New respect for 5.56

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Well... I wasn't out hunting cows. I was looking for a deer I had hit earlier that morning with my bow. Our neighbors bull got out onto our property and we met. When we did, he wasn't happy about it and he tried to tell me so. I just carry my AR when I'm out walking through our woods cause of the coyote population we have.
 
Did they get the bull to the butcher in time?

Reminds me of a story I heard in WWII in Alaska, where some city-born GIs decided to shoot a brown bear with a Thompson .45. No doubt they thought, machine gun, no problem. One of the guys got mauled and they finally put down the bear with their Garands.
 
I'm not criticizing your need to put the bull down. In that case, the bull created a situation where you were compelled to shoot. I was thinking more as a hunting round.
 
but if it cannot humanely kill on a regular basis with a single shot, it isn't appropriate for the job.
No bullet is guaranteed to do that. No caliber is guaranteed to do that. I have seen animals take what should be a DRT shot from a 30-06 and then require another shot to finish the job. Even though the first round was on target and in the best possible spot. I have a friend that shot a Cape Buffalo, bigger, meaner and tougher than the Water Buffalo, in the heart with a 470NE and it still took 3 more rounds to kill the animal. No would would argue that 470NE is not enough gun for the task.

Point is, even the "right" cartridge for the job is going to fail sometimes. Animals sometimes do strange things and no shot is guaranteed to be the magic shot.
 
It is always better to be lucky than good.

There is a reason that we kept the cattle hand-tame on the ranch. I once had a polled Hereford bull toss me about 6 feet when be butted the feedsack I was carrying to make the cotton seed cake come out a little faster. From my perspective, longhorns (other than Bevo) are foul tempered, mobile, and self-fertilizing lawn ornaments.

One other observation: On the rare instances that we had to put an animal down, we used a 22 lr. However, the animal was always immobile and it was the easiest way to euthanize the poor beast.
 
Robert, I agree. But a .223 is not in any way an ideal round for hunting larger game and a round whose effectiveness if judged by quantity of hits is going to be less humane in the kill.
 
I have dropped 2 white tails with 5.56 using 62gr poly tips. There wasn't an exit wound but the chest cavity was a slurry, quite difficult to distinguish heart from lungs. I'm guessing this was from 5.56's nature to tumble with the combined expansion of the poly tip. Idk, I wasn't in there to see it happen lol. Still, out of all the guns I own, my hunts happen with a 70lb draw behind 100gr Rage Hypodermics. I feel sick guilty any time I hit the timber and leave my Creed at home
Matthews Creed XS 30" 70lb
Trophy Ridge React 5 pin
Whisker biscuit
Zebra string
Trufire Hurricane
Rage 100gr hypo's
Easton carbon bowfires w/ blazer vanes
 
I have a cousin that killed a deer with a Powerline 880 when he was about 5, but I wouldn't hunt with one.

Sorry but I still find the 5.56 underwhelming, a decent coyote round but for anything bigger....I'll go bigger.

I'll almost always error on the slight over kill side, no reason not to.
 
I guess I don't really have that under/over gunned problem since I bow hunt. I've gun hunted before several times but it bothers me to turn a round loose, drop one and send one or more running if there's multiple together. I can turn an arrow loose, hammer one of 3 or 4 and the rest stand there and look around like "***?!". While guns work the best they stir the woods up to much for my liking. I carry my glock on my side if I'm hunting, my AR if I'm out and about since I don't have my bow when setting up or scouting. If I keep having cow problems I may replace the glock with my 454 ruger. Hard to tote a bow and rifle
 
Back to the OPs point: In a defensive situation, the best gun in the world is the one in your hand. It will be much more effective than that 375 H&H you happen to have back in the safe.

And, WITH THE RIGHT SHOT PLACEMENT, any gun will kill almost anything. As I recall, a very large Polar Bear was killed with at 22.
 
