favorite fur friendly bullet

oakey

New member
what is your favorite fur friendly bullet for coyote and fox? include fps and twist rate and average outcome on fox and coyote.
 
ive read them and most of them don't give enough information to make them useful. without giving barrel twist and fps the information is useless. this is why one guy loves a bullet and another hates it. bullet manufacturers state that certain bullets arnt recommended for fast twist rates because they will come apart in flight. a 1-12 twist at 3000fps creates a rpm of 180,000 rpm and a 1 in 8 twist creates a rpm of 270,000 rpm. now if a bullet will explode mid air because of to fast a twist its not to hard to see that twist rate for a particular bullet can cause splashes for one twist and nasty exits for slower twist rates. almost every thread on the subject fails to give this info.
 
Oakey, I completely agree. It is maddening to hear how someone hates/loves a certain bullet performance but it is like pulling teeth to have them preface their opinion with even the detail of the cartridge they are shooting. I've seen Hornady Sx bullets come apart as a gray streak from a 22-250 but they shot fine in my Rem 788 223. I'm waiting for some comments too. Fur friendly narrows it down a bit.
 
When you added fox to the list it pretty much blew any bullet I would suggest out of the water. For coyotes I'm a real fan of the 52gr Speer HP out of my 222 Rem, 5.6x50R Mag and 22-250 all are slow twist. My 22-204 is a 1-9 and works well on pelts with 40gr NBT's. My 223 is a 1-8 and it shoots the 52's well but I haven't connected with it yet, just finished it recently.

When fox and cats are on the menu I take my 22WMR and let the coyotes come in close.

I just put together a 20 Practical on a bolt gun 1-10 twist and hope a mild 34gr HP's will work for fox and cats and coyotes out a little farther and a 40gr NBT in coyote country.

Back in the 1970's I use a 300 Sav with 170gr cast bullets for fox for a while, small hole in, small hole out and just a couple stitches to sell a $100 fox. I was able to pay for a 22 Hornet with factory Win loads and never looked back.

 
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My favorite(rifle) red fox fur saver,17 rem 10 twist at 3900 fps by far the best bullet 25 gr Berger varmint. I shot hundreds of fox with that bullet almost always no visible hole. This was not good for winter coyote, doesn't penetrate deep enough(does work for head shots). I have had great results on coyote with 29-30 gr bullets out of my 9 twist 17 at 3950. The 20 cal Nosler 40 gr bt out of 10 twist barrels has been very good, 3700+. This load worked great on raccoon between 100-250 yards, I was concerned about shooting a fox with it so I haven't. The Nosler 55 bt is my go to 22-250 coyote bullet, 12 or 14 twist at 3600. Head shots inside 200 usually stay in, broadside rib shots past 200 exit,just a couple stitches to close.
 
My preference is a 40 gr vmax going fairly slow (3000fps) I find that often the higher speed high expansion bullets tend to cause such a large and violent cavitation that they can tear the softer portions of hide or cause a possibly large exit wound. The slower speed seems to cause way less cavitation to the point that I have put down coyotes in traps with my 222 at 10 paces and had nothing but a little pencil sized exit.
 
Way too many variables in all of it to get any consistency. MV, twist rate, shot angle blah blah blah.

When it comes down to it, your shooting a chunk of lead wrapped in copper at something that weighs about 30-40 lbs.

Its going to die, if hit in the vitals.

The amount of time guys waste on "stuff" and buying more gear always astounds me.

Get out and hunt/shoot!

