Bullets for Small Game

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 3/29/2021 | P Massaro

[w1n1]

Top loads for Popping Winter/Spring Predators and Varmints.
With our big game seasons winding down, it's time to turn our attention to the predators in the later winter and the varmints in the spring. Where the strong, stiff premium bullets – with their bonded cores, monometal construction and partitioned cores – are the darlings of the big game world, the small-bore cartridges that best handle the furbearers and varmints are the opposite: maximum frangibility is a benefit. I enjoy hunting both coyotes and foxes in January and February here in New York, when the fur is prime, and both species are beginning their breeding seasons. We have no lack of coyotes, and as they feed on wildlife and domesticated animals equally, they are actively hunted.

Many hunters also take them as a target of opportunity during deer season, as they will often be seen cruising after deer or cleaning up gut piles, and taken with the deer rifle in hand. But for those who actively pursue coyotes and foxes, specialized rifles, cartridges and bullets are the norm. Popular centerfire cartridges for these species include the .223 Remington, .204 Ruger, .243 Winchester, .22-250 Remington and .17 Hornet, and among the rimfire cartridges, the .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire, .17 HMR and .17 WSM are favorites. All of these cartridges have the energy and trajectory to cleanly take the furbearers within their eective ranges, though that range will be a bit different for each of them.

The muzzle velocities and bullet shapes will dictate sensible uses – for example, the bullet shapes and velocities of the .22 Magnum will limit its range, especially in comparison to the speedy .22250 Remington – and some of them can do double duty on deer and similarsized game. Where many deer are taken each year with the .243 Winchester, those 90 and 100 grain bullets that excel on whitetails and pronghorn antelope aren't exactly what you want to use on varmints and predators. Yes, they’ll work, but not with the same dramatic eect as that of a thin jacketed 55 grain bullet at a higher velocity from the same cartridge.

THE IDEA BEHIND the varmint and predator loads is not complex: a high-velocity bullet of frangible construction, capable of pinpoint accuracy and that delivers a whole lot of hydrostatic shock to an animal of smaller stature than their big game counterparts. These species are thin-skinned, have lighter skeletal structures and (most) have a nervous system that can be rapidly switched by that hydrostatic shock.

Some of my favorite varmint/predator bullets include the Nosler Ballistic Tip Varmint, the Speer TNT, Barnes' Varminator, Sierra's BlitzKing and MatchKing (more about that in a minute) and the Hornady V-Max. All of these have the properties any varmint/predator hunter wants, and all are capable of creating the fabled "red mist" when hunting woodchucks and prairie dogs. They all either have a polymer tip or hollowpoint design, and most oer a boattail variant for maximizing downrange energy and minimizing wind drift. Let’s take a look at them individually to get a better feel for what might work best for you. The Nosler Ballistic Tip was the first American bullet with a polymer tip, used to maintain a consistent ballistic coefficient as well as acting like a wedge to initiate expansion upon impacting the animal. Read the rest of small game bullets.

[Bob434]

[[my mind is still unable to comprehend what “enjoyment” can be had from killing a living creature doing nothing other than what it has to do to survive. ]]

What did you have to eat today? An y meat? Those animals sat you ate were just “standing around just trying to survive too”

Are you a vegan? If so, what did those greens ever do to you to cause you to want to consume them? They were just hanging around, surviving, until some mean farmer came along and ripped them fro their roots, sent them through tunes. Tubs, spraying, etc, then into neat little bags for the veggie choppers to consume without getting their hands dirty. Plants have “feelings” too. It’s a fact.

Ranchers “enjoy” ranching too, are they monsters? Pig farmers enjoy their work and the money they get fro it
. Are fishermen monsters for catching food for others?

Varmint hunting keeps predators in balance, and yes, it is enjoyable to hunt, being outdoors, tracking animal habits, learning about their ehaviors, learning where they are at certain points, perfecting shooting skills, selling the fur making some good money. Th8e folks that hunt them don’t simply drive up to a shooting range, sit in their vehicles and start blasting at defenseless animals out their vehicle windowa. There is a lot to hunting that is very enjoyable, even if one doesn’t get a shot all season at vermin or predators. Getting a shot is just, and harvesting a predator in a culling manner to ,eep populations fro exploding and decimating the wild game industry is the payoff for all the hard enjoyable work that goes into the effort.

Hunters don’t understand your enjoyment of sitting at a computer, that uses fuel and trees, and coal etc to run the online industry, complaining about them being outdoors and enjoying being a vital part of game management

[Democrat = party of treason]

“Yep. Never seen it and never kept livestock. You are forgiven for being ignorant. Try not to make a display of it.”

So in other words, YOU are unable to build a structure for your hens that a fox cannot gain entry to, so your alternative is to kill any fox you might see and hope that one doesn’t slip past you and kill your hens. Yea, that’s real intelligent.

[Democrat = party of treason]

“Pretty sure you’ve never had a hen house.”

Again, seems more like YOU have a problem keeping hens safe from predators so you think the answer is to just kill the predators you see and hope for the best. Again, YOUR failure.

[Magnum44]

[kvanbrunt2]

Browning 22-250 caliber. Tack driver.