Well after my bovine encounter I've pretty much made up my mine that if and when I get out on north western hunt I'll have an AR at hand, just not in 5.56mm. I'm more and more leaning towards a 458 socom upper every day. And of course, the icing on that cake will be an EOtech
 
Well comparing 30 carb to 5.56 is a little unfair since 30 carb is just a long 9mm. 1900fps with 900ft lbs is awfully anemic. 3000fps with 1200ft lbs is a significant difference. Roughly 35% more velocity with 25% more energy is a huge difference. M1 Garand, 30-06... now thats a rifle. By the way, I'm not advocating 5.56 for large animal defense. It just happened to work last weekend in a bad situation and I'm grateful for it

OK, the .30 Carbine is not really the same as the 5.56MM. (despite the M-16 oft being refered to as a "poodle-shooter" :p ) but the .30 Carbine is hardly just a "long" 9mm. More like 1990FPS velocity and 950 poundsfoot energy; not great but quite adeequate for its original purpose. The .30 Carbine has more muzzle energy than a .44 Magnum when the mag. is used as a pistol round (from a 20" barrel the .44 does exceed the carbine by a margin).
Yea I have a M-1 Carbine .... and a Colt M4orgery, so I have a dog in both fights ....or the fight....well, it does make me a tad schizophrenic....:eek: ...:rolleyes:
 
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Yeah but correct me if I'm wrong here but 9mm out of a 16" barrel (Beretta CX4 Storm) has near 357 muzzle energy with a significant increase in velocity as well. I'm sure a +P or +P+ would be even hotter, potentially nipping at 30 carbs heels but I'm just guesstimating. What would a 30 carb do through something the equivalent of my glock 19? Or even the 5" barrel of a 92fs... I'm sure it'd be quite a drop in performance. Possibly even leveling it somewhere around 9mm or 40S&W. Still sub 2000 velocity with sub 1000 energy is fairly anemic to get from a shoulder fired weapon, about what I would expect from a pistol cartridge in a carbine frame. I'm totally open to correction though, I came here to talk and learn
 
There are pistols in .30 carbine; Ruger made a revolver ....Blackhawk IIRC, a sorta Single-Action-Army-like configuration that chambered to .30 Carbine, and the Automag II was chambered in .30 Carbine.
In pistols the round has, mainly, a reputation for; A.) being LOUD, and B.) producing nice muzzle flash. I recall radio commentator G. Gordon Liddy (of Watergate fame and gun enthusiast) claiming the .30 carbine in a handgun was "a bit much."

I don't know what the performance of 9mm. is from a carbine length or rifle barrel. If it doesn't possess enough powder to push it to the end then the additional length may actually be a little counter productive, so +P might be the way to go.
Just looking at the two cartridges side by side I have a hard time imagining the 9mm. ever being up to .30 carbine in power. The .44 magnum atleast has a girth advantage.

The .30 Carbine was a good round for close-in fighting and the light carbine found enthusiasts in the Pacific theater in jungle warfare, whereas in europe, where longer range shooting was often the norm, soldiers often found it wanting in power at great distance, yet its sight was regulated to 300 yards, which I daresay was optimistic.
Still, the relatively weak round had unusual penetration power.
The Japanese officers often wore crude metal plate body armor. The .45ACP from the 1911 or the Thompson, or grease-gun,, would not penetrate the armor.
.30-'06 from the Garand would.
And, so would the reputative "anemic" .30 carbine.
I somehow doubt that 9mm. would have penetrated, especially the 9mm. of the WW2 era .... but I don't know if that was ever tested.
 
As far as deer, I have shot 200-250 lb deer with one. 55 gr soft points. No problem. The lungs and heart looked like mush on everyone I shot. If you can't kill mini size southern deer with one it is not the gun's fault.
 
There are pistols in .30 carbine; Ruger made a revolver ....Blackhawk IIRC, a sorta Single-Action-Army-like configuration that chambered to .30 Carbine, and the Automag II was chambered in .30 Carbine.
Not to nit pick but that should read Automag III. The II was chambered in 22WMR

In pistols the round has, mainly, a reputation for; A.) being LOUD, and B.) producing nice muzzle flash. I recall radio commentator G. Gordon Liddy (of Watergate fame and gun enthusiast) claiming the .30 carbine in a handgun was "a bit much."
I kind of joke sometimes that with my Automag III even if I miss the target I'm still going to set it on fire.
 
I own a couple remote properties with grazing easements that I can terminate by fencing but I prefer the fire hazard being kept in check (cattle do seem to have a pathological hatred of solar driveway lights however--I've given up just and put them out my first day I arrive).

