he does seem to play around with different bullet types . . maybe they shoot really well in that Tikka of his
I use those same 55gr SGK's in my model 7 223, it freakin loves them. They work just fine on Rabbits at 200+ yards, and the beauty of those bullets that if you come across anything larger they work fine too, as you can see in my video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD2RLAKEucI&t=5s
Yup nothing wrong with the GameKings, bloody good, used the 55grainers for years back in the day in my first .223. Been trying to get Wingman to try them in his 6mm Dasher barrel but his gun is too posh for them eh mate.
;)
This guy has a good channel. Lots of gear reviews and tutorials and some shit hot rabbit shooting in the Dales.
https://www.youtube.com/user/SharpshootingUK
Can't seem to upload video
Righto here's a list from my reloading notes of the varminting bullets I've used over the last several years. To be fair, I've not really found a bullet that my rifles didn't like. I've only ever handloaded for them, and a bit of fine tuning of the loads has given reliable half to three quarter MOA accuracy for the most part, i.e. little cloverleafs.
My varmint rifles since the early-noughties have been Tikkas with varmint contour barrels, both 1:8" and 1:12" .223s. I briefly had a .204 Tikka Varmint in Aus but sold that as a package deal for quite a lot more than I bought it for! Prior to that there was a couple of long gaps as I moved around when I didn't have one. The was a deadly accurate Savage 1:8" .223 in the 90s for a while, basically copying my cousin's specs from the US (they are fully into their semi custom Savage varmint rifles). The first proper varminter I ever had was an old 1:14" twist Remington .22-250 way back in the 80s that was originally my grandfather's. The current rifle is a .223 1:12" T3 Super Varmint.
Back in the day, I can't remember what bullet was used in the .22-250. In the Savage .223 it was the 55gr GameKing. That's pretty much all I remember being available. Great wee bullet.
In the later 1:8" twist Tikka .223, with 60-75gr bullets, I only used the Sierra GameKing 65gr, on rabbits, hares, goats. I took it to Aus after I got my WA licence and added foxes, wild dogs, a lot of grey kangaroos and the odd cat. Great bullet, easy to load for, unfussy, accurate, deadly. In 2009 I switched to the 75gr A-Max which was a magic bullet, extending the effective range by a full 100m or more and violently exploding pests. I think I've already told the story of how we vapourised a feral cat in mid-air with that bullet.
In 2011, due to WA's annoying "genuine need" laws I had to remix the rifles, to accommodate a .243, so I switched to a 1:12" twist .223 and mostly 55gr bullets. At first I only used the Sierra BlitzKing 55gr, but ended up using a few different makes and designs because I was being given random boxes by a mate who worked at the local outfitters, in exchange for me driving us both out on long trips into the Wheatbelt or Outback. I got whatever he had. We did a shit load of shooting back then, it was nothing to blow through 200+ reloads in a weekend, especially when the bunnies were thick. I miss my mate and that shooting, and the wife was bloody good at it too.
In rough order of numbers shot, they were all effective bullets.
Sierra BlitzKing 55gr
Nosler Varmageddon 55gr, both the tipped and HP variants
Sierra GameKing 55gr, both the SP and HP variants
Berger Varmint 55gr HP Varmint
Hornady V-Max 55gr
Sierra MatchKing HPBT 52gr
I didn't drive them particularly fast and I found I could use the same 2206H load for all the 55gr bullets with negligible change to POI, which was very handy. I also used Benchmark 2.
If I had to pick one from the list it would be the Sierra BlitzKing 55gr. We killed a lot of pest grey kangaroos, heaps of foxes, a few wild dogs and the usual plague of rabbits, with that bullet. Huge Wheatbelt property, rolling country, setting up under the gumtrees with a wide field of view out to as far as we could see. Whilst not a varminting application, on pest roos it was deadly effective. If for whatever reason a headshot wasn't on, an upper chest shot would drop them on the spot, and it would almost always violently exit. They are quite a tough animal, roos, so for a varmint bullet that was quite surprising at first. (You're not technically allowed to do that, but sometimes you had to, especially on skittish roos in daylight.)
When we moved to the Outback proper, it was all about goats, wild dogs and foxes, and they certainly didn't like the BlitzKing. In that period I used lots of different bullets and they all did the job. The Nosler Varmageddon was a favourite and lethal on rabbits, foxes, cats, etc.
