58 grain V-Max Varmint Express .243 Win Ammo For Woodchucks

I changed my mind about purchasing an additional varmint rifle and think this summer if I can find the time, I will "Dance With The One That Brought Me To The Dance".

I am itching to try a couple of boxes of 58 grain V-max .243 ammo for hunting woodchucks. The reports and tests on this ammo have all been positive showing sub minute of angle (under 1 inch groups out to 200 yards and beyond). At the time of this post ammunition is available from Midway USA for $25.99 for a box of 20.

I love the Savage rifle I own, however wish I had the money to put better GLASS on it and set it up for just shooting varmints and forget the carry over to hunting deer with it. Maybe a higher variable power range scope set up specifically for shooting out to 350 yards and beyond and something with a ballistic plex reticle and finer cross hairs for varmints.

Check out this link for product reviews and additional information:

http://www.midwayusa.com/Product/746043/hornady-varmint-express-ammunition-243-winchester-58-grain-v-max-moly-box-of-20

Specs are as follows:

Designed around the hard-hitting performance of the famous Hornady V-Max bullet, this ammunition is specifically designed for supremely accurate long-range shooting. The polymer tip enhances accuracy and promotes devastating expansion. It also increases the ballistic coefficient and stabilizes the bullet in flight. This ammunition is new production, non-corrosive, in boxer primed, reloadable brass cases.

Technical Information

Caliber: 243 Winchester

Bullet Weight: 58 Grains

Bullet Style: V-Max Moly Coated

Case Type: Brass

Ballistics Information:

Muzzle Velocity: 3750 fps

Muzzle Energy: 1811 ft. lbs.

Varmint Cartridges

I have not done much posting about rifles and loads suitable for varmint hunting. I actually got started in the shooting sports as a kid back in high school by hunting woodchucks on the rural farms around central NYS. I worked on a farm all during my school years up until the time I went into the US Navy at the ripe age of 17 in 1965.

Like a lot of kids in that era, I started out with a Daisy lever action BB gun. From there I graduated to a .177 caliber pellet rifle and then on to my first .22 rim fire which was a bolt action Mossberg. From there while serving in the NAVY, I purchased a Sako bolt action .222 wearing a B&L Belvar 8 rifle scope that had the adjustments in the mount itself. That was before the "Gun Control Act Of 1968" and I purchased the rifle and scope set up from vendors that were allowed to come on board our ship at a port in Italy. The gun was shipped right to my house. If you tried that today, your would get a free "Go To Jail" card, and yet as I look back, the world was a much safer place to live then than now. Politicians never understood the gun itself is just a tool and not the cause of anything. If you will open your bible to Genesis chapter 4 and verse 8, you will find that Cain slew Able with a ROCK.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
"And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him".

There is nothing inherently evil about a rifle or a rock, as it was Cain who committed murder because of the evil in his own heart. The rock like the rifle was just a tool. Unless someone picks up the rock, or club, or knife, or pistol etc. the inanimate object will NOT cause anyone any harm. Neither will watching "Cowboys and Indians" etc. as prime time shows in my childhood were Bonanza, The Rifleman, Wanted Dead or Alive, Matt Dillon, Have Gun Will Travel (Wire Paladin, San Francisco),  Wyatt Earp etc.

I am getting off the subject of this blog post, but felt a need to clear the air on murder being a wrong condition of the heart and not in any way tied to the weapon or tool used to commit that crime.

Anyway, back to the .222. I must interject here that to my regret I let that rifle and scope combination go a few years ago. Of all the guns I have traded and bought and sold over the years, I regret selling that one the most. I was into hand loading in those days and woodchucks were plentiful along with an occasional fox. Some of my fondest memories were wandering the "Back Forty" as we used to call it and stalking and hunting woodchucks. The Sako .222 was up to the task out to around 250 yards and I hit a lot more than I missed in those days.

Let's take a look at a brief history of varmint cartridges and what is available to the varmint hunter today:

Here is at least a partial list of the varmint rifle configurations in the market place.:

.17 calibers including the .17 Remington, .17 HMR (REPUTED to be amazingly accurate), /  .17 Mach 2 and the .17 Fireball. For my taste if I were to buy one of the .17 caliber rifles, it would likely be the .17 HMR. On crows, prairie dogs, ground squirrels etc. it is effective a lot farther than you would think and I have seen reports of 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch groups at 100 yards. It has a very mild report and will even handle larger farm field woodchucks within its range limitations. It throws a 17 grain bullet at around 2550 fps.