[P8riot]

Such a structure does not exist

[Democrat = party of treason]

“What did you have to eat today? An y meat? Those animals sat you ate were just “standing around just trying to survive too”

I already stated, I was not addressing the “for food” or removing a dangerous animal from places it should not be.

“Are you a vegan? If so, what did those greens ever do to you to cause you to want to consume them? They were just hanging around, surviving, until some mean farmer came along and ripped them fro their roots, sent them through tunes. Tubs, spraying, etc, then into neat little bags for the veggie choppers to consume without getting their hands dirty. Plants have “feelings” too. It’s a fact.”

Blah, blah, blah...nothing to do with this discussion.

“Ranchers “enjoy” ranching too, are they monsters? Pig farmers enjoy their work and the money they get fro it
. Are fishermen monsters for catching food for others?”

Ditto.

“Varmint hunting keeps predators in balance, and yes, it is enjoyable to hunt, being outdoors, tracking animal habits, learning about their ehaviors, learning where they are at certain points, perfecting shooting skills, selling the fur making some good money. Th8e folks that hunt them don’t simply drive up to a shooting range, sit in their vehicles and start blasting at defenseless animals out their vehicle windowa.”

I think you might be surprised at how often that happens.

“There is a lot to hunting that is very enjoyable, even if one doesn’t get a shot all season at vermin or predators. Getting a shot is just, and harvesting a predator in a culling manner to ,eep populations fro exploding and decimating the wild game industry is the payoff for all the hard enjoyable work that goes into the effort.”

Most people who kill animals for “enjoyment” believe whatever it takes to support their killing enjoyment. That’s like the Nazi thinking, placing “vermin or predator” into ones mind in order to justify what they just want to do.

“Hunters don’t understand your enjoyment of sitting at a computer, that uses fuel and trees, and coal etc to run the online industry, complaining about them being outdoors and enjoying being a vital part of game management.”

Again, never was referring to game management, just mentally ill brains that like to kill animals for “enjoyment”.

[Bob434]

You gonna keep them coupled up in an impenetrable g le cement bunker all the time? That isn’t very nice of you. And just for the record, they don’t call foxes wiley for nothing. Unless you are gonna keep your hens in an impenetrable cement bunker all their lives, foxes and coyotes, and mink, and weasels, and Fischer, and badgers, and all manner of animals WILL get into the coup despite your best efforts to keep them out.

And the bigger predators like coyotes don’t just go after small chickens, they will take anything they can, even bison calves, or sick horses if they can. You gonna keep all these animals in cement prisons too.

Predators are a problem, a big problem, which is why states all allow a hunting season on them which many people enjoy doing.. it’d Good for the environment, it’s Good for wildlife mmanagement and it’s good for a person’s emotional wellbeing to be out enjoying doing what they love in the great outdoors.

Many folks don’t have the emotional hangup that you evidently have about culling predators and nuisance vermin. You don’t live in an area apparently where nuisance Animals are costing you a ton of money every year.

Do you also have hangup about massive overpopulation of rats infesting areas, and folks b e ing called in to cull them too? Or are you picky and choosey about which destructive nuisance animals you like and dislike? Just curious why you think a coyotes is more to be valued than rats, or mice, or cockroachez?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Wow.

I gave you good advise but you are determined.

I thought you were just ignorant but now you are showing you are just plain stupid.

There is no way to educate you out of that so I will leave you to wallow.

[Bob434]

[[Most people who kill animals for “enjoyment” believe whatever it takes to support their killing enjoyment]]

Most people who enjoy it know the facts. You ignore them in your effort to look down on hunters

[Magnum44]

Most people who kill animals for “enjoyment” believe whatever it takes to support their killing enjoyment.

But this is the issue Freepers are pushing back on. 'Most people' are not Nazi's with a desire to kill or inflict suffering. Your whole rebuttal seems built around the idea that 'most people' are. In the big scheme of things, are the few bad apples that kill animals for fun what you want to spend energy arguing about? How about we focus that energy on the few bad apples who take that killing attitude and start applying it to people, like BLM, Antifa, etc.

[Magnum44]

Ok, so in your mind farmers are fools. If you can make that accusation, I wont defend you from deserved criticism from others here. You are naive and have likely never had a want or need in your life.

[dfwgator]

"The mosquito's a clever little bastard. You can track him for days and days until you really get to know him like a friend. He knows you're there, and you know he's there. It's a game of wits. You hate him, then you respect him, then you kill him."

[Bob434]

Exactly, most people siml,simply, enjoy hunting. Whether they get the reward for their efforts [bounty on predators, or selling the furs, or eating the meat or whatever] or not is not the issue, it’s the hunting that they enjoy

[Magnum44]

LOL. Perfect!

[dfwgator]

“A lot of people ask us why we don’t use fly spray.....Well, where’s the sport in that?”

[Bob434]

Fro what I can gather, I think he believes that a “smart farmer” would have cement prisons for all their farm animals to be coupled up in their whole lives. He doesn’t know much about farming if that is indeed his position.

[Magnum44]

A good shepherd protects his herd...

[kjam22]

Coyotes, wolves, armadillos, skunks, possums, wild pigs (our area is over run and fighting wild pigs right now)......... for all of these .... you use whatever rifle you are the most accurate with.