It’s a popular varmint round.
I don’t think it would be a bad round for small deer, assuming proper bullet selection and good shot placement.
As mks57 said it is a common varmint round. Although slightly less popular for that purpose since the release of the .17 HMR. It is also used by many deer hunters simply because it is much cheaper than “standard” hunting calibers. As long as the round has a sufficient grain count, and the shot is placed in the relative center of the “kill zone” a .223 will do more than enough damage to bring down a small or medium sized deer without the hassle of tracking after the shot.
seenidog does bring up a valid point however. The .223 does not leave much behind when hitting small game, however for a rancher trying to control a gopher infestation that is generally the desired result. As anyone that has spent any time working on a ranch will know, the last thing you want to have to do after a long day of hard labor is go pick up hundreds of gopher bodies.
And you are correct Bricker, I also highly doubt the results would have been any different if the round had been delivered from a Remington 700, Ruger M77, AR-15, Mini-14 or any other common .223 (5.56mm) firearm. I just felt that the difference between “hunting rifle” and “assault rifle” should be noted before someone got a nice big fine for hunting with an unauthorized weapon.
.223 is an extremely popular round in Australia and New Zealand for hunting rabbits, hares, foxes, feral cats, feral dogs, goats, kangaroos dingos, and (in New Zealand), possums. It’s a very versatile round, although 6.5x55 Swedish is arguably better for small-medium game hunting in this part of the world.
An “Assault Rifle” is a select- fire longarm chambered in a medium or full-size cartridge, featuring a pistol grip, detachable magazine, and a bayonet lug.
An AR-15 is not an Assault Rifle- it is a Military Style Semi-Automatic Rifle (AR-15s are not full-auto and do not mount bayonets). Sounds pedantic, but it’s an important distinction.
Most importantly, it’s the responsibility of gun owners to know and obey their local arms laws- which means knowing whether or not it’s legal to hunt with an FN-FAL in their state, for example.
Martini Enfield, while you are technically correct, you have to take into account the idiots making the laws. If you remember, the assault rifle ban supporters were able to get all weapons with a pistol grip and detachable magazine classified as an assault rifle. That did not stop importers from finding loopholes however, as anyone who owns a DAEWOO DR-200 or DR-300 can tell you. The M-14 is a military assault rifle that does not feature a pistol grip, civilian model is the Springfield M1, common rancher variant is the Mini-14. That weapon in its civilian versions is still classified as an “assault rifle.”
Full auto capability does not make or break an assault rifle, it’s the style of the weapon that the lawmakers classify as “assault rifle.” Almost any known weapon with a detachable magazine can be converted to full auto or burst fire but that doesn’t automatically make it an “assault rifle.”
Aside from that you enter into the legality of owning a full auto firearm, which of course is illegal without the proper Federal Firearms License from the BATFE.
As for the bayonet lug…during the assault rifle ban period no weapon was allowed to have a bayonet lug therefore the AR-15s sold during that time did not. You could still purchase the replacement front sight assembly and install it, thereby making your weapon have a bayonet lug and putting you in risk of trouble with the feds. Once the ban expired bayonet lugs started appearing on direct from manufacturer firearms again, although not as common as they were before the ban.
That still doesn’t quite clarify what exactly makes a rifle an “assault rifle.” In the area I reside, it is illegal to hunt with anything that uses detachable magazines. That of course doesn’t apply to private land, on private land you can hunt with whatever you want. The local lawmakers classify detachable magazine rifles as “assault rifles.”
The point is, no matter what we say makes a rifle an “assault rifle” the lawmakers will probably never agree with us and since they’re the ones we have to appease, there’s nothing we can really do.
You are right though, it is the responsibility of the hunter to know what is legal or not in their area.
As others have answered quite convincingly above, it’s a varmint round – to Martini Enfield’s list I’d add coyote, prairie dogs, ground hogs, and jackrabbits. A 50-55 grain hollow point spitzer-type bullet doesn’t explode a coyote into nothingness, but it does drop him quite nicely.
And I disagree that it’s inadaquate for deer. Granted, facing a 220 pound buck, I might want something a bit more substantial, but a well-placed .223 is fine for a 120 pound doe.
Depends where you are. I’m not in the US, so I can’t speak on the laws there, but in New Zealand (where I grew up) the criteria was: Semi-Automatic, Removable Mag, and Bayonet Lug made an MSSA. Add select fire and you had an “Assault Rifle”. Big difference- MSSA’s (L1A1 SLR, SKS, M1 Garand, etc) aren’t hard to get licences for. Only collectors can get licences for Assault Rifles.
[cheap shot] People, too: D.C. sniper attacks - Wikipedia [/cheap shot] 
Really, though, I assume its popularity with militaries is based on more than a faint hope it can be effective on something the size of a whitetail buck.
I assume no pun was intended, but part of the popularity of the .223 is the fact that it IS a cheap shot, much less expensive than .30-30 or .30-06. 