Rant over......
 
in the early 70's and threw the fur boom I made a third of my income trapping and hunting fox mostly. I used a 22 mag until I bought a 243.i shot a lot of fox with sierra 85 gr hpbt.if you hit behind shoulder you made quarter size exits. if you hit bone you had to be good at sowing and I was. then I started using 80 gr. full metal case for called fox and little hole in and out as long as you stayed off bone. I did have to finish of many of those with my Mark 2 ruger 22. this was in the upper red river valley and shooting distances were commonly out to 400 yards or farther .there were no coyotes up there in those days.now my favorite fur gun is 17 rem with berger 25 gr match target. I still have 500 of those left. they are tuff on fox except when I down loaded to 2800 fps with blue dot, dime size exit. when coyote or fox are likely I like the 222 with sierrsa 55 gr sp #1360, small exits and kills fast including wolves.
 
hey spotshotshoot, your the first one ive heard with good report on the berger 25 match varmint. most say it makes a mess. that sounds pretty encouraging for a fox bullet. ive been looking for a fox bullet that wont exit. to some this is bla bla bla, and those should just ignore these posts and leave them to those of us who enjoy looking for new better performance rounds.
 
I bought my first 17 rem in 86. Loaded up 500 rounds of Hornady 25 hp. Shoot over 400 fox with those, it got old sewing up the split between the ears. Rifle was recalled by Rem and rebarreled, returned to me with a 10 twist. I decided to try the Berger varmint 25, knew in the first 2 days(9 fox) I had found something good. I shoot from 50-225 yards, body and head. Bullet stayed in the head and body shots 17 entrance hole and carcass looked like a big bruise. I have shot that load in 2 other 17 rem and it always works great, raccoon are fun, body shoot them. They flip on their back and air paddle for a few seconds, rarely even any blood.
 
thanks for that info. I'm going to try those . I have read similar reports for the nosler 20 gr hp. I own a 17 rem in 700 classic and one in rem 700 lvsf I love them both. I can load them to match any of the other !7's except the larger wild cats.
 
Use a soft point, all this rocket surgery and brain science hog wash with fur friendly bullets only applies to weak fragmenting varmint bullets. If you're counting the RPMs of a bullet to figure out if it will be fur friendly... just the variables in the field will throw this whole, make it to the moon and back equation to save fur out the window.

With a 16" 223 8 twist BHW barrel I shot fox and coyote with 50gr hornady SP, 52gr berger HP, 53 vmax and 65gr SGK.

The 65gr going around 3160fps takes the cake in all regards, power, BC, fur friendly and accuracy. In the last two winters of hunting with the SGK I have only wrecked fur on one shot, when I hit a fox in the back leg. Not a single animal has survived being hit with the 65s, no splash damage, no bouncing off of bones and no run offs.... huge improvement over the previous 5 or 6 years tinkering with different varmint bullets, adding and subtracting powder to try to make them lethal or keep them from blasting a big hole out the back.

I started playing with 65s for a pipe dream of a hog hunt with some friends. They were so accurate that I used them coyote hunting instead of the 53vmax I was not having the best luck with. Soon as i took those 65 SGK into the woods the deal was over, they're the best bullets I've predator hunted with.

It's now my opinion that varmint bullets are a novelty item to achieve a gimmicky outcome... they're a serious handicap to a hunting rifle. Except for blowing a gopher into the air a sturdy SP will be better at everything than a varmint bullet.
 
If you can find any of the Berger match, we shot them in 17 Rem and 17 Mach 4 with great results on coyotes, fox, and bob cats. 3800-3850 fps in the 17 Rem loaded with H322 about 22.0g and either H335 or H322 in the 17 Mach 4 about 18-19g.

We had custom barrels with zero to .015 freebore which gave long barrel life and tremendous accuracy.

Obviously, our shots were not long, usually 175 and under.

We started of with Sako Vixens in 17 Rem, crap barrels and long throats cured us of that evil, then went to Rem 700's with almost the same issues.

A 17 Remington with a match chamber and short freebore is a needle threading rifle with Berger 25g Match HP. We found that our groups were reduced to the .200 area by turning necks, and this gave us groups about the size of a pencil eraser. We always used 10" twists because that is all that was available to us.

Today, I would opt for a 17 Rem or 17-204 with a 9T and shoot a 30g Nagel if I could find any.
 
Part of the reason some may not want to post load data is that some readers ream a new one when they do. "only use approved data for loads, etc etc""
 
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