50gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips in the .223 Remington

[Larry in SD]

I have been loading 50gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips for my Ruger KM77RFP MKII Stainless-Synthetic .223. I am using Hodgdon's Benchmark Powder and couldn't be more pleased with the Accuracy. Velocity out of my 22" Ruger is 3310 FPS.

A few weeks ago the wife and I left town about an hour before sunset in hopes of getting a few Pheasants. Well my Ruger .223 usually resides in the Overhead Big Sky Gun Rack in my Pickup and this particular day it was a good thing the .223 was in the pickup.

About a mile and a half from town Bonnie said "why is that dog out in that field". Well I looked and at the same time we both said "that's no dog, that's a Coyote". The Coyote was going across a combined soy bean field, and out about 300 yards or so.

I promptly drove the pickup down in the bottom of the ditch on the opposite side of the road that the Coyote was on. I grabbed the Ruger .223 and jumped out. Well the Coyote was paying attantion to all of this activity and took off at top speed. My first shot sailed right over his back barely missing the Coyote and kicking up dirt on the hill side beyond the Coyote. I quickly reloaded, swung the crosshairs ahead of the Coyotes nose and touched the trigger. To my amazement my bullet found it's mark (or maybe the Coyote ran into the bullet, I don't know which but at any rate the Coyote made about 3 somersaults before coming to rest.

His head stayed up for a moment, but then he collapsed. When I got to the Coyote he was dead. I examined the Coyote I could not find an exit wound anywhere. At first I didn't know exactly where I had hit the Coyote, but soon discovered that I had hit the Coyote square in the middle of the on side shoulder. Nope there was no exit wound, but the insides of the Coyote were mush.

This is the first Coyote I have shot with this bullet-n-load out of this Ruger. I have shot a lot of other smaller varmints with this bullet-n-load out of this Ruger and have not been disappointed with the bullets accuracy or performance.

Just thought I would share the experience with this bulle.

Thanks for reading.

Larry

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

Congrats on yoru coyote kill. That 50g btip and the 223 should do good for you on coyotes out to 300-350 or so I would imagine. I have shot probly close to 10 coyotes with my 222 rem and the 40g btip at 3600fps and have had similar results to yours out to 300 yards. Always a dead coyote, but with hardly an exit and the insides very mush. I'm working on a 55g BT load for my .222 rem, preliminary results show 3000fps and .5" at 100 yards. Will work on that since the 40g bullets group into .25" or better

 

[JD338]

Larry,

Thanks for the story and the picture. Congratulations on some fine shooting and killing a coyote.
I am using the same bullet in my 22-250 with great results on coyotes. The exit holes are the size of a dime through the ribs. I did have a runner last year,thought I missed him. 150 yd shot and no blood trail in the fresh snow. I found him this spring and he was only about 25-30 feet farther than where I stopped looking. It was a bitter-sweet moment.

Congrats again.

JD338

 

[Larry in SD]

JD 338, thanks for the kind words.

Man I feel your pain. I really hate not finding game that I know I hit. That has happened to me on a couple occasions and every time I vow I will never let that happen again, but it is an unfortunate situation at times.

Larry

 

[FOTIS]

Nice kill!

:wink:

 

[honkeetonkin]

Dont forget to thank Bonnie for spotting your coyote for you. Nothing better than your better half sharing your hunting trips.

 

[Larry in SD]

Thanks guys. Bonnie has been my main hunting companion since we were married in 1976. I think she was more excited about me getting the Coyote than I was (if you can believe that).

Bonnie has always thought I was NUTS with my addiction to Calling Coyotes. All of the Electronic Callers I have built over the years. All the practicing with Predator Calls and Howlers in the basement, etc. Last winter a buddy gave me a new call to try out. It was non other than a Primos / Randy Anderson Double Wammy Coyote Howler.

Well Bonnie and I were out driving around one afternoon and I decided to see if I could locate some Coyotes to try to call in. It was about a half hour before sunset. I stopped about a mile south of a lake that is surrounded by Rice Cane and Cat Tails, and did a series of Howls with the Double Wammy.

Instantly a pack of Coyotes answered me, and there was one that was challanging. Bonnie and I hurried up and got set up, and I howled again with the Double Wammy. Almost immediately we saw 4 Coyotes coming our way and they were MAD.

Long story short, no we didn't get any of those Coyotes. A farmer out spreading manure drove his tractor between us (hidden in a fence line) and the Coyotes and that was the end of that.

At any rate ever since that afternoon Bonnie now is getting into Calling Coyotes (ok at least going along and I do the calling).

Thanks again guys.

Larry