More Guns = Better Life

I need another rifle. This is obvious. I wonder why I bothered to type it. It’s one of the fundamental assumptions of life. I always need another rifle.

I did very well shooting my .17 HMR at 100 yards. Hooray. The problem with that is that the .17 HMR does very poorly in the wind. It’s also a little weak. If I shoot a .17 HMR in a 10-mph wind, the point of impact will be several inches away from the point of aim, and I will have to guess at the size of the error. When you’re trying to shoot something like a coon or a coyote with a small bullet, you want to be accurate so you kill the animal instead of putting a hole through its ear or neutering it.

I looked at the .17 WSM, or Winchester Super Magnum. This is the exact same thing as a .17 HMR, with a bigger case and more power. As far as I can tell, it’s superior to the .17 HMR in every way it can be. More speed means less wind drift, and it’s more powerful when it hits the animal. It’s also nearly as cheap to shoot!

Still, it’s a really small bullet. It will blow around quite a bit compared to bigger bullets.

I would like my next gun to be a low-recoil machine that will kill anything up to the size of a coyote. I want the recoil to be low enough to allow me to watch the bullets hit through the scope. I also want decent range. I want something relatively cheap to shoot, too.

People are recommending the .223 (the most common AR15 round) and the .204 Ruger.

The .223 is a giant .22. It has a big case sort of like a 7.62x39mm, so it goes considerably faster than a .22 LR, and the bullets can be longer and heavier. It does not have much recoil, but my understanding is that I would be lucky to be able to see hits through a scope.

The .204 Ruger is a relatively new caliber. It goes like crazy. You can get over 4000 fps out of it. The high speed makes it more destructive at long ranges, and the trajectory is pretty flat because it’s not in the air long. I think. The .204 is extremely accurate, like the .17 HMR, and you can kill stuff at up to 400 yards, if you can shoot.

I tried to get info on the web, and it was very hard.

Here’s one problem you will have when you go to forums and ask about calibers: people who can’t shoot will chime in. They’ll say this or that gun is a “tack driver.” Then in a later forum post, they’ll say it was shooting 3″ groups at 100 yards. To them, this is accuracy. To me, it’s 2.25″ of fail.

People also lie about how well they shoot. A guy will shot two hundred rounds through a gun, and most shots will be widely dispersed. At some point, he’ll shoot three consecutive rounds into a 1/2″ area. Then he’ll tell everyone he and his gun shoot 0.5 MOA, which is total crap.

To me, “0.5 MOA” means MOST of your shots will be within a 1/2″ circle. If you hang out of an upstairs window and empty a bag of marbles onto your driveway, some will land in the same place, but it doesn’t mean you were accurate.

People are out there saying the .223 is deadly accurate, but they may be lying or limited by low standards.

People also argue about basic facts which ought to be settled by now. Depending on whom you ask, either the .204 or the .223 is much less affected than the other by wind. And the people making the claims won’t waffle. They’ll say it with authority. Obviously, half of them are wrong.

It sort of looks like the .204 is actually better in the wind. I have read that if you use reasonably heavy bullets, you will do better than the .223. Supposedly, the .223 does better when the .204 is limited by its ammunition.

Is this correct? Search me.

I think the scope thing will be the determining factor. No one is going to go out with me at night and watch me shoot coyotes or coons. No one will be around to tell me whether I hit anything. I would like to know whether I’m succeeding, without taking the golf cart all over the farm in the dark to look for a dead coon.

I don’t want to buy a compromise gun, because when you buy a compromise gun, you end up buying at least one more gun later to make up for it.

If I got a .223, I would probably end up wanting a .17 WSM and a .243 or .22-250 to replace it.

Once nice thing about the .204 Ruger is that you can get a super-accurate version relatively cheap. Of course, the source is Savage. Strange company. Cheap guns that outshoot expensive guns. For about $500, I can get a .204 Ruger bolt action what will get the job done. No one around here carries it, so I guess I would order from Bud’s.

After that, I would need 200 rounds of Hornady V-Max to start my brass collection. The brass for .204 Ruger is expensive. I would have to get dies, too.

Sooner or later I will move north, to a bigger piece of land where I can shoot better game at longer distances. I think the .17 HMR with FMJ and the .204 Ruger will cover a lot of the bases. You can shoot squirrels and rabbits with .17 HRM FMJ (I am told, anyway) without destroying the meat, and the .204 Ruger will kill anything between rabbit and deer. Up north there would also be groundhogs and foxes. I would still need a legitimate deer rifle, however, and maybe I should make sure it was also appropriate for deer and bears.

I could always use my K31 rifle for deer. Not sure whether ammunition is available.

Anyway, this is where things sit at the moment.

I’ve been trying to find turkeys here, and I haven’t seen anything. I guess they don’t like my farm. I’ve read that you’re supposed to plant clover and chicory to attract deer and turkeys. I haven’t tried a call yet.

I believe it’s time to splurge on a night scope. I love this farm, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a great place to shoot edible game in the daytime, so I feel I should gear up for the animals it does have to offer.

Scope first, or new rifle first? Hard to say. If I have the scope, I can use it on the .17 HMR right now. I forget whether I’m allowed to shoot coons with it at night, on private land without a light. I have to check.

I look forward to moving past squirrels.