Varmint Velocities with a Bang

[LiverEatingJohnson]

I’d vote for 220 swift. I have a Remington 700 Varmint with a 26” barrel in swift and it loves 55 grain blitz kings over 55 grains of varget but woodchucks sure dont!

 

[Axis II]

I got bit with the woodchuck and coyote bug a few years ago and went through this exact issue. 223 vs 22-250. I chose 223 because ammo and components are cheaper. I shoot a savage axis heavy barrel with 6-18 vortex scope, Boyd’s classic stock, 55gr Nosler Varmegeddon BT with a heavy dose of benchmark. Attached are some of the groups this gun has shot and some of the woodchucks it’s taken out. My buddy shoots 22-250 and it’s just too loud and too much of a barrel burner for me. I don’t need to gut a woodchuck at 500yards I just need to make sure they don’t get back up and 223 does that just fine.

 

[Offfhand]

My vote will always be for 220 Swift, and it was left it out! For shame!!

The .220 Swift will always get my vote too. I've owned and have hunted with about every varmint class cartridge you can name or think of, factory and wildcats from .14 caliber up to .25, but in my gunrack the Swift remains the top dog. A sample being this Swift built by Ed Shilen about 40 years ago, with action, barrel and beautiful wood stock all from Shilen's shop. I figure it's about all a varmint rifle ought'a be.

 

[Picher]

.22-250 AI , takes factory ammo with a 150 FPS loss on first firing . From then on it has 200 FPS possible velocity gains over factory ammo and longer brass life. Get it wit a 1-8" or even 1-9" twist and you can shoot bullets over 63 grains no problem. A 75 Grain Amax at 3500 FPS is absolutely amazing and far out classes any .223. Also the .22-250 is the superior deer round if pressed into that use. I used the 60 grain Nosler Partition for years on the light Blacktail deer (I must confess also used that bullet in the defunct .224 Weatherby too) with 100% success . With 45 or 50 grain bullets touigh enough to hold up to 4000 fps they vaporize pests and work great on Coyotes to 500 yards. Love my ..22 -250s !

My biggest regret is not having a .22-250 Improved when I was varmint hunting. The regular .22-250 was very accurate, but I hated the tapered case walls, due to excessive stretching/trimming requirements.

Now I have three cartridges that can take its place for my current varmint killing needs .17 HMR, .223 Rem, and .243 Win. I'm having the most fun with the .17 HMR, but have taken coyotes, crows and woodchucks with all three. The .17 HMR is great in the neighborhood and doesn't seem to spook the horses across the road.

 

[Robbins290]

I use a .223/5.56 for deer and coyotes. Cheap ammo and not such a barrel burner as some of the others.

 

[Gordon]

The .243, which I like a lot , has the same tapered case as the .22-250. I really never had a problem with my regular .22-250 stretching much. I did with the one .220 Swift I had in the 70s . If you only have one rifle of a certaincaliber to feed, then neck sizing only or minimal body sizing pretty much eliminates case stretching in most guns. It did NOT for that Swift which was a J series Savage model single shot bolt gun.

 

[Offfhand]

This is my idea of the infamous "Black Gun", a .243 Catbird built by Jarrett Rifles for reaching and touching varmints way out yonder. It's as wicked as it looks..

 

[MarshallDodge]

From this thread I learned that Offhand has some really nice rifles

 

[Chuck R.]

I also use .223 with 55 Nosler BTs over Varget in several rifles for coyotes, muskrats and beavers.

Coyotes I hunt by calling, vast majority of shots are shotgun range to 200yds for those that hang up. Muskrats & beavers are an across my 9 acre pond proposition. Where I grew up back east we hunted chucks and I used a heavy barreled 6mm Rem with 70grn BTs at 3600.

 

[Picher]

I use a .223/5.56 for deer and coyotes. Cheap ammo and not such a barrel burner as some of the others.

Nice to see another Mainer here. There are others, but none closer to the Augusta area that I've noticed.

I've shot a few Maine deer with a .22-250; in fact, my first few deer. I used Nosler, solid-based bullets and they did a good job, but was quite careful to not shoot deer beyond 200 yards. While we know that some professionals use .223 Rem ARs, silenced rifles to shoot deer over bait at night, especially on Maine's islands, they're shooting only about 50 yards and place bullets in the neck/spine for quick kills. I would hope that hunters with somewhat less skill would limit shots to under 150 yards and in open places where a second shot, if needed, would be possible.

I stopped using the .22-250 in the woods when I was standing in a relatively open oak grove near a lake and a wounded deer happened along that had been shot in a front leg. I wanted to kill it quickly/humanely and kept trying to shoot it in the neck, but every time I shot, it's head dropped down as it limped along, causing me to miss 5 times at about 60 yards. I put one more round in the rifle and aimed for the lungs and killed it quickly, but that cartridge was retired for deer hunting then and there!

The next year, I'd bought a .30-06, scoped it, and used it to harvest several deer for years, but as many folks know, lately I've used a couple of .270s and that cartridge has killed deer reliably for me to about 450 yards.

 

[cfullgraf]

I have never been interested in the .204, because my friends who run them say it is difficult to impossible to get the same velocity from handloading that you do from the factory. The velocity is kind of the whole point.

I've never had a problem matching the velocity of factory ammunition with my handloads in 204 Ruger in my 204 Ruger AR-15's. But, if I down load the velocity 100-200 fps or so, the groups shrink dramatically.

Still, I burned out the barrel in my 26" 204 Ruger AR-15 in about 2000 rounds shooting 40 grain bullets at about 3600 fps. In part, it was because of too frequent shooting, an issue with the AR-15 platform. But the fast follow up shots are fun on a prairie dog town.

I have a replacement barrel on hand for rebuilding the rifle.

 

[Gordon]

This is my idea of the infamous "Black Gun", a .243 Catbird built by Jarrett Rifles for reaching out and touching varmints way out yonder. It's as wicked as it looks..View attachment 896939 View attachment 896940 View attachment 896941

Oh my that is one intense rifle in a super caliber ! If it had a slow twist it could stabilize the new 6mm 115 grain VLD bullets and be a 1000 yard rifle par excellance ! I really like that gun sir, and a top flight smith built it for sure. What kind of scope is that ? I see it's a Swaro but don't recognize the model .

 

[Sniper66]

WOW!! Some great rifles. I got bitten by the varmint shooting bug about 15 years ago. Since then I have killed 1,000s of prairie dogs with.......22LR, 17HMR, 17Mach2, .204 (a Ruger #! and a Kimber 84M), .22Hornet, .223, and .243. the Ruger #1 .204 likes 32gr and the Kimber likes 39gr, shooting about 3900fps and 3700fps, respectively, both with Benchmark. My 22Hornet shoots 35gr bullets at 3,000fps with Li'L Gun. The .223 is a Remington VSF with 26" fluted barrel and likes 50gr Sierra BKs; likes Benchmark, Varget, and H4198. My .243 is a Remington VLS with 26" heavy barrel and scoots a 55gr bullet along at 3700fps with Varget. Discovered that speed is much less important than accuracy when it comes to p-dogs. So I shifted away from 40gr .223s to 50gr and recently loaded some super accurate 55gr. My favorite performer is the Kimber 84M with 39gr Sierra BKs. And I quit using the .243 for p-dogs, but it has killed 3 deer in the last 3 years. Recently built an AR-15 .223 for coyotes and it prefers 63gr Sierra GameKings, but is OK with 50 and 55gr. LOTS OF OPTIONS!!