Sorry fellers, I believe the .22s .222-.22-250 belong on the varmint hunts, not on deer or bigger hunts. I hunted a quite a few years ago with a guy who had a Colt AR-15 that he insisted on using for deer. We weren't 100 yards from the truck when the rest of us heard about 6 shots, coming from our AR hunter. Shortly thereafter he came back to us and said he had hit a big buck (Muley) right under the "left front shoulder" less than 50 yards from where he was shooting.
Needless to say we all went over to where he said he was shooting found his empty casings, and circled the area where he said he had shot the deer. We never even saw a drop of blood but did see some tracks leading away. (note absence of snow or leaves in the area). Well we searched the entire area for the better part of the day to no avail.
BTW I got my buck as did the other 2 guys we were hunting with. About 2 weeks later a game warden friend of mine said he had found a nice 4 point muley all bloated about 5 miles from where we were hunting. He had 3 rounds from a small caliber two under the left front shoulder that had hit bone and did not penetrate, it looked as though he died from internal injuries, the 3rd round apparently hit him the rump.
Now note he was using 62 grain Barnes bullets "that were supposed to stay together for great penetration". Yeh Right, No I won't hunt with him any more, nor will any of the other guys that were with him on that particular day. Further we were hunting with .270 and 2 .308s.:banghead: