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Ok, so I'm turning 18 soon and will be looking to purchase my first gun. I'm not looking to carry, just a rifle i can take down to the range and can go out varmint hunting with. I fired a .22 bolt action when i was 10-15 about 2 times a year and have fired a remington 700. I loved the 700 and so am leaning there. I would like some options in some different price categories if thats not to much. Oh, btw im an okie if laws are a problem.

It's open to debate....but a .22lr is a little light for varmint hunting. Not that I haven't shot my fair share of varmints with a .22, but IMO, if you're serious about hunting varmints you will want a .22-250 or larger.

For plinking....it's hard to beat a Ruger 10/22. I bought one for my kids a few years back, and I owned a few before that. Parts and options are virtually unlimited.

My $.02

edit: I also have a Rem. 700 in .243 and would recomend that as well.
It's a fine rifle/cal for both varmints and deer sized prey. Once again, the options/parts for the Rem 700 are almost unlimited.

Where you are just looking to plink and maybe do a little varmint shooting I personally think the smaller the caliber the better. Smaller calibers are cheaper to shoot, have less recoil and usually less report. I have a bunch of different 22 caliber rifles. 22 LR, 22 Mag, 22 Hornet, 219 Zipper (out of production for 40+ years), 223, 220 Swift. Of the ones listed I like the Swift and the Hornet best. You can think of the 22 Hornet as basically a 22 Mag only center fire. They dont cost an arm and a leg to shoot and are generally extremely accurate. The 220 Swift was the fastest muzzle velocity rifle produced for many years. It might still be but I dont know for sure. If you want to see a varmint absolutely vaporize then get the Swift. If you want something that is just fun to shoot with less report and less cost I would lean towards the Hornet.

Here is my Ruger M77 220 Swift. I have been a Ruger guy for a long long time.

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Thats a 100 yard group from someone who really isnt all that good of shot. I think i have around 750 in that setup but cant remember exactly what it cost me.

Looking for Knowledge wrote:

It's open to debate....but a .22lr is a little light for varmint hunting. Not that I haven't shot my fair share of varmints with a .22, but IMO, if you're serious about hunting varmints you will want a .22-250 or larger.

For plinking....it's hard to beat a Ruger 10/22. I bought one for my kids a few years back, and I owned a few before that. Parts and options are virtually unlimited.

My $.02

edit: I also have a Rem. 700 in .243 and would recomend that as well.
It's a fine rifle/cal for both varmints and deer sized prey. Once again, the options/parts for the Rem 700 are almost unlimited.

WTF kind of varmints do you have that require a 22-250 or larger to shoot ? I watched my uncle down a moose with a single shot out of a 22-250

Ive seen armadillos take 3 hits from a 22 and still run
and btw, how much would a good 700 cost?
and what type should i get?

boogle wrote:

Ive seen armadillos take 3 hits from a 22 and still run
and btw, how much would a good 700 cost?
and what type should i get?

One hit from the 220 Swift will finish them off trust me on that. When something is blown in half they dont tend to run away

Hance wrote:

I watched my uncle down a moose with a single shot out of a 22-250

****, the part of Idaho I lived in we had rabbits the size of the moose your uncle shot.

I don't know about those exotic rounds like the hornet and the zipper....time was you had to reload to shot one.

I do admit that I completely forgot about another favorite of mine, the .223

Ammos cheap and rifles are a-plenty.

Grab yourself an AR and go to town on the local varmint population.

boogle wrote:

how much would a good 700 cost?
and what type should i get?

A quick Google products shows them ranging from around $400 - $2000.

I'd check out Gunbroker or Auction Arms, you can usually find a good deal there from someone selling something that's been used.

The most accurate rifle I have ever had my hands on was a custom AR-15 I was tipping over bowling pins at 1000 yards with it

The Hornet isnt to bad to get ammo for you can buy it off the shelf at most places the Zipper on the other hand is a different story. I have to build my own brass out of 30/30 brass and it is a giant PITA to do. It is fun to shoot and a neat old gun but just to much of a pain in the but to shoot more than once in a great while.

I'm a quarter-bore fan myself, and love the .257 Roberts but finding ammo's a royal PITA, and not much is chambered for it now. The 243 is also an OK round. While I'd think I'd feel leery going after deer with a 243 (speculation, I've never gone hunting), I'd imagine it is more than enough for coyotes and other varmint hunting. I know the Roberts has been used on moose and elk as well as coyotes and similar sized fare, but is considered light for anything over deer size IIRC.

