AR-15 AMMO?

Hey Bob, maybe you should get us started. What are some of the things you do that turn lookers into biters on the 8?

Ok Ive never been what you might call a serious predetor hunter!;;;,

so in the past on the few outing each year I have alway just taken my trusty 7mm on my yote hunts!

recently I got a AR-15 and find it to be a lot of fun to shoot.. doing so comes at a cost.. shells are not on the cheap right now.. witch leads me to my question?????

What do you guys shoot while on varment hunts?? Ill tell you right now im not buying the most expensive shells to shoot a yote..

I would like to tan any I shoot and hang around the house so are the FMJ bargin priced shells something to hunt with or should I find a soft point? maybe its not even leagle to hunt with the FMJ shells???

any way I would be interested to hear from some of you on your opinions of what to shoot..

keep in mind.. I want the least damage as possible to the pelt! I know FMJ would be the obviouse answer to this but is it the way to go??

thank you
thegun

The 50grn Hornady Vmax I shoot rarely leaves an exit hole. Unless I was shooting the Super Performance series. Anything under 200 yards tended to punch through. In my opinion, you want a bullet that will penetrate and expand but I’ll let the experts who have a lot more experience weigh in.

I’m assuming .223
50-55 gr bullets. Some states restrict the use of full metal jacket for hunting, so check your regs.
I take 60-100 dogs on a normal year between hunting & trapping. My most accurate bullet (22-250) is the 55gr V-max on top of a hand load. If I hit any bone, I get a hole you can often stick your entire hand in. If it is a rib/pass through, up to 2″ hole.
A little less accurate for my gun, is the Barnes TSX 50gr, however, smaller holes. My choice for pelt friendly.
That being said, that is my experience with a 22-250 ranging 3600 to 3890 fps. The 223 isn’t that fast.
Most of the guys that I guide that use 223’s, shoot a variety of 55gr bullets or lighter. The varmint gernade type bullets have been pretty good on pelts, leaving a number of fragment holes. The hotter 55gr rounds have blown some good size holes. The very few guys that I see shooting solid copper(expanding) bullets have less damage on the exit. Ammo like the Barnes TSX won’t be cheap and probably over the budget that you want to spend.
So, I would look at the shot placement if you want to salvage the pelts. Try to get a quartered through avoiding the shoulder bone area. Or head on in the chest punching through the lungs/guts. I have bullets tear open the gut cavity on these front chest shots, but since its the belly area, easy to clean up and looks fine with a displayed tanned pelt. Hopefully I was of some help

I’m assuming that you don’t reload, but as an aside with an AR platform in your family, you now have a hungry mouth to feed. You should look into it.

My go-to .223 load is a Nosler ballistic tip boat tail in 50 grain on top of 27 grains of Varget. This has proved to be a good load in both my rifle and in my Contender pistol.

It is not legal to use FMJ bullets in MN. It’s also a very bad idea because an FMJ carries a greater risk of staying mostly whole after hitting the ground and therefore a deflection can still fly a significant distance and hit something you didn’t intend to hit. Very bad.

First a word on price. I don’t call coyotes as much as I’d like, only about 10 days a season and I get coyotes to come in on average at the rate of 1-2 per day.

As you’ll find out, that doesn’t mean you get to shoot at 1-2 coyotes a day, but that’s another story for another time.

Last season, I shot 7 times. So the bottom line is don’t overthink the cost of ammo too much. You’ll spend more on coffee and McMuffins in a season and more on gas in a single day than you will on a box of decent ammo. Which, most likely, will be more than enough.

Sticking to off the shelf loads for the .223, the Hornady ammo with the V-Max bullets in the 50-55 grain range tends to shoot very well in almost everything.

I’ve had good results with Federal Preimum, I’m not sure what the bullet currently is on these.

But if you really want to get coyotes AND you want to minimized pelt damage, carry a shotgun!

What I found out very quickly about MN coyote hunting is it’s NOT like those shows you seen on TV where they’re hunting in Nebraska and calling yotes across a mile of open ground to zap them at 200 yards. That doesn’t happen in MN. The coyotes here stick to tight cover and when they don’t tend to cross open ground very often or very willingly. This has been true in the woods in northern MN and out on the plains in western MN.

