Thread: just Varminting - how far was your longest shot on your last walk

Originally Posted by Flyblown

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

Yeah ive been following Richards YT channel and FB page for a while now, have also communicated with him directly before i purchased my Athlon Ares scope, as thats where i first saw them, he thinks the Ares is a lot of scope for the $.

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

Originally Posted by Flyblown

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.

Nah mate.. ya can keep your munted lead tipped tea and crumpet bullets..
My posh rig only eats caviar while sipping champagne..

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

Originally Posted by Link

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

Extra good shot considering he's only a half grown smaller version of something bigger

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

Good thread.

Not my latest walk but a decent pic. 22LR with subs, 8 and 9m respectively (shot them from hut porch).

Originally Posted by Cliff

Attachment 118175

Good thread.

Not my latest walk but a decent pic. 22LR with subs, 8 and 9m respectively (shot them from hut porch).

So I am guessing the magpies are hung up to frighten Hawks getting after the two back-steaks ??

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

Don't do any varminting myself but snotted a magpie at 460 yards with a few of the boys while gong shooting, silly bugger landed on the post next to the gong @nickbop @Hunt4life

.

longest hit today 390yrds



.243 Tikka Varmint - 87grn.VMax
8-32 NXS Nightforce