When Hornady released the Zombie Max I wanted 55gr, as I already had the load sorted. But I could only get a 500 box of 50gr. I had a bottle of Benchmark 1 and gave it a punt despite not having any decent load data for it. Its a faster powder and I got it up to 3400fps before pressure signs, slightly flat primers but no ejector stamps, and it was the most accurate one-holer I'd ever used. On my first magpie shoot it was 2 clicks and an explosion of feathers at 300m. What a cool little bullet. Since then I've used nothing else, primarily because I've got a couple of thousand of them on the shelf.
One exception last year, an odd ball bullet, the 64gr Nosler "Bonded Performance Protected Point". I got some for a very specific application, head shooting large-ish pigs baited with rotten horse. Its a self-defense / law enforcement bullet designed to stay on course after being shot through windows and the like. Because its short and dense, it stabilises fine in the 1:12" .223. At 3100fps MV it has no difficulty penetrating a heavy pig. Wait for it to lift its head with a gob full of rotten meat... In through the skull just above the eyes and down the neck, through the spine into the vitals. Bang flop. These bullets are so tough, they'd either deflect and exit half way down, or blow up the rumen and into the guts. Shoot a good pig side on with the high shoulder shot at 100m, and it will go right through both scapula and the spine and exit out the other side nae bother. Staunch. I still have a stash of these for "special ops". They are useless for normal chest shooting goats or small deer, far too hard and just goes straight through with minimal damage, you have to get proper resistance to make them work.
Anyway there's some history of varminting and other stuff with various bullets. I look the sport and as @rossi.45 says the challenge of a long range varmint is fully satisfying and I get just as much out of that kind of shooting as I do chasing after deer.
I do think a heavyish, stable rifle and decent hi power variable optics makes for a better varmint rifle for the longer stuff, I much prefer them that way, and the Tikka Varmint / Super Varmint with 5-20x50 or 6-24x50 has been very good for me.
I'll pull out some photos from Aus later if I can find them.
Hare at 1157m with 7mm rem mag. 1st shot high but he was nice enough to not move and give me a 2nd shot Pretty tinny but hilarious
Thank god it doesn’t smoke cigars as well @Wingman or you would be straight down to the next police buy back to get some cash back:thumbsup::XD:
Cheers mate, yea was pretty happy. I'd just been checking dope on a gong a few meters from where he popped out. No wind and a good catchment area unfortunately for him!
i liked your post @Wingman with your history . . i'll have to see if i can track down pictures of my original varmint setup, maybe a story on each rifle.
The ' why ' people get drawn to commit so much time/energy and money to Varminting i find interesting . . its so different to ' old school ' that never the 2 shall meet it seems or rarely, i wonder how many people do both styles.
my first Varmint rifle when i started getting serious about it . . . Sako .222 with a 6.5-20 leupold
Attachment 118160
Attachment 118175
Good thread.
Not my latest walk but a decent pic. 22LR with subs, 8 and 9m respectively (shot them from hut porch).
Well spotted Moa
2nd CF Varmint rifle was a big step up from the .222 - same class of cartridge but a WildCat, the .22 VarTarg Turbo, an Improved .222Rem, 30 degree shoulder with a shorter neck ( neck turned )
a heavy Shilen fluted barrel in a heavy thumbhole stock ( Fajen ), blueprinted action, M16 extractor, worked trigger - the whole package just works for me.
some would not like the weight of the rifle as a walkabout but that has never bothered me.
with the Sako i had hits out to just over 300yrds, with the VarTarg i went out to 400yrds with the same 50grn. VMax, both rifles have 6.5-20 Leupolds
Attachment 118310
.
longest hit today 390yrds
Attachment 118401
.243 Tikka Varmint - 87grn.VMax
8-32 NXS Nightforce
I went to last of the "Sniper Shoots" Harry Hoover used to hold on that station near Matamata and shot a magpie at 700 yards sitting on the rail holding the gongs. That was on the Practice day on the Saturday when there was buggerall wind though !!! The rifle was a big heavy barrel-blocked 300WSM I built and still have.
Attachment 118428
That one, except its in 7mm now. Fark knows how to turn it up the other way sorry.
@Gibo that was the first time I’d seen anyone shoot over 250m and hit what they were aiming at!
That was easier than turning the pc over:thumbsup: Thats a nice rifle.
Attachment 118446
Yeah mate it's a "barrel block" setup. Barrel block rifles used to be more common back before all the many custom actions appeared in the market.
