What was your longest 223 varmint shot?

[GlennGTR1]

What was your longest 223 varmint shot and what kind of load did you use to achieve it? Rifle and scope?

 

[Dennis_in_VA]

Last weekend Lynwood Harrell and I were out hunting and he made a 1st round hit on a Groundhog at 605 yards in variable winds 5-10 mph with his 20X47 Lapua and I was spotting him through my NXS 8-32X56 NP-R1 scope mounted on my Rem 700 in 223. Factory barreled action bedded in a Manners T2-A. Well that 20 didn't turn out the lights so I sent a round down range and made a 1st round hit as well on a wiggling critter. My load consisted of a 55 gr Sierra Blitzking sitting on top of a charge of H4895 wrapped up in a piece of Winchester brass with a Fed 205 Match primer supplying the ignition. MV is in the neighborhood of 3300 fps. As far as that Groundhog goes, he was pretty tough, clinging to life, he managed to drag himself into his den so we never recovered the body. Dangit. But if you ever talk to Lynwood, he'll tell you that he likes his Groundhogs over easy, but that's another story unto itself.

Update:

My longest shot on a Groundhog with my .223 is now 620 yards as of 9/18/10.
Another 1st round hit. Light wind, right to left, held 1.25 MOA for windage, dialed in elevation.

 

[HillbillySniper]

Before I ripped my factory 223 apart I was shooting out too the 600 yard range as well with just a factory rem 700 action and a sporter barrel. In fact last year with that same gun I won high score and high Adv at one of the ground hog matchs I go too which we shoot 100 300 and 500 for score. I shot the winny brass with cci small primer 23.5 grains of h322 with a fifty grain nosler ballistic just kissing the lans. Now this year I made the same gun into a 223 ackley and myself and ollie have shot out to 880yards (half or a mile) and can hit an 8 inch gong. I used a 75 grain a max with winny brass small primer and varget.

 

[Dennis_in_VA]

What's the spec's on your upgraded barrel?
Length ?
Contour ?
Twist ?

I have a 1-12 factory barrel and have been toying with the notion of converting mine to an AI version and shoot the 75 A-max bullets as well.

 

[357Mag]

To all who posted thus far:

What is the longest confirmed kill yardage on a "live "groundhog, that you have succesfully made w/ a .223 ?

I mean.....one shot, one kill... didn't make it back to the den; etc.

I beleive that is the question .

With regards,
357Mag

 

[Dennis_in_VA]

Well the longest DRT kill that I have made with the current 223 I'm shooting is 512 yards. I watched him tip over backwards like a bowling pin. He never twitched.

How many Groundhogs have you killed 357? At what distance?

And as anybody that has "Killed" a fair number of Groundhogs would know that they can be tough to put down at "Long" distances with small caliber bullets due to reduced velocity which affects the terminal performance of the projectile.

And the original post

What was your longest 223 varmint shot and what kind of load did you use to achieve it? Rifle and scope?

Does not say anything about "Kill" or does it specify any particular "species".

 

[HillbillySniper]

Dennis I won an ER Shaw barrel at our 2 day super shoot last year so I went with the 1 in 9 twist rem varmint contour in 26 inch. It shoots great im very pleased with it I was planning on the 70 grain vlds at first till I came across a great deal on the 75 a max which work great on the hogs.

As far as 357mag I dont see any post about your kills with a 223...?

 

[ollie]

way to hijack a thread. 357mag

 

[rocketron]

2 at 180/200 yds.....rem 700.. nikon 6.5 to 20...H4895 and 50 gn v-max

first one was hit on the nose (lucky) this made quite the mess and the second was upper body lower neck quarter size hole coming out

not long shots but thats about max for were i can go

Ron

 

[MarkS]

15 years back, I had a 223 Winchester Heavy Varmint. I shot both 40gr BT with 28 gr H335, and 50 gr BT with 26gr H335. I ran into a skunk at long range, this was before rangefinder. At that time I just held over, no clicking. I know it was past 500 yds. I had the 40's in the gun. I fired 3 times, and was running out of scope to hold over. I changed to the 50's and rolled the skunk with the first shot and it was DRT. I marked the kill and shot it with a survey equipment the next day 664 yds.

