EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
Hi Scotty,
I'm not much of a gun or bullet expert. I don't really enjoy shooting very much either, but consider it part of hunting that you have to be compentent at in order to be successful.
Nosler is a company that came up with a better bullet years ago when all you had to chose from was copper jackets with a few different types of lead tips. They built a better bullet and allot of people realized it. Today there are at least a dozen good brands out there that are all over the spectrum of price and what they claim to do.
I got into the reloading thing a dozen years ago and tried quite a few different brands with various powder loads to get the best accuracy I could with my .30-06 and .338 mag.
The very best for accuaracy was the Sierra Boattail. I was able to get five shot half inch groups with that fairly consistantly. One time I got nine shots to touch, but flubed the tenth for a one inch group. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
On game, the Sierra bullets are just about worthless. They don't mushroom very well and just pass through. For me, I want a very large wound cavity causing maximum damage and instant death.
During those reloading years, I got caught up in the solid copper bullet craze of Barnes Bullets. I even brought them to Africa on my plains game safari. Between that trip, Alaska and several elk hunting trips, I've shot a few animals with those bullets to realize that all the great press they were getting in the magazines was pure BS. I recovered several bullets that bairly opened up at all, and other times they passed right through with minimal damage. If I hadn't shot the animals in the heart, I might have lost them.
I learned that what you read in the magazines is all hype. I no longer waste my time reading any of them because I've realized they are not truthful on what they write about. Sorry if somebody disagrees, but if a writer puts out a story about a product, they have to make it all rosey or the magazine wont' get any advertisement from that company.
I have a Winchester in 22-250 with a bull barrel, and consider it one of the best long range shooters around. The caliber will easily take out small game to 500 yards and is a compitition favorite at thousand yard ranges. Coyotes are perfect game for it as well as anything else under a hundred pounds. Put a bipod on it and a good quality scope, and ammo is all you have to worry about.
A decent scope will cost $300 and the good ones are gonna hit a grand or more. The difference is enormous, but for the average shooter who's out killing hogs in their back pasture, it won't matter too much. But if you want to hunt in extreme conditions all over the place, than the glass you buy is more important than the rifle.
I've seen guys in Alaska with two thousand dollar rifles and bushnell scopes and binoculars!! If you can't see the animal, there's no way you'll kill it. When I started traveling out of state and other countries to hunt, I bought a pair of 10X50 Swarvoski binoculars. Being able to spot game a thousand yards away versus never even know it was there makes the difference between success and failure.
Leopold has really been coming on strong with some of their premium line optics. Their long range AO (adjustable objective) scopes are about the best deal out there for amature varmit shooters. Like everything, if you get caught up in it, you can easily dump a small fortune into it too.
One year I was hunting a private ranch in California for blacktail deer. A few weeks earlier I'd spotted one that would easily go Boone and Crocket from way too far away too shoot. I was hunting in the area he was at and had turned down several realy nice bucks waiting for him to show himself again. As luck would have it, when he did, it was an easy 80 yard shot, but my Redfield scope had fogged up on me. I couldn't see a thing through it. The buck was a huge 4x4 that would score over 130 easily, but there was no way I could take the shot. To my knowledge, he died of old age or a lion.
At the time I bought that scope, I thought it was a pretty good one. It isn't and I paid the price. Redfield rebuilt the scope for free and it's still on that rifle, but I don't trust it anymore. On a big hunt that I bring that rifle on, I switch scopes from the Swarvoski on my .338 mag.
Currently I'm shooting Federal Premium ammo with Hornady Boattail bullets. I can get sub one inch groups with it out of the box and every round performs on game. I've never had a bullet that didn't mushroom to twice it's size and destroy everything in it's path. But that's in my .30-06
In my 22-250 I'm still playing around with ammo to find what I like out of the box. Reloading is fun with a few buddies when you have lots of time and everyone is into it, but now I'm on my own and don't have much time for that anymore.
For me, it's more important to kill with one shot than anything else. I learned the basics of marksmanship in the Marines after being tought wrong by neighbors. After the Marine Corps, I met other hunters that have the same views as I do and learned from them. The military gave me disipline, but the compititon shooters tought me what is actually happening and how to improve myself.
I'm not a great shot, not a great hunter and not the smartest at figuring out what the animals are doing. But I'm good at all of it and with a little luck and determination, I've been very fortunate with my hunting adventures.
