Different Hunting

Hunting

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.

24 comments

  1. I understand that Texas has a problem with feral pigs / hogs. Your services might be much appreciated.

    1. No, I’m pretty sure Kim’s services would be GREATLY appreciated. And in Louisiana, too.

      Texas has an estimated 2.6 million feral hogs. Louisiana has an estimated 700,000 feral hogs.
      Kim, get cracking. The farmers and cattlemen need your services.

      There is one downside: you’ll have to go vampire, because the best time to hunt feral hogs is at night. Additionally, to be really effective, you need NVDs or thermal. That’s $$$$. Maybe start a Go Fund Me?

  2. Having grown up on a New England Farm I can add some knowledge of varmint control of the woodchuck / Ground hog variety. At 13 I was judged responsible enough to add Varmint control to my duties. Woodchucks in horse pastures were not a good thing. Most of the farm boys in the area had similar experience. We all had our own Varmint guns. Shooting the Varmints was the fun part. But forget about setting up a shooting table sandbags and tripods. You won’t get that kind of time. And 50 to 100 yards is the normal engagement distance. They are very skittish. Any movement, sound or scent will send them back into their holes for a nap. Most of the time you come over a small rise and spot them standing at their holes. So a shot from a standing or kneeling position is most common. And yes, you need some power to get thru all the fat and muscle, so a hit in the chest is most effective. so ….. more range time.

    You only get one shot as the sound will send them all to ground for at least 45 minutes. The more effective method was a trailer full of rocks and dirt behind the tractor with shovels and some smoke bombs. Find the main hole. widen it and toss in a smoke bomb. Block the entrance with an appropriate size rock and add some dirt. Meanwhile the smoke will have revealed the location of the 4 other 6 other entrances. Mark and Fill those as well.

    Come back in a few days and do it all again.

    1. As a former NE guy I found a soft shooting 22 hornet bolt gun easy for chucks…But I suspect out in Texas the distances are longer. Probably a good old 22-250 would be the medicine there.

  3. Kim,
    Buddy of mine here has the CZ MTR in .223 Rem. It has a l-o-o-o-o-n-g 28″ heavy barrel and tips the scale at over 11# before the glass .. but from bench or rest, none of that really matters. How heavy is the heavy barrel? It’s almost a full inch in diameter at the muzzle. It’s beefy.

    I’ve shot it once .. and it was a pleasure. With mass produced “range grade” ammo, without really trying, I made a 3-leaf clover at 100 yards. With the right ammo and a good shooter, I bet this rifle could repeat that feat at three times the distance.

    You may prefer something a bit more compact than the MTR platform, but damnation, it can shoot the ass hair off a gnat.

  4. The .223 Rem is a great choice of cartridge for varmint hunting, but the specialized, high-end line of cartridges, like the Hornady V-Max line, are pretty spendy. If you’re going to do that, you may as well go 6.5 CM, IMO, you can get some terrific rounds there. But the economy lines like Hornady Frontier should get the job done at $0.60-0.80 per bang.

    I would humbly suggest this tradeoff to you.

    * Great rifle
    * Great glass
    * Nice wood stock

    Pick any two. I would also humbly suggest you forget the wood stock. As much as you love pretty rifles (who doesn’t?) the wood adds no functionality for intended purpose to the detriment of the other two. I suggest you think of this rifle, much as it might pain you, as sort of a “Glock” of rifles. It’s a tool to let you scratch your hunting itch on a budget. And, I suspect, getting less than satisfactory results with less focus on the rifle and glass, will eventually irritate you no end.

    Something like the Savage 110 LR Varmint with synthetic stock comes in around $650-700, street. And it’s a heavier barrel than the model you cite. My Savage 110 sniper rig has been smithed a bit and will shoot 1/2 MOA from a shooting sled, but it probably would have shot 3/4 MOA out of the box. It may have been a very good sample, but I think you can count on sub-MOA from a box-stock Savage 110. And the stock is adjustable for LOP and comb height, and IMO the Accu-trigger is better than any other stock trigger, IMO, you’d have to spend a bunch on a custom trigger to beat it.

    Top that with something like the Vortex Optics Crossfire II 3-12×56, which is consistently ranked highly in all budget varmint scope reviews. It’s tough and reliable, I own two of a different scope from them and am very happy with them. Under $300, street. It’s second focal plane, but it is a simple reticle without hold offs. Get an Evolution Gun Works EGW Savage Round Back short action 0 MOA picatinny mount for under $40, and a good mount of your choice like a Warne ESKEL30 for about $125 (I’ve had cheaper mounts, but stripped the mounting screws at proper torque–I learned), and you’re good to go! Entire package under $1,200.

    If you’d like a little more glass but don’t want (rather can’t–who wouldn’t want?) a Nightforce, move up to the Vortex Optics Diamondback Tactical First Focal Plane scope with all the reticle holdoffs you could want which work at all magnifications. The 4-16×44 with the EBR-2C (MOA) reticle is $400 at Amazon. Still keeps the package under $1,300.

    My humble opinion is this rig would give you tremendous pleasure even without the wood stock, because it would be tailored exactly to you in terms of LOP and cheekweld. It should be accurate enough for the task. Esthetics, meh. But as I said at the top, pick two.

    Plenty of other scopes to choose from, I’m not an expert on them, you’re way more knowledgeable and would have your favorites, but I think the gun would be hard to beat for the money. Can’t wait to see updates on this!

    Review: https://www.shootingtimes.com/editorial/review-savage-model-110-long-range-hunter/329969

    JC

  5. while 5.56 and .223 might be cheap now, remember that the military is dropping 5.56 and moving to .277 Fury or whatever it is called in the next few years.