I like quarter-bores because they are exceedingly easy to shoot--little recoil in an average sized/weight gun, but still somewhat powerful. I like guns that provide just enough of a recoil so that I can feel it, but hate stuff that hurts (300 mags in featherweight rifles...OWWOW).

paulWTAMU wrote:

While I'd think I'd feel leery going after deer with a 243 (speculation, I've never gone hunting), I'd imagine it is more than enough for coyotes and other varmint hunting.

Many Vermont deer have fallen to a .243/6mm rifle. No worries using it on whitetails.

A 17 HMR can be quite a bit of fun for plinking.

Get a Ruger Mini-14. .223 ammo is cheap and more than powerful enough for varmint hunting. Plus, Mini-14s can be customized and just look cool.

Captain Ned wrote:

paulWTAMU wrote:

While I'd think I'd feel leery going after deer with a 243 (speculation, I've never gone hunting), I'd imagine it is more than enough for coyotes and other varmint hunting.

Many Vermont deer have fallen to a .243/6mm rifle. No worries using it on whitetails.

Mule deer out West too.

I've dropped more than a dozen with my .243. It's a fine round for deer sized game.


edit: an 85gr Fed. boat tail has a muzzle vel. of 3320 fps. and 2999 at 100 yards while maintaining 2080 ft.lbs. of energy at muzzle and 1698 ft. lbs. at 100 yards. http://www.federalpremium.com/ballistic ... earch.aspx

daveagn wrote:

A 17 HMR can be quite a bit of fun for plinking.

I'll second this. Check out a .17HMR. The best way I can describe it is a .22 mag, bottlenecked down to a .17. It looks an awful lot like a .223 only smaller. It would make quick work of just about any small animal/varmint I can think of. It's more expensive than a .22LR, but it's not too bad.

My dad bought a bolt action Savage about a year ago. It's a lot of fun to shoot. Minimal recoil, the report isn't terribly loud, and it's pretty accurate. With the scope he put on it, we have no trouble at all with groups smaller than a quarter at 100 yards.

-SF

gratuitous wrote:

I see the discussion gravitating towards "bigger is better." Of course that's natural among guys, but... don't be this guy.

Meh I would rather have one of these http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kdG2dwNb60

Captain Ned wrote:

paulWTAMU wrote:

While I'd think I'd feel leery going after deer with a 243 (speculation, I've never gone hunting), I'd imagine it is more than enough for coyotes and other varmint hunting.

Many Vermont deer have fallen to a .243/6mm rifle. No worries using it on whitetails.

Mule deer, on the other hand...

I see that boogle is from Oklahoma City, so I assume that hunting in Colorado is a possibility. If true, then you might want something a bit beefier than a .243. My dad and I have used .25-06 for varmints, antelope, and small-to-medium sized deer. For larger deer and elk, .30-06 (or possibly a .300 Winchester Mag, if we expect a large animal or a really long shot).

I wouldn't go below a 130 grain bullet on the .30-06. My experience with 110 grain bullets is that they tend to tumble.

Tom Knapp is the guys name and he is the **** when it comes to shotguns. Here is another video of him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcpB2l-l ... ed&search= how about 10 hand thrown clays in under 3 seconds

Looking for Knowledge wrote:

Mule deer out West too.

I've dropped more than a dozen with my .243. It's a fine round for deer sized game.

Well, that's what I get for scanning a little too quickly.

Nice shooting.

Edit: But I do have a couple o' questions. How large were those mulees, and did you drop them where they stood, or did they run for a bit?

Around here a .243 or 6mm is pretty much the standard deer round. A few people will go with something larger but they are usually trying really long shots that 99% of the people have no business even attempting to do.

Hance wrote:

Around here a .243 or 6mm is pretty much the standard deer round. A few people will go with something larger but they are usually trying really long shots that 99% of the people have no business even attempting to do.

Around here (and by "here" I guess I mean northern MN rather than where I'm located right now) it's mostly .270 and up, and most are taken in pretty close quarters.

I just picked up a CZ 452 Varmint in .17 HMR for the same reasons. These rifles are accurate and very well made. They cost more than a Savage or Marlin might cost, but the difference in worth it. Picked it up for a little under $400. Zeroed in with a scope its dead on within the limitations of the round.

