Well my birthday is coming up, and so is hunting season. Plus I am having a good year business wise.
So I want to make the transition from bolt to AR for hunting. The question is which caliber & manufacturer. I am trying to stay under $2,000 and would ideally like to stay closer to the $1,000 side of life.
With that in mind I am leaning towards 6.8. My reasons are weight, the fact that I am going for deer and hogs in Florida, the ability to use a 6.8 upper on an existing lower (saving big bucks), and the fact that hunting ammo for 6.8 is about half that of .308 / 7.62. With that in mind I am leaning towards and upper from AR15Performance.
Does this sound good or should I really take another look at the 7.62 platform?
Again, which caliber for my needs would you choose and what manufacturer keeping in mind that this will be a hunting platform, not a SHTF platform. For that I will stick with 5.56
Thanks in advance and let the process of me taking my lumps begin.
With the right bullets and accurate shot placement within reasonable range, the 223/556 is marginal at best. There is a reason 30-06, 270, 243, 30-30 and so on are hugely popular deer and hog cartridges and that is because they work. The 223 is but a fraction of these cartridges. I personally would not use a 223 for deer or hog, not under any circumstances. That leaves 6.8 as a minimum. 308 will kill any deer or hog in Florida. I’d go with the 308. Congratulations on your successful business. What do you do?
My dad has killed several deer in GA with a 5.56. Regardless of what you hear it will do just fine. I’ll let him know about this post and he can post his results.
Well since you’re already invested in one or more 5.56 weapons, something like 6.8 could be very economical. You might even consider 30-AR for a dedicated hog gun.
It would be real tough to buy an AR-10 lower and stay within budget, but it would be a fun project.
Kind of reminds me of my youth, I hunted with a group some of whom were enamored of the 30 carbine. Guns were cheap, ammo was cheap and you could get a 20 round magazine and shoot the whole thing at a deer. I heard lots of stories, all of them successes. Never heard anyone talk about the deer they had shot at or shot and failed to drop. We found a lot of deer being eaten by buzzards, shot with something that did not bring them down. The 20 and 30 round magazines were outlawed and you began seeing less and less carbines in the field. Men have been hunting deer with center fire rifles for more than a century and with that vast experience a conclusion can be drawn. Use enough gun. And 223 is not enough gun. Some folks do it, some even do pretty well. Some folks are lucky. Some folks tell you about the deer they have dropped but forget to tell you about the ones that were wounded and died miles away. The hunting literature is full of advice about firearms for deer and hogs. In a nutshell that advice is “use enough gun.” The 223 is not enough gun. I would second the motion for the 30 AR. Ballistically very similar to the 30-30, a time tested deer and hog killer.
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.
Before we open a thread that’s gonna be 7.62/6.8 vs 5.56 I’ll clarify a few things. I live and hunt in the N. Georgia region where a 100yd shot is a rarity unless you know someone with farmland. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a deer greater than 75 yds away. That’s just how my AO is. If you plan on hunting farmland and could see yourself taking a deer at 200yds I can definitely see the argument for a heavier bullet. If you’re planning on hunting close range 5.56 is good to go.
I’m sure that we can agree on one thing, that no matter what caliber shot placement is still number 1.
You can place a bad shot on a deer with a 458 and have him run away and you can drop one stone cold dead with a 22 long rifle. The smaller the cartridge the more important shot placement and bullet construction are. I would be very careful about bullet selection using a 223 on deer.
Don’t forget the 6.5 Grendel. Alexander Arms has some that should be great for hunting for around $1400 just add sights or optics. I know other companies make them I just can’t think of any off the top of my head.
I bought a 6.8 barrel & built an upper with the sole intent of using it on hogs first and eventually a deer. Still haven’t so much as zeroed the thing. Hopefully when it cools off a bit I’ll get a chance at another hog.
I vote 6.8. Daniel Defense is coming out with a 6.8 rifle shortly, although it’s been postponed. Or you could get a Bushmaster ACR in .223 and then 6.8 when the barrels arrive.
The 308’s in the AR platform are tempermental from what I understand. The LMT may have resolved that but it’s pretty darn heavy and then you have the muzzle blast on top of that.
In my opinion, the .308 Winchester/7.62NATO cartridge is major overkill for eastern White Tail deer. I would not use a .223/5.56NATO cartridge either, it’s too light for the purpose. While wounding soldiers to take them out of battle and using up medical resources is one thing, when hunting deer you want a round that puts the animal down with the lowest chance it will run, causing you to have to track it, or to lose the animal altogether.
The 6.8 SPC, or my personal choice the 6.5 Grendel, are both very good for hunting eastern White Tail deer in my opinion. Over time, both, or either, may replace the venerable .30-30 Winchester cartridge as the gold standard deer round in a lightweight carbine with excellent ergonomics.
There are always anecdotes with regard to firearm effectiveness.
Your one clean kill compared to dozens or even hundreds of non-clean kills demand better performing rounds.
That’s not to say every shot with a higher performance round (higher performance than the .223) will be a perfect kill, we know that’s not true. What we do know is that a shot with a 6.8 SPC or a 6.5 Grendel will have a significantly higher number of “put down-now” results than the .223 will.
From autopsies of GA deer killed with a .308 I’d agree it’s overkill. Especially if you hit shoulder bones. :eek:
I doubled lung-ed an already started doe with a .30-30 150 gr CoreLokt and she ran about 70 yards and piled up. The .223 killed deer never moved that far. Ya never know.
The .223 is definitely up to it IF the hunter is. Like archery or handguns, there are shots you will not take, that someone with a “brush busting load” :rolleyes: might take. I’ve let deer walk . . . cause I don’t shoot at walking deer with the .223. That’s the trade-off.
If you blow up a deer’s heart/lungs with a .223, you’ll have your deer. If you gut shoot it with a .223 or .30-30, good luck.
The 6.8 is by all accounts a superb deer sized game cartridge. I’d be surprised if the .30 Rem isn’t also. Same for 6.5 Grendel. An upper in one of those would be neat to keep the gun trim and lighter.
Why not an LMT 6.8 upper? If my math is right, you could have the complete LMT setup for around $1500.
Satisfies your needs right now, and IF you decide 2 years from now that the 6.8 experiment was not for you, a barrel, bcg, and two bolts are all that separates you from a quality 5.56.
I’m pretty much in agreement with you. I have 2 5.56 ARs for fun and SHTF/home defence purposes. For hunting, I have a dedicated 6.8SPC rifle. I’ll give a big thumbs up to AR Performance. I initially tried to go cheap with a Stag 5H upper, and had poor results, with lots of feed problems. For about $100 more, I now have an ARP 18" SS upper. It’s mounted on a Daniels Defense lower built by G & R Tactical with their LPK and a Magpul ACS stock. I have a 2.8-10x40 scope mounted on it, and it’s pretty much only used at the range or for hunting. Silver State Armory (SSA) make a nice hunting round with the Barnes TSX bullet in 85 and 110gr, with a 95gr version on the way. This round is hell on pigs.
For more info, check out 68forums.com. They have a dedicated 6.8 hunting section.