That gun is bloody accurate, has all top components and being 7kg in weight will always be easier to shoot well than a lightweight rig.
Took it goat shooting a month or so back, after finally finding a farmer who would let us shoot a few way up high in these narly hills where he couldn't muster them. We drove right up to the top of this guys block and were up high looking across this big gully with the morning fog just below us, so I could clearly see there was no wind, and there at 450 yards was a nanny sitting in the sun side-on just minding her own business. My mate said "head shoot it", so I did. I had the perfect ground position to shoot from. Dialled it up first with a Sig Sauer 2400ABS. We only shot 2 each, but dropped off beers to the farmer and made a good contact for another trip sometime.
shot these 3 over 5 minutes between 380-400yrds.
Attachment 119124
sadly no Lab to go and get them @Dundee
took a walk over to check the VMax performance . . explosive
longest misses 700-740yrds but soooo ferkn close, damm that twitchy wind
before i went for a walk i put a few shot on paper at 100yrds. & 1 at 400yrds on steel to check everything is working as it should with a crosswind of 3-5mph
still shooting under .5MOA at a counted 700 rounds thru the barrel . . a recrown was done at 650 rounds
Attachment 119134
1 x 1.5 inch square at 400yrds . . . happy as
Attachment 119141
this Aussie guy is still putting out good vids
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ETKkoWUFc
Got a hare at 280m and a magpie at 170m on Sunday morning with my 20br.
some more info on the 20BR would be cool @Friwi
Hi Rossi,
So I built that rifle because a friend had the reamer and i had seen spectacular results with it. ( his first two live game after load development and drop chart were two magpies at 350 and 400m with rounds number 1 and 2).
The reamer is a neck turn (229) . Barrel is true flite remington varmint profile, 24" long, built on a Rem 788 that I blueprinted. Timney trigger ken henderson carbon tactical hunter stock.( I am not sure he will ever re do an inlet for that action as it is so tricky with that stock pattern).
I am shooting a 39gr sierra blitz king at 3950 fps. I am using vita n133 powder.
I choose the Remington 788 so I can mag feed easily. The rifle is shooting well, but not exceptionally well yet , I still have the odd flyer and that could come from the fact that my first 50 lapua cases were from a second hand batch of 6 mm br.
I will try with a new batch to see if consistency improves. I also need to work up a bit my seating depth and change scope as I damaged my old leupold 6.5-20-40.
The gun was originally designed for Shooting magpies.
If I had to do it again I would go with a no turn neck reamer, a single shot action ( Barnard s or Remington7 or its clone).0 Moa rail ( I have a 20 Moa that does not serve any purpose for that flat Shooting cartridge) use a full length sizing die instead of just a type s neck die.
I built a 204 ruger on Howa mini action in a plastic stock with a standard tikka contour barrel last June and it does shoot as well with factory ammo than the 20 br with all the hard work. So if you are into Shooting more than reloading go with the 204.
I started with a Savage Long Range Varminter in 22-250 but I started doing LR and realised the BC of .25 made my enormous 12lb rifle ridiculous. I sold it and got a 6.5x284 Savage F-class and I regret selling it to buy a PM2. It shot freakish groups. It was used for 100m blowfly shooting. Would have made a great varmint rifle but the Zeiss Conquest I had on it broke on the drive over to the only varmint shoot I took it on (thus the PM2).
I built a Sako 75 6.5x47L as a varmint rifle first and foremost and and awkward heavy hunting rifle second. It was a very reliable rifle even in a bit of breeze out to 400m. Best shots with that rifle were 410m rabbits but I shot a lot at around 400m. At 350-400m rabbits did not react to the suppressed shots but I could shot consistently, so I would set up this distance from faces. I never shot for records, but I shot a lot of rabbits on properties where they are normally hard to get. An expensive but very productive way to cull rabbits. I had to sell this rifle a while back.
I currently have another Sako 75 waiting to turn into either another 6.5x47L or a fast twist 22-250
It is why I built it and why I will build another. Especially since I still have 700 Lapua cases for it.
The .223 will do for now. Longest recent shot was with my Anschutz .22LR 170m pigeon after two days of reticle hold practice.
good question @Tim Dicko
the hard and fast answer is i am very happy with the 87grn. VMax . . . but if someone has suggestions for a higher BC bullet for 1-10 twist 243W i would be interested to hear their thoughts
R.