Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Need advice on utility rifle for farm

I know some of the guys on the BR Forum because they used to shoot with my Brother. I think some of them bought the dies and the brass. Not much help there. I did find a used competition set of dies at a gun show for $150.00 but passed on them. Out of a whole lot of different shooting irons, I only need to pick up the BR dies and a set for my old Model 73 Winchester.

On the 1873, I think I'm going to buy the old bullet making gear on EBAY and a set of RCBS dies.

My Brother actually cut a lot of the barrels that the BR crowd used and precision shooters around the world sent their blanks to him. He designed a new type of BR rifle called the Tinkertoy. You can see it and him at http://www.zoominfo.com/gunweek077.html. The Tinkertoy and several other BR guns that he developed were given to shooting friends when he passed away.

The 6BR that I have will be given to one of his 2 Grandsons or to my Grandson. It all depends on if any of them ever develop an interest in precision shooting. Neither the boys or their parents know that I have it or the conditions that he set for obtaining it. Like all of his guns, it shoots a very tight cloverleaf.

I've been looking at getting a rifle chambered in 9mm. I must have 10,000 rounds of it just sitting around since my department switched from 9mm to .40 S&W.

first one ruger 10/22, plenty of ammo choices, subsonic hollow point serves many practical purposes

2nd and my favorite, a .223 in a jprifle set up http://www.jprifles.com/1.2.2_JP15.php, it's not really a rifle, it's a piece of art

3rd .308 in a jp

now you need to include bolt rifles

and as DD mentioned, one can never have too many handguns

but to keep things simple and effective the jp rifle in .223 with a suppressor is my overall top pick, because eliminating problems quietly, solves many of the world's problems quickly

Well, there's more than one type of varmint, so you have to prepare yourself with more than one gun.

I have a Ruger 10/22, a Ruger Mini-14, and a Marlin .17HMR. I also have a 300 Weatherby, but are deer, bear, and elk considered varmints? LOL

This is not even counting my personal security devices.

I have around a dozen guns, but use mainly 3 for pond duties. A Ruger MK678 target barrel auto pistol with Clark trigger I added on. It fires .22 LR very reliably. I call it my hand rifle. My Anschutz .22 WMR bolt action is deadly accurate, and the .22 WMR is under rated at 100 yards in. I have a Gamo break barrel pellet rifle with BSA scope that can push light pellets to 1200 FPS. Accuracy is so-so until I get around to re-working the trigger. That combo takes care of everything, and I use the quietest one I can get by with.

You guys are rad @ your guns. Not sure I understood most of what you said, but it sure sounds cool....du

The ATF will be visiting you all soon.

Bring 'em! I'm legal. Eerrr, I think.

DerekB, I know a guy that uses his .300 on woodchucks. They get pretty big around here!

Tell you what. On a small property where you want it quiet and not a lot of heavy lead flying around I'd just stick with a 22 long rifle. I shoot everything from raccoons to beaver with one and it works just fine. I do have a 17 HMR for longer range shots but I'm in the middle of hundereds of acres of nothing so I generally don't care where the bullets go.

From my experiences yesterday and today, the .17 Mach II is running out of steam @ 115-125 Yds. I popped two baby woodchucks about the size of a large Fox squirrel in the past 2 days, and while the bullet was a thru n thru (the chest) they still ran 20 to 40 feet before expiring. From the looks of things the bullet really didn't expand much, if any.

Kimber with a Simmons Aetec 3-12 x 50 scope (it's a wee bit large for the rifle, but it was laying on the shelf along with the rings when I got the rifle a year ago).

If you need stealth cause of your neighbors, maybe one of these would do the trick.
check out the 50 cal.
http://www.airgunsbbguns.com/career_707_shinsung_air_rifle_pcp_s/99.htm

That middle squirrel truly learned the beauty of a ballistic tip bullet! WOW!

The others look the same on their left side. I laid them down so they all faced the same way, this pic is the lesser of two evils. The Kimber is more accurate than my 10/22, although it's louder. It seems to have a longer reach as well.

I've got a Savage Mark-II G that I had rebarreled with a Lilja 22" 1-9 twist barrel for the Aguila 60g SSS bullets. When squirrel season rolls around I'll break that one out. It should be good practice for longer range hunting with the rainbow trajectory that those bullets have. It's scoped with a Bushnell 10 x 42 Mil-Dot tactical scope with 20 MOA bases. I can zero it @ 50 yds and click it up to hit the target @ 200 Yds. It'll group a hair less than MOA at that distance on a calm day. Throw in the wind and all bets are off! It's a long, slow bullet. It's fun and pretty quiet with the longer barrel.

How quiet is that Aguila 60 gr? I shoot tree rats in my back yard in town. I'm using the 20 gr that is quiet enough to keep me out of jail but they suck on accuracy.

Do you know anything about the CB caps? I haven't tried them.

DD1:

The 60g is quieter than a regular .22lr, but noisier than the CB Longs that I shoot. The CB Longs are propelled by just the priming mixture, and have the same oomph as the CB caps, which are based on a .22 short case. The CB's aren't much different than the 20g Aguilas that you are using now. I'd be leery of shooting the 60g Aguilas in a populated area. They can shoot thru both sides of a 55 gallon drum and keep on going. While they aren't going that fast, they keep a LOT of retained energy due to their weight.

In populated areas my method of choice for pest removal is a .177 pellet rifle. Depending on how much you want to spend, there are some accurate and VERY quiet ones out there. I have a FWB 124 Deluxe that I got from Beeman's a long time ago. It is deadly accurate, and head shots on tree rats are no problem out to 50 Yds. Paul Watts Web site went thru it a few years back (re-sealed it and re-sprung it) and it shoots the Crosman Premier 7.9g pellets right around 900 fps mv. It'll group 1" @ 50 Yds if I do my part. I've shot an Allen Zasadny (Phone 319 472-3845) modified for field target use Anschutz 8002 with his moderator (silencer) and all I heard was the hammer hitting the valve and then the pellet hitting the target. Amazing rifle! Spring guns can't be quieted as much as the PCP's due to the spring making a lot of noise.

The FWB will kill a 'coon if you are within 30' and hit 'em in the side of the head. If you get good with a Spring air rifle, any other rifle is a breeze to shoot. Noise wise, once you start moving the pellet faster than 900 fps you get the supersonic crack and it's not too much different than shooting a .22lr.

If you haven't tried it yet. Look at the Remington CeeBee .22 lr. It is a new round for this year. It is extremely quiet but extremely accurate and knocks the snot out of tree rats and other unwanted critters. The bullet is a truncated hollow point cone. Great little design that causes the bullet to fragment even at the slow speeds of the CB. So far it is my favorite low key .22 round.

Now those look interesting! More 4g more weight and 30 fps faster than the CB Longs. Now to find some locally!

AP,

Man, I'm impressed with the energy of that .50, ~190 pounds feet. I bet it would knock a bull buffalo down. Of course he would probably be real mad when he got back up.

The 50 cal. air rifle ain't cheap, but it sure could put a quiet dent in the GBH population.

The day this was posted I suggested a Hi-Point carbine...I put my money where my mouth was and picked up a Hi-Point 9mm carbine..$189 otd