Would .223 FMJ be fine for shooting groundhogs?

[jy951]

Just curious if FMJ .223 are fine for humanely killing groundhogs. I've got a bunch, but will get some soft points if the FMJ are no good. Anyone shoot groundhogs with them? Thanks.

 

[clt46910]

If you get good shots they will do the job.

 

[42769vette]

it will defintally do the job humanly with proper shot placement. hell i watched a hunting show where they were killing ground hogs at 80 yds with those new gamo air rifles

 

[Crystalship1]

Just curious if FMJ .223 are fine for humanely killing groundhogs. I've got a bunch, but will get some soft points if the FMJ are no good. Anyone shoot groundhogs with them? Thanks.

Think about it....... If it was good enough to kill thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers..... I'm pretty sure it would work for a rodent!!!!

 

[Colt556]

Beat me to it! ^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Richard]

I usually use .22LR on woodchucks/groundhogs.

 

[Chefcook]

It will kill them dead... I don't know what these guys are shooting but I have taken many with .22 long rifle. Let me know if you need any help sounds like a good time to me...

YouTube - Real Groundhog hunting

 

[tyler34]

all you need


YouTube - Barnes Varmint Grenade

 

[42769vette]

all you need


YouTube - Barnes Varmint Grenade

im sold. that was a impressive video

reped

 

[rhino]

redacted

 

[LOWE1600]

I use a 22mag and a 22-250 both work pretty well.

 

[jeremy]

I have used from .22LR to 7mm Mag. While it is really a lot of fun with the big guns it is also expensive. .22LR is effective and efficient.

 

[pokey308]

.243 58gr vmax. talk about a hole in the head....

 

[AGarbers]

FMJ not humane for hunting. SP/HP better.

I am of the opposite opinion of everyone else here. I don’t know how humane the .223 FMJ is for hunting anything. I would go with the .223 soft point or hollow point. While you will most likely kill the animal with the FMJ, there is the chance you will cause it to have a slow lingering death. The whole reason for using FMJ in war is because it doesn’t cause catastrophic wounds. They cause clean wounds, as wounds go.
In hunting, you want catastrophic wounds to put the animal down as quickly and as humanely as possible. I don’t know if you can find a state that you can lawfully hunt regulated big game with a FMJ. In every case I have seen, they require soft point or hollow tips as FMJ can zip right through allowing the animal to escape and die slowly or suffer a long fight to recover. It’s not unlike archery hunting with field points instead of broadheads. Look at any commercially made hunting round. You will not find a FMJ because it will not put the animal down in every situation. Even a SP or HP won’t do the job every time, but at least you did the best you could.
Keep in mind, you might hit that groundhog, and it may make it back to its hole with you thinking its dead. However, there’s the chance someone else might come up on it days later, in terrible shape but alive. I know because I have been in an identical situation but I also did the shooting. I don’t even want to get into it if the person that finds a wounded animal is a member of PETA. Even if they’re not, they will have a low opinion of the hunter that made the animal suffer needlessly and come the next time when an anti-hunting issue is on the ballot, guess which way they’ll vote. While I hate it, we have to think of that these days
I think as ethical hunters a softpoint or hollow point should be used, even on lowly groundhogs and save the FMJ for tin cans and paper.

 

[Turtle]

I do fine with my pellet gun.

 

[agentl074]

My Dad took out several groundhogs from our property at 10 feet and a .22lr FMJ into the body. Quick, good kills each and every time. Close range and even FMJ out of the .223 will destroy their insides.

 

[Marc]

make an event out of it... hossier kill and chill. do some groundhog shooting and then have a bbq or a pitch in after wards with a bonfire or something.

 

[Crystalship1]

hossier kill and chill.

Who's that now???

 

[IndyBeerman]

The whole reason for using FMJ in war is because it doesn’t cause catastrophic wounds. They cause clean wounds, as wounds go.

In the famous words of Alex Trebeck, that is incorrect.

While is may zip through a groundhog, it will kill it just as effective as any other round. just a little expensive per round to do so.

Now the 5.56/.226 FMJ in war situation causes a horrible wound track, and was designed to cause bad wounds to eat up personel to attend to those wounded.

Terminal Ballistics "Wound Ballistics" by Bob Tuley

Here's a little excerpt from it:

For a little bullet, the 5.56 bullet produces quite dramatic wounds. While the traditional 30-06 caliber bullet of the M1 Garand and 7.62 bullet of the M14 rifle would immediately knock a man down, the 5.56 bullet instead enters the body, quickly turns sideways after passing through only 4" of flesh, then breaks in two major pieces, as well as many smaller fragments. During the Vietnam War, soldiers reported that shooting an enemy soldier with the M16 did not kill as quickly as the old 30 caliber weapons. Instead soldiers would follow a massive trail a blood a few feet away from where the enemy soldier had been hit to find him dead from massive blood loss.

Not exactly what you would call a clean wound.

 

[AGarbers]

Which would be more humane? SP or FMJ?

That was the original question I think. Using a Hollow Point or Soft Point bullet would be more humane than a FMJ. I don’t think there could be any argument there. Can the .223 FMJ do the job? Of course, but it isn’t the best choice. For a bullet to be efficient, it has to give up its’ energy into the object being shot, causing massive shock. Since the FMJ doesn’t mushroom like a soft point or fragment like a hollow point very little energy is transferred, and unless a vital organ is punctured causing it to bleed out or large bone is hit casing the fragmenting with bone matter, the bullet may not kill the animal.
If I understand correctly, the Geneva Convention was to make war more “civilized” and disallows anything but a FMJ because it causes a cleaner wound that when not lethal, can be recovered from easier. (Fewer bits of clothing or foreign matter get dragged into the body as happens with hollow point or soft bullets.) The military uses them because they feed more reliably, not because they kill better. I know Vietnam Vets that loathed giving up their M-14s for the M-16. Their comments were that the .223 was ineffective against drugged up/hyped up combatants while their .308 M-14 put them down nicely. I have read some GIs liked to cut the tops off their .223 bullets making them into soft points, to increase their killing power. (I think they were called dum-dums and were a no-no.)
As far as the odd bullet path of the .223/5.56, it was my understanding from the experts while I was in the military that it was caused by the rate of twist in the Colt M-16 not stabilizing the bullet well. If this is the case, it would act differently in different rates of twist.