i do realize that is is an extrmely old thread ( over 2 years i believe) but in reading it and with the increased popularity of the AR type rifles in the hunting arena, i felt that i had to comment as every year,just ahead of deer season beginning, this question comes up quite often
"is a 223 a good deer rifle"
my answer is this.
firstly, ive been hunting deer with small caliber centerfire rifles for years (over 35 years) and all i can say is yes, they are. ive taken deer quite often on land depredation permits,regular deer season,etc and have killed well over 100+ in my time with everything from a 22 hornet all the way up to 22-250 with the 222,223 and 22 hornet being my all time favorites. they work exeptionally well. so well in fact that now the majority of the states in the US have changed there game laws in recent years to reflect that it is now legal in most states to use ANY centerfire cartridge. in all of the deer ive killed with these small calibers, i have yet to have one run more than 25 yards max, and most of them drop like someone flicked off a switch or like they were struck by lightning...even many years ago when we didnt have access to all of the high tech bullets and powders we have now, we used to shoot them ( deer ) with regular old varmint weight bullets and they still didnt twitch when hit.
99% of the comments youll read online condeming the 223 and 222 as poor inhumane cartridges to use on deer are NOT speaking from experience, but from what they have read someone else repeat online condemning the 22 centerfires in the deer woods. all i can say is HOGWASH. i have plenty of pictures ive taken over the years of the sheer devistating damage the 222 and 223 do to deer to prove what i say ( i was going to post the pictures here, but alot of them are really gory and bloody)....
personally, this year i built a super accurate AR-15 im going to use. ill be shooting 75gr hornady match bullets. ive had great long range success with these (out to 650+ yards out of this AR) and the gun will shoot an average 1 hole group at 300 yards, with the groups only opening up to around 1/2 dollar size at 600+ yards........
like i said, dont believe ehwat you read when you hear these guys slapping the 223 around. if it will kill a man cleanly, i will kill a deer even twice as fast (remeber the DC sniper?....he used a regular old HB bushmaster AR i believe as a 'sniper" rifle and killed alot of people with 1 shot from long distances...all with that little old inaccurate 223...imagine that)