Question for 22 nosler users...

varminter .223, if your AR has a hard trigger pull, this could be the source of making bad hits. Standing shooting off a bip pod, excited takes practice.

Your trigger should be crisp and light, there are several good replacement triggers. Heavy triggers make a guy jerk or slap the trigger.

I don't think that there is one thing wrong with your 55g ballistic tips, you are just going through the growing pains, learning how to shoot in a very awkward shooting circumstances.

A lot of practicing, would give you a lot of confidence.

Best wishes!
 
I have geissele sd-e triggers in most of my ARS but what I'm currently using is a 3lb velocity. I've been dabbling with single stages. I've also had 3 sd-e triggers that either had creep or were way too light on the second stage. And I mean like a second stage of 2 to 4 oz which is too light for wearing gloves in cold conditions. I'm starting to shy from Geissele. If it's one thing I won't tolerate it's a less than wonderful trigger. The issues we've had with the 55 ballistic tip is out around 200 yards and beyond. It seems like last year we didn't have these problems and we were shooting what they sold as the regular bullets. This year we're shooting a lot of blems from Shooters Pro Shop which I'm afraid may have thicker jackets do to worn out dies etc. That's just speculation on my part though.
But for example last week I killed one at about 265 yards on a dead run from left to right and I probably had 30 feet of lead on him. You need some energy when you're shooting them like that.
 
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The comment was not directed to V-223 it was in general. If my rifle wouldn't hold zero at 100 yards I sure wouldn't be shooting at animals with it. If you have a problem with zero shift at 100 yards to the point where you can't be sure of an ethical kill and your just hoping for a hit, then you are shooting beyond the capabilities of your equipment whether it is day or night.

Just because it works most/some of the time, you are still just hoping it does, "Shoot the ones you KNOW you can kill, not the ones you HOPE you can kill".
 
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Originally Posted By: AWSThe comment was not directed to V-223 it was in general. If my rifle wouldn't hold zero at 100 yards I sure wouldn't be shooting at animals with it. If you have a problem with zero shift at 100 yards to the point where you can't be sure of an ethical kill and your just hoping for a hit, then you are shooting beyond the capabilities of your equipment whether it is day or night.

Just because it works most/some of the time, you are still just hoping it does, "Shoot the ones you KNOW you can kill, not the ones you HOPE you can kill".

Well it is a $4,500 scope I'm not sure I can justify $9,000 for Trijicon. On top of that you need a 2000 to $4,000 monocular to go with the scope and then there's my $2,000 back up night vision. We sent them in for replacements under warranty last year as we were dealing with four or five in of shift 100 yards. If you spend any time in the night hunting section you will see my threads on contemplating going to gen 3 night vision possibly. The answer to this problem is very simple move to faster bigger calibers and blow coyotes limbs off on a bad hit because that's what we're trying to do is kill them. Point of my post is if you're not night hunting you have no clue what the night hunting guys are dealing with.
I can tell you I started out with a 24-inch stag model 6 shooting 60 VMAX and it would kill coyotes but I had several runners which was unacceptable to me. I always loaded for accuracy which in that particular rifle meant that I wasn't running things very fast and that may have had something to do with it but I don't see a need to handicap myself at night for all the reasons I've given. We kill about 50 each year in the night season so it's not like many get away and when they do it's normally a miss. We check zero on our guns almost every evening before we hunt and we are constantly trying to improve our kill ratio. One easy way to do that is hitting them with more energy.
As far as your ethical comment what in the world is ethical about having one crawl off from a 223 gut shot???
 
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Originally Posted By: varminter .223As a matter of fact we have videos where it shows an absolutely perfect shot and the coyote runs away unscathed.

if it was an absolutely perfect shot how does a coyote run away unscathed?
 
It sounds like you've wasted a lot of money trying to night hunt. Maybe a spotlight and a decent scope might work better for you.

There is nothing ethical about having a gut shot coyote run off.

As far as not night hunting so I don't know your problems, You told me your problems, your equipment isn't reliable enough to make a killing shot.

I've killed a fair number of foxes at night but that was on snow with moon light.

I have absolutely no interest in spending $6000.+ to try and kill coyotes. I'd rather spend the time to figure out how to kill them in the daylight. It is a much more interesting hunt.
 
Originally Posted By: SlickerThanSnotOriginally Posted By: varminter .223As a matter of fact we have videos where it shows an absolutely perfect shot and the coyote runs away unscathed.

if it was an absolutely perfect shot how does a coyote run away unscathed?
This is the part you guys don't understand if you've never experienced it. These digital scope have a sensor in front with processes information and displays it on the screen that you're saying when you look through the scope. I don't understand how it all works but in a sense it's like looking through a digital camera. The pulsar's we have our 50 hertz and that means there is a slight delay in the information that is processed which is something that has to be learned how to compensate for on running shots. You can record everything to play back in the video and watch later. You can start and stop the video by pausing it as you go and put it in slow motion Etc to watch where you're scope crosshairs were at the time of the shot. While this occurrence isn't super common what I'm trying to tell you is there are times when you couldn't have aimed in a more precise location you shoot everything looks good in the video as you were seeing it and the coyote runs away without a bullet in him.
 
