Long Range Varmint Rig

[WalleyeGod]

Will be putting together a LR Varmint Rig
and looking for input on what caliber/gun
to go with. Thinking 30 caliber at present
time. Does anyone have experience with the
new 300 WSM for accuracy ? 800-1200 yds
is what I am after. Any 1000 yd shooters
out there ?

WG

[Guest]

Holy smokes! 1000 yards?
Can't offer any advice, but I am curious what you are after that requires 1000 yard shots. Sounds like a doggone interesting project, stretching out to those kind of distances. You must live in some pretty open country....

[Rippinlip]

Holy cr*%,
All that I can say is good luck, only advice that I can give is check what the people shoot out in the Dakotas for Prairie dogs at unbelievable ranges. I believe they set a new world record within the last couple of years that was like 1000 yards plus.
Myself personally I shoot a 25-06 with bi-pods and can reach 300-400 yards when the conditions are right.
GOOD LUCK and let us know what you decide.

[TUMBLEWEED]

Geez, and I thought my 600yd gun was long!!

How bout the 50cal!!!! No, seriously you
may get some answers at the pistolsmith
.com site. They have a forum for the long
range crew such as yourself. Good luck

[WalleyeGod]

Prairie Dogs in ND are the victims. Just another project to play around with.

Have the 700 yd gun in my Tikka Continental 22-250. Want to get into the 1000 yard club. Leaning towards the Savage Varmint 300 Win. Mag right now but am open to suggestions.

After that will be the 1500 yd club and 2,000
yd club. Not as many entries in the latter
but I believe what took 2002 honors was around 2,300 yd's. Yes, 1.3 miles. Serious stuff. Right now for me it is focusing on the 1,000 yd club, that club will be much more attainable for me.

www.varminthunter.org is a great association for the varmint hunter.

The pistolsmith site was good. Had not been there before. Keep the feedback coming. Thanks.

WG

[Whelen35]

I would look into the 300win or the 300Wby there is lots of information on 1,000yd loads for these rounds if you look. If you had the funds, a 30-378 might be what you are looking for. 700yds with a 22-250 is quite a a bit for this round. Are you using a fast twist barrel and heavy bullest? If so, perhaps the 22-middelstead would work, this is a 243 necked down to .224 and is designed to handle the heavy 70-80gr .224bullets. This would be a more friendly approach, but not a wind round.

[Coldfeet]

I have a co-worker that moved here from South Dakota. We live in North/Central Minnesota and being the rednecks that we are, we like to go out every now and then to shoot guns and blow stuff up. (televisions, old toilets, etc) This co-worker of mine told us that he was going to bring out his varmint gun one night. When he pulled it out of its case, we were all astonished to see that it was indeed a .50 caliber single shot rifle. The cartridges are about 7" long and he claimed he shot a "light" bullet of 750 grains. Of course, this is heresay, but he claims to have taken prarie dogs at a mile away, which would get him close to that 2,000 yard club if he's telling the truth. The day he brought it out he shot it at an old ATV transmission. One shot and there was nothing left of it. I can't imagine what it would do to a prarie dog!

[Iceman77]

MMMMMM.... Prairie dogs... man do I miss moving out of North Dakota. I've gotten a 1520 yard prairie dog but for some reason never applied for a VHA certificate. Up to 1500 yards the .300 mag round is good but extremely punishing on the shooter. If you are going to only plan on about 1000 yards the .308 round is a great choice and with less recoil than the mag rounds. 1500 plus I would go with a .50 cal round.

[WalleyeGod]

Thanks Ice for the input. What did you use
to take the 1520 pd ?

WG

[Iceman77]

I used my dad's .50 to shoot my prairie dog. It's a blast to shoot but where's you out after about 20 shots. We also use a .308 wsm cartridge and have shot accurately up to 1500 yards. I would have to say this would be my bullet of choice over a .300 mag round. When you are shooting prairie dogs you will make a lot of shots and a .300 mag round will make you start to flinch before the shot. The .308 wsm can be shot a lot more without the punishment and is a far more accurate rifle in my hands.

[sandman469ss]

If you want to get in with the big boys, go to google, and search using sniper rifle. A friend sent me the webpage once to a new one they came out with that had an effective killing range of over 3 miles. They had an X sniper instructor shoot a 3X3 target just at 3 miles. The only problem was there were no optics that had that kind of distance. The 7.62mm SVD Dragunov is similar. Now that's a weapon. Probably too serious for the doggies.

------------------
Takin it easy! & if it’s easy, I’ll take it twice!

[Fisher Dave]

I shot KD (known distance) competitively for years. Up to 1000 yards. I started with a 308, and eventually switched into a .223 witch was far more forgiving and less wind shear.

I would recommend sticking to the smaller calibers.

[Havin' Fun]

[This message has been edited by Hammer em' (edited 09-15-2003).]

[WalleyeGod]

Fisher, could you expand on that less wind
shear comment. I would have thought the 30's would experience less wind anything.
I don't know what you mean.

Thanks,

WG

[WalleyeGod]

Any more people with the .308's
shooting long range with comments ?

WG

[Fisher Dave]

wind shear.. or wind resistance. A .223 (.22 caliber bullet) has alot less surface area than a .308 (.30 bullet). The more surface area, the more the wind will effect the tragectory(sp?) of the bullet in flight. A 308 will get *pushed* by a cross wind 30% further than a 223 with the exact same shot, same cross wind, at the same range. This could be 1 inch, this could also be 5 feet .. all depends on the wind and the distance of the shot.

The only advantage in target shooting to the larger caliber is simply a larger diameter hole in the target.. which at times would break the line to score the shot one point higher (barely break 10 or X ring for example). On days with a moderate cross wind, the advantage of the larger caliber would dissapear because the wind shear would come into effect, often blowing shots as far as 2 feet further than the smaller caliber bullet.

Sorry it took so long to reply, I overlooked the forum.

[NoodleSalad]

A Swift will be the flattest shooting round with a punch. I use a Ruger 22-250 with speed loaders and banana clips(can't find them any more because it's just one more thing that has been taken away from us) When I'm in Montana, they go down be the hundreds! Fun -NS-

[Surface Tension]

This thread reminded me of the time I took a 1000 yd shot at a pop can with my turdy-turdy. It put so much strain on that old gun and it never shot straight again.

[WalleyeGod]

ST- You were asking alot of her. Now is the time to put it up on the wall (with a trigger lock) by that big buck in an honorable fashion for retirement.

Kind of curious as to how you were able to see the pop can ?

WG