One is a 74 acre lot on the West side of Mt. Graham where I have a small cabin and I have 36 acre lot in the Weaver Mountains west of Prescott as a future home site (also a 40 acre hunting lot near Zuni does not seem to have any cattle). The former site used to be overrun with cattle (the old rancher was a pretty infamous real estate developer who kept way too many cows in one area at a time. I don't think he knew much about them just like paying agricultural tax rates on investment land. The new rancher is much better. However, I have had some close encounters with bulls. One time I would have had probably lost my tent and gear to about 20+ cows coming up a narrow trail if it were not for my Heeler mix Daisy's instincts kicking in. Daisy's son Magellan (his dad Bruce was also a Heeler) once tried to turn a horned bull and he got knocked back about 7 feet with a somersault and he got a bit cow shy after that. They are all past away now and I'm not going to own dogs again until I remarry.

I've also been alone with bulls and managed to scare them away when they tried to come to me. I have carried a Ruger Redhawk Alaskan in .454 Casull loaded with .45 Colt snake shot for some time while hiking and camping. This was after experimenting with snake shot patterns in .357 and .44. I've came to the conclusion that rifling really messes up snake shot and you need a really big bore to minimize the harm of the rifling. We have a lot of the extra venomous Mojave Rattlers and I have actually been surprised on the potty by a Arizona Coral Snake which are as venomous as a Cobra but are not that scary due to very short fangs. I let him go on his way because it was far enough from my camp and I did not have a dog or child on that trip.

Based on bull encounters I now carry snake shot in the first two cylinders backup up by 4 full 325gr hard cast penetrators. Hopefully I will never have to use them.

Mike
 
As a kid, I remember playing in cow pastures with my cousins and everyone at family reunions and gatherings with cattle all around us. They never paid us any mind. Some times the calves wanted to get in on the fun too. I don't know what that bull got in his mind this weekend but I wasn't going to ask him. He quickly let me know he was very upset when he shifted his attention from Squash to me and my 90lb pit/lab mix wasn't bluffing him in the slightest. Funny though cause as mad as Squash was and the way he was berserking I don't know if that cow had of wanted very much... he may have gotten off easy with 5.56 hahaha.
**Totally being facetious**
 
I've faced a feral bull once, a big old monster who came through my camp once. We were near the Mississippi River and had to back off into the water and just wait until he left. I had a .357mag revolver and wasn't in the mood to tangle. I sat for perhaps 20 minutes in a kayak while the bull wandered about before it lost interest and moved on.
 
It seems to me if you have to shoot an animal multiple times, you are not being humane in killing it and any round that requires multiple hits is only marginally effective at best. Yeah, I know that any round can, with bad marksmanship, require multiple shots. And I know that .223 is more powerful than handgun hunting rounds, but if it cannot humanely kill on a regular basis with a single shot, it isn't appropriate for the job.

My feelings exactly, and why won't shoot hogs with anything less than the 7.62x39.
 
I don't know if this has made the difference in my 5.56 experience vs anyone else's but every pig I've shot with it I put the round where the neck meets the shoulders. They're so thick I don't both with a chest cavity shot like with deer. Food for thought maybe, I dunno.

I did hammer a 6 point year before last dead behind his left shoulder. When he spun around to run, I saw what looked to be about 6 inches of a 32 inch arrow hanging out of him. Never even found one drop of blood. That was with a 5.5mm Axis FMJ arrow and a 100gr G5 Montec. Been running Rage mechanicals since and haven't had that problem after the switch. Don't seem to track them near as far either and what was blood spots is now like following an open gallon of red paint
 
"That said, it certainly wouldn't be my choice of defensive firearm where large agressive animals are the rule"

Amen to that.

You don't see .22's in Africa.

In my day, when some one said Varmint Gun, they were probably talking .22-250, a hypervelocity .224 bullet.

Deer Guns started with a .3

Big Game guns started with a .4 or even a .5..
 
Hey I agree, I've taken deer with 5.56 before but should I ever go back to a rifle it would probably my 94 30-30 or my 308 if I were where a scope would be needed. I have a Rem700 7mm RM somewhere too. Yes... I said somewhere. I either let my cousin or step brother borrow it a while back. It's somewhere
 
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