tote the mail. As noted, the kick is the potential problem, but that has more to do with the rifle style than the round itself--lever guns just seem to kick harder than others,
If you can find one, an Israeli surplus Mauser in .308 would make an outstanding deer rifle. A friend traded into a pair of them about 30 years ago, and expected them to kick like mules, but nothing could've been farther from the truth.
Personally, I thought the SKS was an overpriced rifle when you could get it and a case of 7.62x39 for $150, but if you could find a decent price on one, it would also make a good deer rifle. 7.62x39 is ballistically similar to .30-30, and the rifle is relatively compact, plus, with the semi-auto action to absorb part of the energy, it's recoil isn't too bad.
If you can find one, an Israeli surplus Mauser in .308 would make an outstanding deer rifle. A friend traded into a pair of them about 30 years ago, and expected them to kick like mules, but nothing could've been farther from the truth.
Personally, I thought the SKS was an overpriced rifle when you could get it and a case of 7.62x39 for $150, but if you could find a decent price on one, it would also make a good deer rifle. 7.62x39 is ballistically similar to .30-30, and the rifle is relatively compact, plus, with the semi-auto action to absorb part of the energy, it's recoil isn't too bad.
yes 223 is just fine. i use 75 grain hpbt. in a bolt gun
