Shelling out for the best foxing rounds

Time and again I see questions about ammunition, asking which is best for foxing and trying to gauge opinions of a certain brand of bullet. But the simple answer to this is the one that best suits your rifle. 

As every rifle barrel is unique — even in the exact same model of rifle — so the only way to find which one shoots the best is to take several brands and try them for yourself. With the cost of ammunition these days, the thought of shelling out for three or four boxes of ammunition might cause a bead of sweat to form on the odd brow. However, there are a few considerations to bear in mind before going shopping. 

First, and ideally at the point of buying your rifle, you want to consider the bullet weight that might best suit the type of shooting you wish to do. Choose a rifle with the right barrel twist for the bullet weight. For many buying a rifle this is likely not to be considered and half the people you ask probably couldn’t tell you what barrel twist they have on their gun. 

Time-proven 

For the purposes of this article, though, let’s hone in on what is arguably the most common fox shooting calibre, the time-proven .223 Rem. The vast majority of .223 calibre factory rifles will be fitted with a barrel twist of either 1-12in or 1-8in. So what does that mean? Well, in simple terms, it relates to how tight the twist of the rifling is in the barrel. A 1-12in twist means the bullet will perform one complete rotation every 12in of barrel. Likewise a 1-8in twist will rotate even quicker. 

The faster twist 1-8in barrel is best suited to the heavier bullet weights in .223 — around 60-gr to 80-gr to correctly stabilise the bullet in flight and thus gaining maximum accuracy. A heavier bullet is also considered the better option when shooting extended ranges, say over 300 yards, due to its resistance to wind drift. 

The more popular option, however, is the 1-12in twist barrel, which will best suit the lighter 40-gr to 55-gr bullets which give a flatter trajectory and are ideal for more general fox shooting out to 300 yards. 

As an example, a typical 55-gr bullet zeroed around an inch high at 100 yards should put you about bang on at 200 yards and only around 9in low at 300 yards. In practical terms this means you can pretty much “point and shoot” at a fox out to around 230 yards — or hold just over its shoulder at 300 yards. 

As you can see from the results (see table p34), this depends on each brand of ammunition and its velocity and bullet weight, as well as your barrel’s overall length and the conditions in which you are shooting. This includes shooting up and down steep hills, which will reduce the bullet’s drop marginally. 

Another consideration is the type of bullet to use, which for hunting will generally be either a ballistic tip or a soft-point bullet. As a general rule, I’ve found that soft-point bullets are better suited to small deer species, and that the more explosive ballistic tips are better for the average die-hard foxes. They deliver more humane kills, as well as performing much better in terms of accuracy at longer ranges. 

I’m a firm believer in buying quality shooting products that won’t let me down in the field and good quality ammunition for me is a no-brainer. This is why I’ve selected ammunition from the top brands for this comparison — although I would have liked to have added the 53-gr Hornady Superformance to the line-up, which is my personal favourite in my .223. Unfortunately, stocks of these were pretty much non-existent at the time of writing. 

Consideration 

This brings me neatly on to another consideration: always choose a brand your local gunshop will regularly have in stock. There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to get your favourite brand. 

For our line-up I was supplied with Sako Gamehead bullets in both 50-gr and 56-gr and 55-gr Norma Tip Strike Varmint (gmk.co.uk); Federal Varmint & Predator in 50-gr, 53-gr, and 55-gr and 50-gr Remington Premier Accutip (vikingarms.co.uk); and finally 55-gr Hornady Varmint Express (edgarbrothers.co.uk). Each of these bullets are ballistic tipped and chambered, fired and performed without fault, as you would expect from quality ammunition. 

My primary consideration when it comes to ammunition is accuracy and consistency and all brands grouped well at 100m. The 50-gr and 53-gr Federals shot the tightest groups of 0.5in, with the Sako 56-gr and Norma fractionally behind with groups around 0.6in. The Federal 55-gr had a larger yet respectable group just over an inch, as did subsequent groups from the Remington. An outlier on the final Remington shot opened the group up to 1.8in — my fault and not the ammunition’s — with the other two rounds touching. Considering I was shooting from a bipod in a muddy stubble field on a breezy day, I think every round performed very well. 

Each brand also showed a reduced velocity to that stated on the box. This isn’t a surprise as I was shooting in low temperatures and my custom Tikka features a shorter barrel which reduces velocity. Once again, the Remington was the outlier, with the chronograph velocity higher than that listed online. (Note: Velocity is not listed on the box.) 

Variation 

I elected not to re-zero my rifle between the brands too, so an element of variation in the drop data was to be expected. However, testing at distances out to 300 yards, the “in field” drop results were reasonably close, especially when considering the conditions. Unsurprisingly, the heaviest bullet in the line-up, the 56-gr Sako Gamehead, showed the biggest drop of around 12.2in from a 100-yard zero. The flattest shooting round meanwhile was the Hornady Varmint Express with a drop of only 8.4in at 300 yards. 

I know from previous tests with this rifle that it favours the zippy little Hornady 53-gr Superperformance and the 53-gr Federal — which uses the same bullets but loaded slightly less and therefore slower — also proved accurate. I have used all of the ammunition on test for previous foxing outings, other than the Norma Tip Strike Varmint. This ammunition certainly shot well and proved consistent at range so, just to be sure it was as effective as the others when it mattered, I took a few out with me to look for a fox. 

After much trekking, I finally spotted a fox at the far end of a valley. I headed off in pursuit across the open hillside, trying to close as much distance as possible before finally getting a tad over 200 yards from it. By now it was sitting patiently looking in my direction. I guessed I was just about visible on the open hill on a rather moonlit night. 

Reasoning that this was as close as I would likely get before the fox beat a hasty retreat, I settled the rifle on to the bipod and lined up on the chest of the fox. There was no wind to speak of and, as the rifle was still zeroed for 100 yards rather than my usual 1in high, I knew the bullet wouldn’t drop much more than an inch. Getting comfortable, I squeezed the trigger. A second later the fox dropped on the spot without so much as a twitch, confirming that the .223 Norma was just as effective as the other rounds.