Eddie
I'm not much of a gun or bullet expert. I don't really enjoy shooting very much either, but consider it part of hunting that you have to be compentent at in order to be successful.
Nosler is a company that came up with a better bullet years ago when all you had to chose from was copper jackets with a few different types of lead tips. They built a better bullet and allot of people realized it. Today there are at least a dozen good brands out there that are all over the spectrum of price and what they claim to do.
I got into the reloading thing a dozen years ago and tried quite a few different brands with various powder loads to get the best accuracy I could with my .30-06 and .338 mag.
The very best for accuaracy was the Sierra Boattail. I was able to get five shot half inch groups with that fairly consistantly. One time I got nine shots to touch, but flubed the tenth for a one inch group. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
On game, the Sierra bullets are just about worthless. They don't mushroom very well and just pass through. For me, I want a very large wound cavity causing maximum damage and instant death.
During those reloading years, I got caught up in the solid copper bullet craze of Barnes Bullets. I even brought them to Africa on my plains game safari. Between that trip, Alaska and several elk hunting trips, I've shot a few animals with those bullets to realize that all the great press they were getting in the magazines was pure BS. I recovered several bullets that bairly opened up at all, and other times they passed right through with minimal damage. If I hadn't shot the animals in the heart, I might have lost them.
I learned that what you read in the magazines is all hype. I no longer waste my time reading any of them because I've realized they are not truthful on what they write about. Sorry if somebody disagrees, but if a writer puts out a story about a product, they have to make it all rosey or the magazine wont' get any advertisement from that company.
I have a Winchester in 22-250 with a bull barrel, and consider it one of the best long range shooters around. The caliber will easily take out small game to 500 yards and is a compitition favorite at thousand yard ranges. Coyotes are perfect game for it as well as anything else under a hundred pounds. Put a bipod on it and a good quality scope, and ammo is all you have to worry about.
A decent scope will cost $300 and the good ones are gonna hit a grand or more. The difference is enormous, but for the average shooter who's out killing hogs in their back pasture, it won't matter too much. But if you want to hunt in extreme conditions all over the place, than the glass you buy is more important than the rifle.
I've seen guys in Alaska with two thousand dollar rifles and bushnell scopes and binoculars!! If you can't see the animal, there's no way you'll kill it. When I started traveling out of state and other countries to hunt, I bought a pair of 10X50 Swarvoski binoculars. Being able to spot game a thousand yards away versus never even know it was there makes the difference between success and failure.
Leopold has really been coming on strong with some of their premium line optics. Their long range AO (adjustable objective) scopes are about the best deal out there for amature varmit shooters. Like everything, if you get caught up in it, you can easily dump a small fortune into it too.
One year I was hunting a private ranch in California for blacktail deer. A few weeks earlier I'd spotted one that would easily go Boone and Crocket from way too far away too shoot. I was hunting in the area he was at and had turned down several realy nice bucks waiting for him to show himself again. As luck would have it, when he did, it was an easy 80 yard shot, but my Redfield scope had fogged up on me. I couldn't see a thing through it. The buck was a huge 4x4 that would score over 130 easily, but there was no way I could take the shot. To my knowledge, he died of old age or a lion.
At the time I bought that scope, I thought it was a pretty good one. It isn't and I paid the price. Redfield rebuilt the scope for free and it's still on that rifle, but I don't trust it anymore. On a big hunt that I bring that rifle on, I switch scopes from the Swarvoski on my .338 mag.
Currently I'm shooting Federal Premium ammo with Hornady Boattail bullets. I can get sub one inch groups with it out of the box and every round performs on game. I've never had a bullet that didn't mushroom to twice it's size and destroy everything in it's path. But that's in my .30-06
In my 22-250 I'm still playing around with ammo to find what I like out of the box. Reloading is fun with a few buddies when you have lots of time and everyone is into it, but now I'm on my own and don't have much time for that anymore.
For me, it's more important to kill with one shot than anything else. I learned the basics of marksmanship in the Marines after being tought wrong by neighbors. After the Marine Corps, I met other hunters that have the same views as I do and learned from them. The military gave me disipline, but the compititon shooters tought me what is actually happening and how to improve myself.
I'm not a great shot, not a great hunter and not the smartest at figuring out what the animals are doing. But I'm good at all of it and with a little luck and determination, I've been very fortunate with my hunting adventures.
Eddie