.22 rim fire whether in rifle or handgun persuasion - is effective on crows, prairie dogs, foxes and woodchucks within its range limitations.

(22 Mag) and /  5mm which appeared in 1970 (IT was a .22 mag case necked down to take a 38 grain .204" diameter bullet at a then advertised 2100fps.) I own a nice Mossberg bolt action .22 mag which I like a lot and it is effective out to perhaps 150 yards or so on woodchucks. I ALMOST purchased a 5mm when they came out but never did take the plunge and try one.

.22 Hornet if you are lucky enough to own one was a mild mannered but effective round that started out as a "wildcat" and was eventually legitimized with Winchester making ammo starting in 1930 and chambering their model 54 rifles in 1932. (Always wanted one of these as a kid growing up on the farm)

Next up were several other rifles inspired by varmint hunting including but not limited to:
.218 Bee, .219 Zipper, .22-250, .222, .222 mag, .220 Swift, and eventually the .223 Remington which of course was the civilian version of the military 5.56 Nato round. FORGIVE me please as I am sure I missed a few in the previous list.  In fact with all the variants and off shoots of many of these rounds listed and other wildcats, I KNOW I have left a bunch of them out. I would enjoy hearing from those of you who are die hard varmint hunters, wildcatters, hand loaders etc. out there whose favorite pastime happens to be varmint hunting and experimenting with varmint loads. Many of these rounds were .22 caliber which was considered by many to be the most practical and accurate of varmint rounds. Most .22 caliber based rounds are considered excellent varmint choices out to 250 yards or a little beyond. At the 300 yard mark they run out of steam and are slowing down fast. 250 yards or so covered 95% of my woodchuck hunting as a kid and I would dearly love to have that Sako rifle back today.

For upper end varmints or much longer ranges the .25 calibers such as the 25-06,  etc. play a role, with extra recoil, and expense, and most also double as deer rifles. The .243 Win can be thrown into this double role as well. I own a Savage .243 that shoots very well with both 100 grain loads and 75 grain V-max loads as well.

My brother owns a nice .22-250 which regrettably I have never shot.....YET. This rifle is considered the epitome of long range varmint rifles by many knowledgeable varmint hunters and will easily handle woodchucks, crows, foxes, coyotes, and just about any varmint situation you run into NEAR or out to the 400 yard mark or a bit beyond. The .220 Swift certainly has an advantage over the .222 and .223 rounds as well.

Another round I would look at is the .204 Ruger, especially if you hand load. It essentially will do everything the .220 Swift will do with LESS recoil. It is NOT that the .220 Swift is punishing in the recoil department. It has more to do with calling your own shots way out there as you will be able to see if you scored a hit or a miss in your own rifle scope without a spotter. It commonly uses either a 32 grain bullet at around 4000fps or a 40 grain bullet at around 3700fps. The 40 grainers are recommended if you are going after coyotes. Another PLUS for the .204 is that both bullet weights shoot to the same point of aim.

I have even given thought to trading my .243 Win which I seldom use for a .204 Ruger or perhaps a nice .17HMR package with a nice scope on it. I don't use the .243 as a combination rifle for deer anyway, having been blessed with more than enough center fire rifles to cover hunting from whitetails all the way up to brown bear. Before you know it spring will be in the air and a lot of guys will be gearing up and working up hand loads etc. for their favorite varmint rigs. Good hunting.

Dan

.338 Federal 200 Grain Trophy Bonded Tip

When doing a recent post on bear hunting loads, I LEFT OUT a real good one. I did mention the 210 grain Nosler Partition for the .338 Federal, however I left out the Federal Vital Shok 200 grain Trophy Bonded Tip which is also an excellent load for bear hunting. These loads are in high demand, however they normally sell for around $39 to $44 per box of 20 at the time of this writing.

If you own a .338 Federal and you are planning a bear hunting trip whether spot and stalk, or black bear over bait, you might want to buy a box of each load (210 grain Nosler partition & the 200 grain Trophy Bonded tip) and take whichever one shoots the best in your rifle.