You mean we FINALLY shot off all the WWI- and WWII-surplus 30-06 ammo so they have to make more and it’s not as cheap as it was when I was a kid? As I recall, the M1 Garand was originally designed for a different (smaller & faster, like the .223) round but Army CoS MacArthur overrode that so the vast stocks of .30-06 leftover from the Great War could be used.
Well that explains why we haven’t been seeing eye to eye Martini Enfield. Yes I do live in the US, and yeah our laws are much different. It is interesting to know that a collector there can own full auto weapons with the proper license. Here in the states the collector license limits you to weapons within certain serial number ranges. A real hassle unless you’re a serious collector. I did some research and found that it was cheaper for me to just get a Gunsmith FFL and a Class 3 FFL and buy what I wanted.
dropzone, when I need ammo for my various .223 firearms I just order some military surplus ammo. 1000 rounds for about $60 depending on the merchant. While not optimized for hunting it is very affordable and perfect for target shooting or home defense. When I do the same thing for my Springfield M1 (.308) the same amount of ammo costs about $30 more. For my Garand (30-06) the same ammo costs $120. I COULD get the surplus 30-06 cheaper than the .308, however I generally purchase the Garand ammo already loaded into the Garand stripper clips. Call me lazy, but I really hate loading those stripper clips.
Unfortunately, I moved to Australia (check my location), and as such can’t own semi-automatic or full-auto longarms.
On the other hand, I can legally hunt at night with a spotlight, can hunt with a fixed bayonet and a 10 round magazine, and don’t have to wear Fluro Orange camo…
We’ve gone far afield of the subject matter of the Report, but I must ask… what do you hunt where having a fixed bayonet would be of value?
Rabbits, of course. They have a vicious streak a mile wide [/Monty Python]
Also chiming in that a .223 is quite popular here in Central Europe. We have these little deer that are about the size of a dalmation at full weight. I’ve taken quite a few with the .223. Plus, follow-up shots are easier on baby boar (which are in season year-round) with the kick about (seemingly) half that of, say, a .308. Shoot one and the other piglets sorta freeze for 2 seconds, enough to get another shot in and walk away with two yummie boar-lets. I tried that with an over-under 12 gauge/7.65 and couldn’t bring the rifle around in time from the kick, whereas the .223 was easy to hold position and fire off another round. Although I am sure with practice that wouldn’t always be the case…I’m just sayin’ the .223 has its proper place. Oh, I guess I’d add that it is versatile for here where season’s overlap. You can shoot (baby) boar, deer, fox, jack-rabbit, rabbit and a type of grouse all at the same time while walking through the woods. I prefer an over-under in case a large boar or large deer comes along, but the .223 works just fine for all of those.
I once shot a small pond in front of a running hurt deer (my partner shot the poor thing in the hind leg and it took off) with a Savage .224. The plume of water it sent up was a good 6 feet high and stopped the deer in its tracks. I was then able to follow-up with a coup-de-gras(sp?). Later I shot another pond a few times for fun - it was neat! Much more satisfying than shooting a paper target! Ka-Whoosh!
-Tcat
“Coup de grâce”, and the “c” is pronounced. “Stroke of grace [i.e., mercy]”.
“Pâté de foie gras”, silent “s”. “Paste of [goose] liver [that is] fat”.
Except when writing a mystery story about the murder of a gourmet, these two should never be confused.
Feral pigs and wild boars, mainly. They’re vicious little buggers, with nasty tusks that can do an unwary hunter quite an injury if they get too close.
The last thing you want is to have 100+kgs of angry wild pig bearing down on you, only to have your gun misfire or jam, or discover you’re out of ammo.
In such cases, you would be well advised to leg it as fast as possible, but having a bayonet as a last-ditch option can be very, very useful.
Also, most British/Commonwealth WWI/WWII era military rifles are sighted with the bayonet fixed at ranges between 0-600 yards, which has a minor effect on accuracy.
A hunting round should be selected with the goal of killing the animal as quickly and humanely as possible. Anti-cruelty concerns aside, tracking a wounded animal is a pain, and in the case of dangerous species, a hazard best avoided.
This is not typically the goal when selecting military rounds. Wounding a soldier to the point where he is unable to fight is the goal, as this places a greater strain on his comrades and his army’s medical staff and infrastructure than killing him outright. Land mines, for example, are specifically designed to blow off a foot rather than kill the victim.
Aren’t bullets specifically designed to wound rather than kill banned by one of the Geneva Conventions, though? Am I misremembering, or is that one of those things that’s on the books but is impossible to enforce, so everyone ignores it?
Military rounds are solid full metal jacket. Hollow point or Dum Dum rounds, designed to expand after impact are verboten, IIRC. Now whether these would be more likely to kill or wound, We get to start another fun argue the ballistics and conditions on the ground thread. Hollow points are lots less likely to penetrate modern personal battle armor and Dum Dums (solid, but with an X carved in the nose) are notoriously unstable in flight. Modern armies are unlikely to use either, for infantry Ammo. A hollow point hitting an unarmored flesh is going to do more damage than FMJ in most situations.
How far can bullets travel when fired into water?
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