50 grain Remington AccuTip V on coyotes?

[Bushman]

Any experience with this bullet from a .22 center-fire? It is all I can buy commercially around here for my .221 Fireball. It is loaded in the .222, .223 and .22-250 too. One of the guys that I shoot trap with uses a .223 but with 50 grain V-Max bullets and likes the results. Is that a Blackhills load? I didn't think to ask him. I've also got a box of Nosler Custom 40 grain Ballistic Tips that shoot good, but given the choice I'm thinking that the heavier AccuTip Remington might work better. Opinions?

[Bayrat]

I've never tried the Rem Accutips, but yes, Black Hills makes a 50grain V-max .223. That's what I use for Woodchucks. And accuracy is very good for an off-the-shelf round. Consistent 3/4 inch groups in my Savage.

There are a number of other ammo makers who also offer the 50 gr V-max loading in .223. But, it's not always the best round for large Yotes because it can blow up on the surface if you hit bone.

My late hunting partner hit one of our large Eastern yotes broad-side in the shoulder with his .223 using a 50gr V-max at a little over 100 yards. He had a long track to find it. Eventually he found it after it finally dropped from bleeding out. He said that there was a fist sized crater where the shoulder used to be, but it didn't even crack, much less break any bones.

You may want to think about using a 55 gr soft point, or be very careful about shot placement.

Bayrat

[Sidekick]

I buy the cheap .223 stuff for my AR15 for plinking but for hunting purposes I use the Black Hills 60 grn soft point. Too expensive to plink with but it's very accurate and knocks coyotes flat. The last time I shot a group off of sandbags with it I put 4 shots into a 2" group at 200 yards. With the peep sights. Black Hills is good stuff.

[Bushman]

Yes, given my druthers I would want at least a 55 grain softpoint myself. I'm sure it could be hand-loaded, but I was thinking that if they load that same 50 grain AccuTip for a .223 at 3400 fps and a .22-250 at 3800 fps, it should penetrate farther with my .221 at 3000 fps. My limited experience with coyotes tells me that they very tenacious and can take a lot of punishment for their size.

[Sidekick]

Your experience is correct. I've shot a lot of them with my 22-250 loaded with 55 grn ballistic tips and v-max. Not much difference in performance and very effective.