You are going to need more than one rifle to handle all types of shooting.

I would in this day and time recommend a 17hmr or 17("long rifle") M2 or mach 2, over a straight .22lr due to longer range and flatter trajectory for vermin and fun.

The .243 is another good choice because it opens up some hunting/varmint action. You will not be able to use the best barrel for hunting and varmint shooting, because varmint hunting is best done with 12 twist barrel and lighter bullets and hunting is better off with 10 twist barrel and 85-100 grain bullets.

Accuracy of all factory rifles is close, just don't get the remington 770 or 710 piece of crap. I am basing this because I had a remington here last year that had a plastic insert in the action "round" and had an integral trigger guard/trigger assy that was just a total piece of trash and I believe it was a 710... IIRC. My personal preference is a Winchester 70 push feed. It has more extraction than a 700 or savage or ruger, and you can buy a nice aftermarket Jewel trigger that is a adjustable from 8lbs to 1.5 oz, and it has a real firing pin blocking safety that allows you to cycle the action with the safety on and blocking the firing pin.

Remington safeties are junk. Ruger aint' much better because in the middle position the trigger is all thats holding the firing pin.

Whatever you do, have fun. My personal favorite is a .17 ackley hornet, but it is not a beginner round. I have at one time or another fired a lot of whats out there, and I had a lot of fun with a ruger .220 swift, a custom switft, many .243 Super Rock chuckers, a .240 gibbs, and some .30 cal customs, but in the end I was spending 20 hours loading 100 rounds and spending less than two minutes emptying them through a bolt action at 1,000 yard targets and that got to be less fun than shooting black birds with the .17 hornet, or just shooting cans with the .22lr.

From my experience the .243 is fine for deer to elk sized game, and the years I elk hunted, the guy with the .243 win (M700) mountain rifle killed more game than anybody in our group and has never had to track a wounded animal. But he is deadly with it and the 85 grain load he shoots. A lot of your elk shots are going to be at less than 100 yards. He killed a couple at 300+ yards, shot one in the head, and one in the ribs... the one rib shot fell less than 20yds from impact. Elk are not nearly as tough as deer. The vast majority of deer we shoot are head/neck shots and the .243 just puts them down instantly. If you shoot any animal in the guts/ass the large calibers won't help... shot placement and having a good shot is golden.

Be aware that you can probably buy two rifles for around $700 and then spend $3000 or more on them depending on how you scope them/customize them. I have used tasco, bushnell, leupold, nightforce, unertl, lyman, simmons, weaver, and some store brand stuff. Nightforce is a good scope, but $1,000 is stupendous for a factory rifle scope. I have used Tasco world class and such scopes and had good luck.

If you get really hooked and what to start with custom rigs.... look for starting around $2500 for a basic custom rifle and going to over tens of thousands.

Hance wrote:

Here is my Ruger M77 220 Swift. I have been a Ruger guy for a long long time.

What's the difference between this rifle and the Ruger 77-22? (besides the obvious, that it uses a different load).

From what I can tell, they're very similar. Almost the same gun.

-SF

mattsteg wrote:

Hance wrote:

Around here a .243 or 6mm is pretty much the standard deer round. A few people will go with something larger but they are usually trying really long shots that 99% of the people have no business even attempting to do.

Around here (and by "here" I guess I mean northern MN rather than where I'm located right now) it's mostly .270 and up, and most are taken in pretty close quarters.

Yeah i am sure it depends on the region you live in. When I was in school we actually got the first day of deer hunt off as a vacation day There was about 30 guys in my grade of which probably 20 of them went deer hunting. Of those 20 I think 15 of them had a 243 caliber rifle of some time.

I know people that use .243s for deer, but up in Colorado where they got larger...I dunno, I'd like bigger bullets. Down here in the panhandle, with 95 pound whitetail, a 243 wouldn't worry me, but I've seen mulies well over 150. Still, conjecture on my part so I guess I'll defer to hance/cass/lfk
I knew plenty of people that went elk hunting with various quarterbore rifles and many that used the 30-06 for them--I'd laugh seeing out of staters sighting in their damn cannons (.338 for elk??!) and wincing.

yeah, some buddies of mine are going deer hunting down in the panhandle of that other state and they all have .243s

Edit
I've been looking around and kinda like the 700 SPS Varmint