I live in fl and have always hunted deer with small caliber bullets.I need some help deciding on smething to use next year.Deer here on the averge 80 to 125#. I know most hollow points are for paper.I saw some PMC loaded with sierra 55gr BTHP gameking bullets. What do you think about this ammo?ITS very hard to find any thing over 55gr psp ,except for 62gr tap barrier.Open for suggestions.
Needless to say the 5.56 is not a deer round by any means but it can be used in skilled hands. I’d use a PSP for sure, preferably heavier bullets. If all you can find is 55 gr then fine I guess you’re stuck with that, but I’d try to use 69gr or that category if I could find it.
With this cartridge I’d limit my shots to broadside shots thru the ribs with the heart as the intended target. This will destroy the lungs/heart. You’ll have some tracking to do most of the time but the deer should collapse after a short sprint. Your deer are on the smaller side so that’s good since you’re using such a light round.
kill humanely; use a larger caliber.
A 5.56 will drop deer that small no problem but I would try to get my hands on some 75gr bullets.
thankes I only have a 1x9 twist bbl what do you think about twist with 75gr
You’ll see in threads here that some 1:9 barrels shoot heavier bullets surprisingly well and others do not. You’d just have to try some in your individual gun and see how it does to know for sure. Beyond 69gr is where you start to see trouble with 1:9 bbls.
I have taken a handful of Northern WI deer with 55gr TAP. Nice thing the round does not over-penetrate. So far, the rounds I have recovered were completely deformed and lodged against the opposing chest wall.
I’ve killed six deer with six rounds of .223 from 16” AR carbines. All with a TA01 ACOG.
1 doe with a 68 grain OTM Black Hills at 20 yards. Doe bolted and ran 15 yds into a tree and was down. Both lungs completely scrambled rolled out like so much pink scrambled eggs. The heart was shredded into finger sized petals. Only small frag exited.
1 large buck with a 55 grain Trophy Bonded Bear Claw at 20 FEET - 1.5" hole bored through both lungs and recovered under opp side skin. Perfect textbook mushroom. Buck ran about 20 yards and was down. Oddly two broken ribs under the ENTRANCE wound.
1 medium sized buck with a Win 64 grain PP to the neck at 100 yards. I wasn’t as impressed as the buck was. Slug exited out the same side of the neck just a couple inches from the entrance wound shedding it’s jacket at the exit. Didn’t even break the spine. Go figure. Still dropped in it’s tracks.
1 small buck hit in throat from straight on with 60 grain Nosler Partition from Black Hills at about 30 yards. Buck fell backwards and was down. Penetration about 17" and tremendous 3-4" diameter wound channel the first oh 6-7 inches through front of throat.
A 6pt while still hunting along a north GA ridgeline in the Chattahoochie National Forest. One Black Hills 77 grain OTM into the front shoulder/neck junction at about 40 feet dropped him literally in his tracks. Bullet did not exit. Under the skin at entrance wound was a quarter sized hole into the chest cavity that broke shoulder bones. Chest cavity full of blood but I did not get a good look at lungs and heart. This has been an insanely accurate load from my Noveske N4 Recce upper.
And a small doe shot in the neck at about 60 yards with the BH 77 gr OTM. It was a BANG – FLOP. There was a massive 4” diameter exit wound.
This is ground hunting in fairly close cover. The light bullet means I’ve passed up shots on deer behind cover and deer moving in general. Sorta like archery that way. The round is easily up to it, if the hunter is.
I suspect the 62 grain TAP barrier round would be a very effective softpoint on whitetail.
Thanks this info has been more than helpful and Ireally appreciate the time you took to share this with me.
Thats about the size of the Blacktail Deer around here. .223/556 does fine, as long as you do your part and only take good shots. I’ve used 55 grain soft points with no problems. 
The 60 grain Nosler Partition is what I use, works well.
That said if I’m hunting a trophy buck I use a bigger gun that can be used as far as I can shoot and at any angle I want to take. The .223 will kill but like everything has it’s limitations.
I have not done it, but if I were going to (and I would having seen those little deer that look like dogs) I would go with the 60 grain partition or the Win 64 grain power point. the reviews on Midway say they they really whack the deer. Both are available in commercial rounds IIRC.
Get a box of mk262/BH 77smk and see if your rifle likes it.
I think that is the most impressive load I’ve used on deer.
I would suggest trying 70gr Speer JSPs if you reload. I have not tested them on deer, but I have tested them on gel.
What stabilizes the bullet is the RPM the bullet is spinning when it exits the barrel. That means velocity is as important as twist rate.
In practical terms, that means generally an AR with a 1:9 twist will stabilize longer bullets from a 20 inch barrel than it will from a 14.5 inch barrel because the longer barrel will achieve higher velocities than the shorter one and impart more RPMs to the bullet.
Usually, we talk about needing tighter twists to stabilize heavier bullets, but really it’s to stabilize [i]longer[i] bullets regardless of weight. Heavier bullets are usually longer. VLD (Very Low Drag) bullets with very high ballistic co-efficients for example, are longer than conventional bullets of the same weight.
You can make an educated guess how well your rifle will stabilize a bullet according to twist rate and estimated velocity, but you will not know until you actually shoot them