ANATION
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I picked 22-250 because speed is king for me. Also, my 22-250 rifles have been the most accurate I've owned. Don't get me wrong, I love .223 and shot it a lot, but I like the added velocity of the old 22 varminter.
30 or 35? I don't see the 30 listed on Hornady's website.
I have not tried the NTX but the Barnes Varmint Grenade is an impressive varmint bullet.
Lightest weight I shoot is 50 gr.
It seems that most people who own .223s don't handload because most use semi-autos and aren't interested in small groups. I'm not one and have three bolt-action .223s, but no semi-autos. The last time I bought .223 brass, it was high-quality Starline and it's helped to make some very accurate ammo, using a mild amount of Varget powder and Sierra 52 grain HP match bullets that shoot 0.2-0.3 MOA groups at 100 yards with my fairly new Rem 700 ADL synthetic that has been pillar & glass-bedded and free-floated.
No, a rifle doesn't have to shoot that accurately to kill varmints to 200+ yards, but I'm grateful that it does. The scope is the 3-9x Bushnell that was on my son's .30-36 when his exuberant dog knocked it down and bent it while said son was looking for some of his hunting stuff early on opening day. We swapped scopes and I straightened this one with a rubber hammer on my workbench. It still works great!
I built my .22-250 Ackley that way; it wasn't a rechamber of the base cartridge. Work has kept me from really wringing it out yet, but I like it so far.Has anyone here had their .22-250 rechambered to .22-250 Improved? I'd often thought about it, but it didn't happen.
I built my .22-250 Ackley that way; it wasn't a rechamber of the base cartridge. Work has kept me from really wringing it out yet, but I like it so far.
"14".... Light and faaaasst!.Since this thread is supposed to be about .223 varmint rifles, I'll stay on the subject with this Rem. 40-X .223 with left side bolt. I shoot right handed but prefer left side bolt operation on my varmint rifles because it is faster and more efficient when shooting from a rest in a well populated PD town. I ordered the rifle with 14" twist rather than usual 12", for top accuracy with 40-55 grain bullets. Especially the 52 grain bullets I make for my BR rifles. It also has a one ounce Jewel trigger and the scope is Leupold Vari-X III 6.5-20X50...View attachment 899259 View attachment 899260
I'm truly thankful for the latest .223 Rem, a 700 ADL mentioned in another thread that I was lucky to buy N.I.B. for $230 a year or so ago. I figured that, since I was allowing a relative to shoot my other .223 at the range and he didn't pay any attention to barrel temperature, I'd let him shoot the new, inexpensive one and save my older Tikka 595 and the very cool, 700 Light Varmint Stainless.
Turns out that he doesn't shoot rifles anymore, but he and his wife like to shoot .22LR handguns and shoot at a range closer to their house sometimes. Meanwhile, I'm tickled with the accuracy of the ADL, which I pillar-bedded/floated, and lightened the trigger-pull on...while maintaining the factory stock, which I stiffened by pouring epoxy into the forend voids in two layers...not pretty enough to show, but very effective. Last range visit resulted in 0.2"-0.3" groups at 100 yds! I'm so tickled with that "bargain" rifle!
The stock isn't particularly great for range use, but it carries well on a sling, better than my 700 Light Varmint, due to that rifle's flat, angular forend. The only problem is that I don't like the idea of spending about $100 more for an after-market stock than I paid for the rifle. Maybe I can find a better stock for it, but the original suffices, for now. The Leupold 3-9X scope works great for this walk-about varminter. I'd take a picture, but everyone knows what a plastic-stocked 700 ADL looks like...or they should.
Thanks for putting-up with a an old guy's ramblings during the cold-weather, Corona Virus stay-home situation.
Is it because of it's versatility and it's availability of reloading components and low cost factory ammo ?
Hey Picher,Continuation of my story about the .30-06 "varmint rifle" above.
Hunting in fields with a .30-06 brought extra caution, because even shooting 125 grain "varmint" bullets, they didn't turn to "dust" like much more fragile bullets do. Still, we had some relatively safe hunting fields back in the late 1950s and people in the country weren't as fearful as some are these days.
I kept track of kills during a couple of my best years, around 1961, and saw that my prone kills averaged about 220 yards, with the longest about 450 yards (second shot) at a woodchuck sitting on his newly-refreshed hillside mound. The first shot was about a foot low and he went down the hole. When he came back, he layed just behind the peak of the mound, reducing his profile, but I nailed him! That was with my customized Savage 110, and a 2.5X Weaver scope. A little luck, definitely, but I shot a skunk on the first try, in the same field, that was over 500 yards and it was walking around.
Anyone who's hunted varmints has had some pretty nice shots, though it's easier when shooting prairie dogs, where folks set up near-benchrest conditions at targets that are relatively close to each other and use massive scopes and heavy varmint rifles. We walked several miles on a hunt and may only have shot at two or three chucks, so each was a real accomplishment for us as teenage kids.
All the hunting and informal target shooting came in handy when, in adulthood, I went to quite a few paper target "turkey shoots" at several clubs around Maine, and by that time, I was shooting an "improved" Rem 700 ADL, .22-250 that would group under 1/2 MOA with a 6X Weaver.