What is the smallest caliber you've ever used on big game?

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seeker_two

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Deep in the Heart of the Lone Star State (TX)
(By big game, I mean Texas-sized whitetail deer or larger...)

Arguements about "using enough gun" and "ethics" aside, what is the smallest, lightest caliber that you've used to dispatch a big-game animal? Be sure to list the distance & type of load used, if possible.

(...and don't say anything that isn't past your states statutes of limitation, either... :evil: )

Thanks in advance...
 
.22 LR on springbok, in South Africa, during a culling exercise. Range was about 3 feet - shot down from a tree into the neck as the springbok passed underneath. Went down immediately - neck broken (the bullet entered between two vertebrae).
 
My first-ever deer I killed was a very patient and volunteering doe, shot in the white spot. Range of maybe 20 to 25 yards. My uncle's Sako .222; don't know the load but it probably was a 50- or 55-grain bullet. I don't really think of that event as "hunting".

Art
 
one in/out-law. has shot 2 deer with .22 wmr less tha 30 yrds thur neck drt.
one older women i use to work with used .223 keep her shots less than 100 yrds used mostly neck shots harvested many deer with one shot each
me i would (for sport hunting) would stay with .243 and up dependent on distance expected for shots. east tex. shots under 100 yards many under 50 yards .30-30, .243, .44mag all good, hill contry, west tex. .25-06, .270, .308, .30-06, 7mm mag. all guns named are ones i have used, not all have i taken game with. i have harvested deer with both the .270 and .30-06.
 
.22lr Stinger into the head of a 180lb dressed boar hog at 11yds.

I've used a .222 on deer and hogs without a hitch. 50gr softpoint

Today I use a .270 or .280 most of the time, or a 7.62x39.
 
My son shot his first few deer with a .223. I backed him up with a larger rifle, but the .223 was adequate with the shots I let him take.

A friend hunts deer with a .30 carbine handgun (AMT?) and does fine. He used FMJ's and shoots them through the shoulders - not what I would choose, but it works for him...

Keith
 
.380 on an antelope in Wyoming. I've told the story before, I thought it was dead. Was wrong not only was it not dead itwas barely wounded. It jumped up, I drew, fired 3 shots got 3 hits.

#1 380 isn't a heavy enough gun for breaking bone.

#2 get through the ribs and it doesn't matter.

.243 is as low as I'd go in bullet diameter, 30-30 is the lowest powered rifle I ever used.
 
I carried a .223 in the woods once. Had a shot at a nice, fat doe, but delayed, waiting for the perfect neck shot in case the li'l .22 didn't penetrate much. She ran.

Next time, I used the .45-70. :)
 
Whitetail spike using a .30 cal. M-1 carbine soft-point at 75 yds. Broke both front legs and deer ran off. Missed 4 or 5 shots at fleeing deer. Finally ran it down and killed it. I no longer hunt with .30 cal. carbine.
 
.44 special. I put down deer with a .357, after they had been hit with something else. The .44 was a 200 grain LHP. The deer was a small doe shot at about 15 feet. I fired four times. (I had been asleep resting against a tree when the deer woke me up by walking up on the back side of the same tree. All shots were double actioned)

shots one and two impacted on the shoulder blade and went along the spine with out breaking bones.

Shot three impacted the deer as she ran down the trail and went between the ribs, into her lungs and did not exit the body.

Shot four hit a sapling and buried itself in the wood.


The deer ran +200 yards, no blood. I unloaded my gun and was going to pitch it into the woods. Realizing that I could sell it and get "something else", I holstered it and was headed for the truck, on the very same path the deer ran down. Found my old man, who said "Saw the deer you shot at. She was running hard up the hill, too fast for me to shoot." Then he proceeded to give me a hard time, until he pointed out she fell just over the hill.

The damage to muscle tissue and lungs was extensive, but since then I always a JHP or SWC and avoid large bones when using a handgun.
 
Doesn't count as "game" , but .22lr high velocity solid works for putting down the average domestic cow. Sub-10yards range through the front of the skull. Anglre has to be right.

I say HV, because I once saw someone using subsonic target loads on a cancer-eyed cow that hardly broke the skin on her forehead. I did the job for him.... snuck up on her blind-side and dropped her with a piece of inch-and-a-half galvanised pipe applied just behind the poll.

Cheers.......... Peter
 
I used a .22 short solid lead to take out a 7-point whitetail at 143 yards, but that's nothing compared to the time that I dropped a black rhino with a Tokyo Marui Airsoft Beretta 92. Or the time when I dropped a charging elephant with a Super Soaker, although I had to deliver a coup de grace with a Nerf. </sarcasm>
 
friend of mine killed a 350lb black bear in new mexico with a .17 remington. i ran the camara with one hand on my 270 weatherby mag just in case. saddlebum
 
Whats the smallest round you've used on the biggest game?

kind of a play off of the other thread. But it brings up a good point.

I'm thinking that mine would have to be a .223 on Elk. It was a 55gr FMJ at about 80 yards on a cow elk during a depradation hunt. Head shot. We killed 8 elk that day with an S&W model 1500 rifle in .223. these were all shot on various hay fields and I believe that they were primarily head or neck shots on stationary cows from a truck.
 
Head shot with a 22 Hornet on deer. It was within 50 yards and so the rifle wasn't even considered. And to think the the Hornet was for zapping squirrels as a sideline. :)
 
.577 Nitro Express
Click to expand...

Kentucky,

If that's your smallest gun I'd hate to hear about your big one!!!:uhoh:

What you'd shoot with it a Tyranasoaur??:eek:
 
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