50 gr. speer tnt in 223

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spd132

New member
This afternoon, after two stands, I started back to another field for the last stand of the evening. As I stepped accross a fence, I saw a coyote out in an open field about 120 yards away. I shoot a remington vs 223 using federal ammo factory loaded with 50 gr. speer tnt hps. On my first shot, the coyote dropped and then started the "death circles". I put another round in him and he dropped and didn't move. Thinking he was down for good, I turned to get my pack and when I looked back, he was running accross the field. I managed to put one more round in him before he went into a cane thicket. I looked until dark and could not find him. What do you think of the tnt hps because after this evening, I am beginning to rethink my ammo. Also, what is everyone using in their 223s.
 
I don't remember any of the coyotes I have hit doing the death circle from a well placed chest shot, which usually results in a bang-flop. To me it would indicate a hit farther back. If you had a edge hit or a bone hit that bullet probably splashed resulting in a surface wound. Two coyotes there? I shoot 40gr v-max in my sons .223, 55gr v-max in my swift. With a solid chest hit that speer bullet should anchor them.
 
I've shot them in a 22BR for years, and they are very effective on prairie dogs. More than once, coyotes have come into the dog town while we were shooting, and they anchor the coyotes just fine. Got one at 360 yds., with a solid chest shot, and it just dropped. I am running them faster than your .223 though, @3600 fps, which will affect the results.
 
It is really hard to judge your ammo at this point, but I woudl tend to think that the shots were not in the kill zone, probably too far back.

The TNT is a fairly think skinned bullet, time will tell.

I have killed a lot of yotes with a 223, but I used a load with a 50g Sierra spt, 55g Sierra BTHP or 55g Winchester Soft point, all of these bullets worked extremely well on yotes at 3300 fps with my shots usually being 225 yds and under.

By the way, that was indeed some really great shooting your were doing. Hitt'en a spinning yote is not an easy thing to do, and connecting again once he was heading across the field was another good shot.

Part of the fun of this sport is trying different bullets.

good luck!
 
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Both of us used the 50 TNT in our 223s on this hunt last winter. No spinners, but the longest shot was 80 yards. That big one was under 10 yards.
 
I used to load the 125 grn TNT's in my 308 ( when I had a 308 that is) it pretty much splashed any varment I shot with it PD's made a real mess. But to get BTT the 50 grain may be a bit light for yotes, or you may have hit bone, or you may have been a bit to far, bullet slowed down to much to expand, or if you were to close bullet may have just exploded on impact yotes are getting winter coats now so the fur may have soaked up a lot allowing the yote to get to ground. These are just suggestions of what may have happened with out finding the carcass you don't know how hard the yote was hit or how many times you hit it. I have sen them drop from a near miss, even act like they were hit, then run off as soon as they got a chance, /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif just to laugh at me from over the hill
 
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