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Originally Posted By: AWSIt sounds like you've wasted a lot of money trying to night hunt. Maybe a spotlight and a decent scope might work better for you.

There is nothing ethical about having a gut shot coyote run off.

As far as not night hunting so I don't know your problems, You told me your problems, your equipment isn't reliable enough to make a killing shot.

I've killed a fair number of foxes at night but that was on snow with moon light.

I have absolutely no interest in spending $6000.+ to try and kill coyotes. I'd rather spend the time to figure out how to kill them in the daylight. It is a much more interesting hunt.
What I find on the is when people say that the cartridge they shoot is the only cartridge needed that most of the time they can't seem to be able to acquire a different cartridge due to financial constraints and probably the same with the high-end thermal optics.
They've never done it but they know best and their way is the only way.
We put number 43 since Nov. 15th in the truck last night that we killed out beyond 300 yards running so it does work. Once again we lose very few but I'm sure we would lose more shooting lower energy rounds. I think it's simply called physics.
We shoot the 22 Nosler because I wanted to stay with lighter bullets that won't ricochet in this populated area. It seems a greater portion of people around here especially the contest Hunters are all running 243 wssm, 243 AR-10 and I would hate to guess how many Savage Axis in 243 there are out and about in this area. More energy seems to be a pretty popular theme for the night hunting.
As far as being a waste of time there is more dark hours than daylight hours in the winter..... with that said these thermal scopes absolutely open up more hunting time then I have in the day and it is 10 times more effective. If you want to call that a waste of money go ahead I'll call at the time of my life.
 
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I'm pretty heavily invested in deer hunting and our deer population is now off the charts and fox population is back up and I would credit a lot of it to do to the extreme effectiveness of night hunting
 
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Originally Posted By: varminter .223what I'm trying to tell you is there are times when you couldn't have aimed in a more precise location you shoot everything looks good in the video as you were seeing it and the coyote runs away without a bullet in him.

well that makes way more sense than the other way you said it.
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and it would drive me crazy to have that happen more than about once. if my bullet aint hitting where the crosshair is, i am changing something. would not put up with it.
 
Originally Posted By: SlickerThanSnotOriginally Posted By: varminter .223what I'm trying to tell you is there are times when you couldn't have aimed in a more precise location you shoot everything looks good in the video as you were seeing it and the coyote runs away without a bullet in him.

well that makes way more sense than the other way you said it.
lol.gif


and it would drive me crazy to have that happen more than about once. if my bullet aint hitting where the crosshair is, i am changing something. would not put up with it.
Oh it drives us crazy LOL but we still pile up the coyotes. When you can see a mouse climb up a tree at 200 yards in the pitch black it's hard to thrown it under the bus too bad though.
However you can see in our situation where bigger, faster, stronger is a definite handy thing to have and when compared to everything else in the game it's the cheapest part and who doesn't want to build some more ARs.
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Ok, down to Earth. If you are standing upright with a tall tri or bi pod, shooting at coyotes coming in, things get very, very exciting!

I say, give yourself a break! Maybe practice some, but this is one of the most demanding shooting circumstances you can imagine!

If you lean into the recoil, you shoot low. If you yank the trigger, you shoot who the heck knows. If you have a 4.5 lb trigger pull, you are all over the map.

I am not of the midset of hose them down, but of one shot, one kill.

Shooting 200-300 at night is a lack of calling skills most of the time, or getting in a hurry. Learn patience, coax them in...use attractants if legal where you hunt. They work down wind, smell the attractants, then they come on in closer. Silent dog whistle can stop them on a dime.
 
Coyotes around here get pressured big time. The first year we hunted we shot a lot of them at closer ranges. While we occasionally get those coyotes that just want to run us over, it seems like each year our shots get farther out because the coyotes end up circling downwind farther or hang up. We find the coyotes many times won't even come in unless you give them the wind in that case you better be ready to shoot just before they get in your wind. Like hunting anything there times when you think you should have shot sooner and times you cuss yourself because you shot too early and for sure shooting off those pods is nothing like shooting off of cross sticks while sitting on your butt.
Not all coyotes can be called into your lap or within any shooting distance for that matter. With the PIP on the xp50 we've killed them between 3 and 400 on several occasions. If they won't come in many times we walk up to them. I think another thing a lot of people can't grasp is we call the same spots over and over because we only have access to so many places and we hunt 3 or 4 nights per week. We will call the same spots probably around 6 or 8 times per year. There's a road every mile here and somebody that hunts every section if not several people.
 
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