Mark Schronce

 

[jghoghunter]

I've made shots out to 850 on pd with a ar and 60gr vmax.

 

[DOGCAPPER]

Shot three p dogs at 387 yds w/3 shots in SD...
I use scrap and reminant powders for dogging..Have no idea what the load was 4 years later other than Win brass, 50 gr bullet,Savage BVSS 223, Burris Black diamond 6x24(best scope I dogged with never required resighting....Bi pod rear bag filled with corncob media....LT

 

[40X Guy]

Nothing spectacular, but I shot hundreds of PD's in S. Dakota with my Rem. 700 VSSF in .223 with 28.4 grains of H335 under 40 grain ballistic tips at about 3700fps. Load was hot but good in my rifle and very accurate. I would sight in 1.5 inches high at 100 and let em rip dead on sighting to about 330 yards with very good success. Probably 90-92 % kill ratio at 330 and under. The bullet dropped like a rock after 330 and was ineffective after that. But was that ever fun, you could see the hits thru scope. I believe my longest was about 360 with that rifle but pure luck or maybe Kentucky windage. 8)

Frank

 

[Dennis_in_VA]

Maybe when I finish school I can tag along with Lynwood on one of his trips out west for Prairie Dogs. Might have to build another 20 Practical AR for that.

 

[Steve Blair]

~350 on crows with Sierra 53g MK from an old 788 and factory barrel. Past 350, I get out the 6mm Remington with 58g V-Max. The .223 drops them fine, the 6mm explodes them.

 

[Sin_arms]

What's the spec's on your upgraded barrel?
Length ?
Contour ?
Twist ?

I have a 1-12 factory barrel and have been toying with the notion of converting mine to an AI version and shoot the 75 A-max bullets as well.

If you are going to punch out the factory barrel I wouldn't count on it working with the 75gr amax's

 

[Obtunded]

One fellow I shoot with and who owns a gun shop locally managed to whack a Columbia Ground Squirrel at a known distance of 825 yards using 80 grain SMK's from a 223AI. I watched the hit in my scope. Making 1000 yard gopher kills is not uncommon with one of my 6BR's under good conditions. These often take more than one shot for "zeroing"

 

[Dennis_in_VA]

What's the spec's on your upgraded barrel?
Length ?
Contour ?
Twist ?

I have a 1-12 factory barrel and have been toying with the notion of converting mine to an AI version and shoot the 75 A-max bullets as well.

If you are going to punch out the factory barrel I wouldn't count on it working with the 75gr amax's

I knew that.

That's why I asked for the spec's on the barrel ;D

Besides, I still have a lot of life left in the barrel that's on the rifle but I'm using it up as fast as I can ;D

 

[357Mag]

Dennis, Hillbilly, Ollie et al -

Just got back from a trip....

Did not mean to "highjack a post".
A thousand appologies ! Two thousand !

I was hoping to read input from those who have campaigned
.223s ( specifically on groundhog ), to see if a max effective range presented itself.

There are limits to what .224" varmint bullets can accomplish
( terminal energy wise ) at distance. On balance, one would think larger capacity .224" cal cases ( larger than a .223's)
would present more opportunites for clean groundhog kills
over a notionally larger engagement envelope.

On Indiana "soybeanus digestus", the practical ( humain kill )limit for .224" cal varmint bullets appears to be around the 500yd mark. That requires a certain minimum amount of energy be provided by the bullet's wt/construction/cal and its velocity combined.

NO... I don't believe I've killed a groundhog w/ a .223....
I did own/shoot an AR-15 some years ago.
I've been afield w/ friends toting/shooting .223s, .222s, .22BR, .225Win; .22-250 etc.

My groundhoggin' ( for probably 30yr ) had been w/ larger capacity .224" cal cases. And with those, I killed groundhogs in the hundreds ( body count ). My longest confirmed kill was 510yd, and that one took all the energy a 41+ gr load of powder could put on a .224" cal 55gr "V"-Max, from a 24"
1-14 barrel.

Again, a thousand appologies if I mis-directed the original post !

With regards,
357Mag

 

[TheOtherZilla]

We don't have Ground hogs around here, but we do have gophers and prairie dawgs.. I have killed more than few that were way out there with a scoped AR in 223..