Several years have passed since I first polled serious coyote hunters about their favorite cartridges for coyote hunting. At that time, the 1990s, the .22-250 Remington was the overwhelming choice.

It still is a great choice, but not nearly so popular among the most serious coyote hunters as it once was.

What happened?

One thing, the face of coyote hunting changed. While here in the Northeast coyote hunting contests became popular, the same thing was happening in the West, but on a different scale. Western coyote hunting contests became more serious, involving more money and a cadre of ‘professional’ coyote hunters.

Those hard core professional hunters would not tolerate losing wounded coyotes, something that happened too often when using .223 caliber bullets.

I, too, have lost what seemed to be well hit coyotes while using the .22-250 Rem. But I am not so quick to give up on the nifty cartridge.

With all of my handloading, I take special care to choose the correct bullets. Hence one of the main points of this column. It was Michael Huff, author of Understanding Coyotes, who got me thinking about changing my coyote rifle, or my coyote loads.

I would probably but a 6.5 mm Remington Magnum if I could find one in my price range.

My primary coyote rifle, you may recall, is a very inexpensive Stevens Model 200, which basically is the old Savage Model 110 which had the best barrel seating among production rifles, and which for many years probably was the most accurate out-of-the-box factory rifle available, on average. I have never seen one that did not shoot very well.

Then what made this rifle special was a little customizing. The synthetic stock was camouflaged in “Allegheny Highlands’ pattern, and the poor trigger was replaced by an adjustable model. Because of this, I am not inclined to stop using it.

My first step in changing the .22-250 Rem. is changing bullets. Until now, I have been using a very explosive 55-grain bullet, and experimented with an explosive 40-grain bullet. The latter, according to my loading manual, has a muzzle velocity of a blistering 4,100 fps. The 55-grain bullet has a muzzle velocity of more than 3,600 fps. This makes it virtually point blank as far as I ever expect to shoot at a coyote in Pennsylvania, maybe 350 yards.

Now, by point blank I mean this term in hunter lingo, meaning I can hold the cross hairs in the middle of a coyote chest and make a killing shot. Stretching point blank range is always high priority.

Ok, my new choice for a bullet for coyote hunting is a 55-grain Nosler Ballistic tip. This, I am assuming, should produce a pass-through. This, I am quite certain, was not happening with the more explosive bullet.

Backing up a little for an explanation of my certainty, one of those shots was at about 30 yards, I had a good rest and I could see a puff of fur through the scope. I found hair on the ground, and a light splatter of blood. But nothing to indicate an exit would. I had been aiming at the front left shoulder, and suspect the bullet blew up when it hit bone.

Another shot that did not put a coyote down was at a slowly running coyote at a distance of about 40 yards in an unobstructed field. You have no way of knowing whether this is true, but I do not miss shots like this. The coyote disappeared at the crack of the rifle. We expected to find a dead coyote, but att that was found were some hairs. I believe it was hit in the rib cage, and have no problem in thinking the bullet blew up on a rib bone. I anticipate with a large degree of confidence that the Nosler Ballistic tip, though it is a bullet that opens quickly, will pass through no matter where a coyote is hit.

And as long as I am changing loads, why not try a different powder. Some new powders have been developed that manufacturers claim will produce improved velocity. My choice, since I already had some on hand for just such a purpose, is CFE 223, a newer powder from Hodgdon.

The load I am testing gets a claimed muzzle velocity of about 3,800 fps, a 200 fps gain. This is a significant gain in velocity.

According to the ballistics calculator at the Hornady web site, with both loads zeroed at 200 yards, the 3,600 fps load strikes 4.6 inches low at 300 yards, while the 3,600 fps load strikes 5.3 inches low at the same distance. Significant.

Coyotes beware.