Muzzle velocity of the Trophy Bonded Tip load is 2630fps
Muzzle energy of this load is 3071 ft. lbs.

Muzzle velocity of the 210 grain Nosler partition load is 2630fps
Muzzle energy is slightly higher at 3225 ft. lbs.

NO bear or other appropriate big game animal (wild boar, elk, moose etc.) is going to notice the difference so I would try them both and take the one that shoots the most accurately out of your particular rifle and never look back.

Again I own a Ruger Hawkeye synthetic stocked stainless action .338 Federal topped off with a Bushnell 3200 Elite 3X9X40 scope. The rifle came with the newer LC6 trigger from Ruger, however I had mine worked on anyway as I am accustomed to a trigger pull in the 2 1/2 lb range.

Dan

A Bears Eyesight Is better Than You Think

Most of us who spend anytime hunting, or reading about hunting bears have been told although a bear's sense of smell is superb, their eyesight is poor.

It turns out that recent research shows that is NOT the case. The eyes of a deer are larger in comparison to their body size than many animals. Their position on the head does NOT allow for much eye movement which is diverse from humans and other predators. A bear on the other hand has much smaller eyes, however they move more freely than a whitetails. Since the deers eyes are more or less stationary and therefore a deer has to move its head to see its surroundings, a bear can move its eyes and take in more terrain without moving its head to do so.

The eye is made up of (5) different parts:

• Cornea - protective layer over the lens /Humans have an UV filter and on animals it is CLEAR
• Lens - right behind the cornea and collects and directs light into the retina
• Pupil - opens and closes to change amount of light passing into the eye
• Retina - located in the back of the eye and light that hits it is sent to the brain via the optic nerve
• Optic Nerve Head - sends light

Apparently there are differences between a PREDATOR'S EYES (Human, Bear etc.) (vs.) a prey species eyes (as an example whitetail deer). One such important area is how the eyes focus. Humans and Bear's are similar in that we have a very small field of actual focus in our peripheral vision. We can see as an example an entire field or section of woods, however our eyes (and the Bear's) then FOCUS on a particular section of that field or woods. Deer on the other hand have a WIDE area that is in complete focus. Deer have a narrower band from top to bottom than we do, however the entire area they see is in FOCUS while our focus is more limited to a much smaller area. To make it simple when a whitetail is looking straight ahead, almost its entire horizon is in focus and they do not have to bounce their eyes back and forth and up and down to achieve that focus. A Bear's eyes are positioned more to the front of its head while a deer's are more to the side of its head. You might say that Bear's have binocular vision for the entire 120 degrees of their field of view.

RODS (VS.) CONES:

I teach NYS defensive driving classes and always try to mention that Whitetails have more rods than cones. Why is this important? They do not break down the color spectrum as well as you and I do, however they can easily detect the slightest movement in their field of view. In other words a deer may or may not see you and identify you as a threat simply because you are wearing  an orange vest or hat if you are perfectly motionless, however if you adjust your hat, check your wrist watch, scratch that itch on the side of your nose etc. he will likely detect that movement instantly anywhere it occurs in his peripheral vision.

Deer are said to have approximately 20/40 vision while perfect vision in humans is said to be 20/20. A humans pupil opens and closes rather quickly while a Bear's open and closes mores slowly, however the bear's pupil opens almost 2X as wide as ours. Bears and deer have much better LOW light vision  than a human does than we do. Bear's have a substance called "Tapetum Lucidum" on the retina which is largely responsible for this. Bear's have approx 10X the number of rods as humans have.

Deer can detect movement better than a bear and this of course ups their survival rate. Bears are a predator species and the detection of the slightest movement is apparently not needed by them as much as it is the deer.

Both deer and bear have considerable advantageous to humans as far as eyesight goes in general. I believe it is simply because the good Lord made them that way.

You can bet when that big bear comes to a bait site at very last light, that he is seeing things a whole lot better than you and I are. Both the whitetail and that big bear win the contest hands down when it comes to their sense of smell. They certainly take advantage of what their eyes can see, however I believe their noses are probably the FIRST line of defense for both species.

Dan

Genesis 1:31 King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.