I prop my .223 up on a bipod and put my shotgun in my lap. What usually happens is the coyote busts out in shotgun range before I know he’s there.

So when I said I shot 7 times last year, that would be two misses with the .223 and 5 shots of 00 Buck that acutally killed something. Pelt damage with a shotgun is limited to 3-4 holes with big shot, most the time you wouldn’t even need to patch them.

Grouse

Good info grouse!

Quote:

---

Good info grouse!

---

Randy, has your experiece been the same in WI, that the yotes won’t come out in the open for love/money/or a tasty rabbit snack?

Our best luck seems to be to find ridges with large trees so that they are fairly open, but still with cover. I’ve never been able to get coyotes to even cross small open areas, much less come out in open fields.

But very poor shooting with the .223. Sadly, I must admit, that those misses were at—ummmm—less than 50 yards. Oh the shame… It’s even worse when they’re less than 50 yards…

Another lesson learned: Bark at the coyote to stop him!

And then light up his his cattle killin’ [censored] with the buckshot! Yeah, baby!

Too bad there were so many mangy ones.

Grouse

The barking trick is something I got from Randy Anderson. I use it all the time. Even just last week we stumbled upon two young yotes along the road. I stopped on the road and barked. It didn’t stop the dog, but he slowed way down to see what was going on. I still missed….

Grouse, I know this is the generic response….it all depends!?!?! I’m lucky to be able to get around and hunt so many different terrains. I side with you on the fact that they want to stay near or in cover. I believe a coyote invented the phrase “if its too good to be true…then it is” Because of how cautious they are when they come in.

I do a LOT of satalite research of properties before I ever step foot on the land. Regardless of where, I always strive to put myself in the best vantage point. sometimes its 100yrds of visibilty, sometimes 900 yrds, sometimes 50 or less if I’m lucky. But the strategy alway remains the same. WIND, Vantage Piont, external influenceing factors (farmer running equipment, someone has their dog out running, other hunters…)
In the open areas or much more sparse cover (which I hunt most frequently) they often will pop out of a fence line and stand in the field – Usually only a couple yards from the fence. A good stratgey to use is natural coulees or funnels through a field. If there is a row of cover for them to travel, make the set in a way to get a vantage point of the sparse cover – provided the wind is correct. If it isn’t, wait and hit it another day.

One of my most favorite close range sets is beaver ponds Coyotes will most often run deer trails on the edge of the pond just inside of the tagalders. They love to pop out of the brush and stop and look around on the edge of the ice. I usually end up seeing an outline of them in the grass with their head sticking out taking a peek. BOOM!
Well, trucks packed and leaving as soon as my b.i.l. gets here. 1st stop – Nebraska in the morning for hopefully our first song dogs of the trip. Then WY, CO, Kansas, then back to WY. Oh, I have to work while I’m there – which I’m sure will get in my way

Thanx for the great info..

I was thinking of buying bullets in bulk, say 2000 rounds and was thinking to buy the same load as I will hunt with!

guess that wont be the case! ill buy the cheap for plinking and get some better rounds.. Ill give a few a try to see what gets along with my gun the best!

thank you Randy and Grouse!

corey

Save your empty brass from all that plinking. You can offload it to a friendly IDO member who will promise to make good use of it and would be willing to trade a coyote trip for it.

Or you can save it and use it yourself down the line for reloading. Which you are probably going to want to look into if you’re going to shoot 2000+ rounds per year.

BTW, don’t buy into the myths around .223 / 5.56 ammo.

1. Yes! You can re-use millitary spec cases for reloading. You only need to remove the “crimp” in the primer pocket and this is an easy, one-time operation.

2. NO! There are NO differences between 5.56 and .223 cases.

Grouse

so where you say we are going yote huntin?? I already got a couple hundred rounds or casings laying out by my shooting bench!..

I have no desire to reload.. Ill just buy in bulk and be done with it!

Quote:

---

so where you say we are going yote huntin??

---

Post a target picture first. You’re shooting a lot, but that doesn’t mean you’re hitting a lot .

Where are you located? I don’t start coyote hunting until thanksgiving weekend.

Grouse

Hey, I’m willing to travel!!

All right, we’ll have a call in come december. I have a big calf killer on the hit list already.

Grouse

Quote:

---

Hey, I’m willing to travel!!

---

Me too! Let me know if I can be of any help.