As I’ve got older, I’ve watched in the rearview mirror as my hunting days disappeared into the distance. It’s okay, really; I’ve done enough, and scratched that itch quite sufficiently.
Nevertheless, while I don’t really miss the hunting as such, I do miss the camaraderie of the thing: going out with a couple-three like-minded souls to send boolets into unwary animules.
Which led me to this thought.
I can’t do the regular hunting thing anymore — all that stalking / crawling around on the belly / walking miles through rough country, you know what I mean — but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be up for something more sedentary or at least stationary.
My preference, of course, would be to do some high-bird shooting with Mr. Free Market, but that would involve an expense that is (far) beyond my wallet.
So I thought: why not varminting? Find a farmer with a gopher / prairie dog / coyote problem and offer to help him out, so to speak. Then take one or two like-minded souls, set up a shooting table, and start popping a few of these undesirables at distances of (say) 200-400 yards.
Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?
Except that I don’t have the proper gear for such an activity. I do have a shooting table, spotting scope and sandbags etc., but not the rifle or scope.
As things stand, my sporting long gun collection caters well to precision shooting at shorter distances — .22 LR and .22 WMR, oh yes:
…both fitted with bipods, if sandbags are not available, and both being capable of one-hole shooting up to 50 yards (.22 LR) and 75-100 yards (.22 WMR).
But if I want to shoot anything (that’s of the varmint genre) past 100-odd yards, well, there I’m sorely lacking.
The criteria are simple: quality rifle, decent scope and cheap ammo — cheap in the sense that it costs more than .22, but less than (say) 8x57mm, .308 Win, .303 Enfield and the like (of which I have shall we say an adequate quantity). Also, I love my shoulder and am not interested in pounding it into fragments by shooting lots of .3x cartridges, as one has to do when varminting.
Step forward the excellent .223 Remington, which I have often denigrated as a poodle-shooter cartridge, but of course I’m talking about shooting at “poodle-sized” (or smaller) varmints, aren’t I? And even were I to go with actual .223 Rem and not the military-grade 5.56x45mm, the cost thereof is bearable.
So then: what rifles? I have three favorites in mind, of course, of rifles I’ve owned or shot before and that are relatively affordable. (As much as I’d love to have a Cooper Arms or something of similar excellence, they are just too $$$pendy for someone who belongs to the Poor Of The Parish, i.e. me.) Even so, I’ll have to sell a couple of my mil-surp rifles to be able to buy one of the candidate rifles and a fitting scope for the purpose.
Here, then, are the three candidates, all chambered in .223 Rem and sporting heavy barrels. The first two run for about $700 (excluding the scope):
1.) Howa 1500 Legacy
Loyal Readers will recall that I used the above rifle at Boomershoot (albeit with a more manly chambering), and raved about its wonderful trigger and outstanding and consistent accuracy. It’s definitely my first choice, subject to availability.
2.) Ruger American Predator
Like the Howa, I’ve used the Ruger at Boomershoot (once again, its larger cousin the Hunter in .308 Win), and I would have absolutely no hesitation in using this one.
Finally, we have my sentimental favorite, but at $950:
3.) CZ 600 Lux
I like everything about this gun: that hogsback walnut (not plastic) stock, the excellent CZ trigger and faultless controlled feed — the CZ has it all, and always has. Were it not more expensive than the other two, there would be no choice; but as it is, that $200 premium is a hefty speed bump, and I don’t want to have to sell three of my beloved mil-surp rifles just to afford this one.
There are other brands, of course, but I’m more familiar with these, and I can’t afford to mess around. There are some cheaper options, of course:
- Savage Apex Predator line runs about $400, which is nice, but I don’t trust those skinny little barrels — for sustained shooting, nothing beats a heavy barrel
- Mossberg’s MVP is priced the same as the Savage, but I’ve never shot one before so… but it does look interesting and Mossberg have that reliability thing going for them:
I just don’t know about the trigger, and I’d hate to have to hassle with a gritty or heavy one.
As for the scope, I’d almost certainly go for a Vortex Crossfire II 6-18x44mm AO — once again, I’ve used this scope often before, mounted on several different rifles — and had excellent results each time. (I’d like to get a similarly-powered Optika6, but $800 is way too much for my wallet.)
Practice ammo is likewise a simple choice: PPU 55gr. (bless their little Balkan hearts). For the actual hunt, I might go with something maybe a little more hefty, say a 60gr. pill, but that can be decided later. (Incidentally, of the three rifles above, only the CZ 600 is comfortable shooting 5.56x45mm as well as .223 Rem, so that’s something else to be considered given the ready availability of the military ammo vs. the .223 Rem.)
All this said, I’m a little early in the game; I don’t have a location planned, nor have I even thought much about setting up a shooting party. But I will need to have extensive practice before I do any of that, because if there’s anything I hate more than burning up ammo to no avail, I haven’t thought of it.
So there it is: Death To Varmints, at a time TBD.
Your thoughts and input are welcome, as usual; and if anyone has such an excursion planned for the spring, summer or fall of this year, please consider me as a participant.
Oh, and please don’t use this opportunity to try to talk me into getting a Mattel rifle. Bolt-action only.
