Coyote Hunter
Single-Sixer
... because it turned out to be a sub-MOA shooter with randomly selected factory ammo. The donor was a used Savage FXP3 in .243 Winchester I picked up at a gun show in Colorado Springs last week for $305 out the door. My plans were to stock it with a different/better stock and rebarrel to something "more useful". Options included a .260 Rem, 7mm-08, .308 Win and .338 Federal. Changing the bolt head and cartridge follower were not out of the question with a rebarrel and allowed even more options.
Last Sunday I got it to the range with my custom 6.5-06AI and my .308 Ruger Scout. More about them later.
The first two shots with the Savage printed 0.55" @ 100 yards, on the target to the right of the one I was aiming at. 48 clicks to the left and a few up resulted in a 2-shot 0.50" group. A couple more clicks resulted in a 3-shot group measuring 0.88" and centered just where I wanted it. Not bad for randomly selected factory ammo. (Actually, there was nothing random about the ammo selection. I chose the cheapest Federal/Hornady/Remington/Winchester load Cabela's had on the shelf, Winchester Super X 100g Power Point, X2432.)
A previous owner had bubba'd the AccuTrigger adjustment spring so trigger pull was essentially at maximum. A $2 spring and $2 adjustment tool arrived from Savage yesterday. The spring took all of 10 minutes to install. I screwed it in all the way (to the lightest possible setting) and checked it. It is now light and clean as I could want on a hunting rifle. Awesome!
Here's the "donor". It was typical Savage "homely" when I purchased it. It still is, even though the factory supplied scope, rings and bases have been dumped in favor of Warne rings and bases and a Burris Fullfield 3-09x40 with Ballistic Plex reticle. The scope came off my Ruger Scout in .308 Win after completing load development when I replaced it with the factory peep sight:
Here is the target I was aiming for, two groups separated by a scope adjustment. The first group was off paper on the target to the right, 48 clicks away from the upper group:
After shooting that target I went to the long range where I proceeded to pop two or three clays at 500 yards once I got the windage and drop figured. Missed the clays at 600 but all 600 yard shoots would have been really bad news for antelope.
While I will still paint the stock or replace it with a laminate, I guess I'm "stuck" with a .243 Win.
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Other good news of the day:
With the .308 Win Ruger Scout I was hitting almost every clay at 100 with the peep sight using two different loads (130g TTSX and 150g BT). The only difference was 1 turn of the peep was required for the heavier BT load. Something like 18 of 20 hits. This is exactly what I wanted the Scout for and it has not disappointed. By contrast I tend to hit about 1 of 5 with the standard irons on my Ithaca Model 49 .22LR. Peeps are awesome!
Couldn't hit the 500 yard clays more than twice with my .223 Ruger MKII and 40g BT loads but kept it dancing just off the edges. The cross breeze was light but just erratic enough to blow the light bullets.
My "600 yard clay pigeon shooter" lived up to its name. It is a custom 6.5-06AI built on an Interarms Mark X action, a Krieger fluted #5 barrel and a Timney trigger. The scope is a Burris FFII 4.5-14xAO Ballistic Plex. Pigeons at 500 didn't stand a chance. It splattered 8 pigeons at 600 with about 30 fire-form loads using 140g A-MAX at a sedate 2740-ish fps. Misses were almost always by less than a clay pigeon diameter, many or even most by much less. Now to load up some more 130g Scirocco II's at 3161fps.
Last Sunday I got it to the range with my custom 6.5-06AI and my .308 Ruger Scout. More about them later.
The first two shots with the Savage printed 0.55" @ 100 yards, on the target to the right of the one I was aiming at. 48 clicks to the left and a few up resulted in a 2-shot 0.50" group. A couple more clicks resulted in a 3-shot group measuring 0.88" and centered just where I wanted it. Not bad for randomly selected factory ammo. (Actually, there was nothing random about the ammo selection. I chose the cheapest Federal/Hornady/Remington/Winchester load Cabela's had on the shelf, Winchester Super X 100g Power Point, X2432.)
A previous owner had bubba'd the AccuTrigger adjustment spring so trigger pull was essentially at maximum. A $2 spring and $2 adjustment tool arrived from Savage yesterday. The spring took all of 10 minutes to install. I screwed it in all the way (to the lightest possible setting) and checked it. It is now light and clean as I could want on a hunting rifle. Awesome!
Here's the "donor". It was typical Savage "homely" when I purchased it. It still is, even though the factory supplied scope, rings and bases have been dumped in favor of Warne rings and bases and a Burris Fullfield 3-09x40 with Ballistic Plex reticle. The scope came off my Ruger Scout in .308 Win after completing load development when I replaced it with the factory peep sight:
Here is the target I was aiming for, two groups separated by a scope adjustment. The first group was off paper on the target to the right, 48 clicks away from the upper group:
After shooting that target I went to the long range where I proceeded to pop two or three clays at 500 yards once I got the windage and drop figured. Missed the clays at 600 but all 600 yard shoots would have been really bad news for antelope.
While I will still paint the stock or replace it with a laminate, I guess I'm "stuck" with a .243 Win.
==============================
Other good news of the day:
With the .308 Win Ruger Scout I was hitting almost every clay at 100 with the peep sight using two different loads (130g TTSX and 150g BT). The only difference was 1 turn of the peep was required for the heavier BT load. Something like 18 of 20 hits. This is exactly what I wanted the Scout for and it has not disappointed. By contrast I tend to hit about 1 of 5 with the standard irons on my Ithaca Model 49 .22LR. Peeps are awesome!
Couldn't hit the 500 yard clays more than twice with my .223 Ruger MKII and 40g BT loads but kept it dancing just off the edges. The cross breeze was light but just erratic enough to blow the light bullets.
My "600 yard clay pigeon shooter" lived up to its name. It is a custom 6.5-06AI built on an Interarms Mark X action, a Krieger fluted #5 barrel and a Timney trigger. The scope is a Burris FFII 4.5-14xAO Ballistic Plex. Pigeons at 500 didn't stand a chance. It splattered 8 pigeons at 600 with about 30 fire-form loads using 140g A-MAX at a sedate 2740-ish fps. Misses were almost always by less than a clay pigeon diameter, many or even most by much less. Now to load up some more 130g Scirocco II's at 3161fps.