    When I looked hard at such a rifle for relatively cheap practice and skill development, most people were saying that 223/556 was great for cheaper ammunition if you don’t reload your own ammunition. If you did make your own cartridges then .204 Ruger was the route to go.

    I’m thinking of picking up a rifle like that but more for cheaper skill development than my 30/06.

    Good luck

    JQ

  6. Kim, here is The Way:

    Savage Axis II in .243 Win

    Boltie? Check
    Wood stock? Check
    Shoulder-friendly caliber? Check
    Affordable? Check

    I’m a lifelong bird hunter, and this was my first rifle, $550 out the door including the Bushnell Banner II 3-9×40 Quick Ballistic Reticle scope, factory boresighted.

    I took it to CMP Talledega, and with Hornady Superformance 58 gr V-Max Varmint rounds, I qualified at the 100, 200, 300 and 600 yard ranges same day.

    Sub-MOA out to 300 yards, not much more than that at 600. I have photos of the electronic target scoring display as proof, which I can email you if interested.

    The rangemaster couldn’t believe this was an off-the-shelf rifle with a bargain scope, and that I was a brand-newbie. I’m not that good; the rifle certainly is. And this before I’ve even tweaked the Accu-Trigger or tried some of my meticulously prepared hand loads.

    I’ll be taking this afield soon to shoot feral pigs, which are an absolute scourge ‘round here.

    I cannot enthuse enough about this rifle. Savage absolutely nailed it.

  7. Perhaps putting ads in the local papers would get you in front of the clientele for which you’re looking.
    If you’re looking to do this for fun, you could charge for gas, ammo, and a meal or two. Such a deal!

  8. ^^^^^
    Also a great choice. Savage is hard to beat value-wise, IMO. You can get better rifles. You can get cheaper riles. But I really don’t think you can get a better rifle for less money. Savage literally owns that space.

    Also, I’ve mentioned this before and you haven’t bit on it yet. And I’m not suggesting you get into reloading yourself, it makes no sense for several reasons. You’re too old to make it make economic sense, the equipment breakeven takes a decade or more of typical reloading. And I’m not sure you’re that interested in it. And New Wife would not like you setting up a reloading den in an apartment, I would bet. My wife never sees mine, it’s in the basement.

    But, reloaders, like most shooters, are very friendly folks and like to help each other. I have a friend who collects milsurps but does not reload. I had him buy dies for his Arisaka and some bullets and powder, now he saves his brass and comes over to my reloading den and we reload him up as needed.

    I’m sure you have friends in your area who reload and would be delighted to do a reloading session with you from time to time, and the good news is they’re almost guaranteed to have .223 dies already. The reason I mention this, is if you get the lesser line of ammo, like that Hornady Frontier, you’ll be able to reload the brass two or three times before annealing is required (royal PITA). Then you toss it and buy more new Frontier ammo, rinse, repeat.

    Including premium bullets, like the Hornady 55gr V-Max, Hodgdon Benchmark powder, and any small rifle primers, you can reload a higher quality round for about $0.55-60 each, less than the new Hornady Frontier ammo.

    I’d invite you to come to my reloading bench but the plane ticket kinda blows a hole in the economics. You have to know several reloaders, I’d bet, though, close by, who would be delighted to keep you in high-quality hunting rounds for a bottle of Famous Grouse at Christmas time. I know I would.

    Just a thought to chew on.

      2. OK, I claim CRS. Got to thinking, then had to go look. Glass is not as I stated above. That was a Tasco from long ago. Current glass is Nikon, but a Monarch UCC 6.5 X 20 with fine cross hair.

  10. Not a hunter in the usual sense but I’ve had no problems taking coyotes with a Savage 22-250. Good range. Obviously good for groundhogs in the pasture as well. Other than capacity, I may prefer it to the S&W AR-15.

  11. I have a Ruger American chambered to handle 223 and 5.45. It even uses AR mags. I have the cross fire II scope as well. I can ring a 8 inch gong at 200 with it. Prairie dog or pig should be targets I could hit with it. Squirrels I would use a 22 LR or 22 WMR. I get better accuracy with them at medium ranges.

  12. Kim

    Think of Son and Heir. He’d cherish a nice walnut and blue steel rodent killer. The CZ is the winner. Hell, hold a raffle to raise the funds.

    I’ve long used a CZ 527 in 223 for coyotes and coons. It shoots just about any 40-55 grain ammo quite well. Light and handy. Even my teenage son can shoot it. I suspect the 600 will shoot similarly. Wish I had one in 7.62×39.

    That said, If I were to buy a new rifle it would be a Howa barreled action and a semi-inletted stock. Howa has a lot going for it. The major downside is high cost of replacement magazines.

  13. My brother has the Ruger in .223 and loves it. The above mentioned ability to use AR mags is a plus. The Mossberg can also use AR mags and, while I haven’t tried it, a buddy swears they are relatively unknown gem.

  14. Hmmmmmm. A raffle you say? Not sure what your earlier ones raised, Kim, but you might be able to raffle off ONE milsurp, rather than sell it outright, and garner enough for the CZ. It’s not just Son & Heir who would like that. You’d like it a lot more than a plastic stocked tool.

  16. Kim,
    Looking at the Ruger American Predator link you provided (Bud’s Gun Shop)
    The $700 price includes a scope and the rifle will chamber 5.56 and .223

    Also if you want to give your other 22’s a work out, source a place that has ground squirrel shooting. . Really small targets , but almost all locations that have them have lots. Close in shooting for the most part, but with the 22 mag and good glass 100 yards is doable. Last time I went it was easy to run through a brick of 22 LR and as much of 22 mag as you can afford.
    Zero recoil issues, only eye strain from being on scope for so long.

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