Hey Picher,
Thank you for sharing your stories. I'm another virus shut-in at age 73. Didn't start varmint shooting as a young hunter. Shot only .22 and 410 at rabbits, squirrels, and quail. Couldn't afford centerfire and being dirt poor, we were mostly food hunters. Through the years coyotes occasionally became targets of opportunity, but never really hunted them. Fast forward to about 20 years ago, my varmint hunting began in earnest. I called a friend who owns lots of land in western Kansas and had lots of pheasants in past years. This time, however, he said, "Don't have any pheasants, but you need to come out here and shoot some of these damned prairie dogs!" My income had improved a lot and my varmint hunting was born, along with the accumulation of 6-7 varmint and reloading equipment. I now reload 5 different calibers, mostly for prairie dogs and coyotes, but also load my deer rounds. While I shoot deer and turkeys and I still hunt squirrels, varmints are my favorite target. I've settled on .223. and .204 as my favorite varmint calibers. I did buy a Remington 700 VLS heavy barreled .243 and developed rounds with 55gr bullets that would travel around 3600 fps. The intent was to shoot long range prairie dogs and did kill some at 300-350 yds. But, I quickly learned that I missed more often than not and I don't like missing. So, I abandoned the long distance shots and mostly shoot under 300, preferably closer to 200. My longest shot with my .223, measured with laser range finder was 326 yds. I've killed 1,000s of prairie dogs with .22LR, 17HMR, 22Hornet, .223, .204, and .243...shot a prairie dog with a 12ga last year! At present, I'm developing test loads using CFE 223 for my latest acquisition, a custom AR-15 .223 to be my go-to coyote rifle. Loads of FUN.
Nice! The only thing about the hot .20-.22 caliber rounds like the .223 is that wind raises cain with them, compared with heavier rounds, but those heavier rounds aren't as pleasant to shoot for long strings and barrels warm too quickly. I guess we haven't found the perfect varmint round, but .22-250 Improved seems like it could be a winner. I also have a couple of .243s that are quite effective in the field...very stable and very strong for larger coyotes and have taken several deer by grandsons, and I took my light Tikka on a mission to set up a pop-up blind on a high hill for my grandson and stopped while setting it up to nail a 130 lb buck in the old county road, at 200 yards when standing and resting my left pinkie on top of the blind. It never took a step! The round was a handloaded 80 grain solid Hornady GMX.