hey all. im sorta-slightly-maybe-wanna considering purchaing a rifle for target shooting, possible varmint hunting. im trying to stay under $500 for rifle/scope. its not easy! haha...im a little flexable, but i figure i should give myself a low price to keep it realistic. anywho, im looking at a remington 700 ADL in .223. i figure .223 can take ANY varmint out there, and the ammo is plentiful and affordable. i considered .308 for a while but figured that i highly doubt id need anything that big. so basically, im asking your advice! more or less id like to stay around that price range and caliber. the rest im all ears....thanks ahead of time


ps dont forget about scopes!

Everyone has their own opinion on the best varmint gun, but I think you'll be happy with the .223. You also can't go wrong with a model 700 Remington. A friend of mine had a custom .223 gun built on a model 700 action, Choate Ultimate Varmint stock and a Douglas 1 in 8 twist barrel. He routinely kills Groundhogs at 500+ yards.

I have a custom AR-15 Flat-top with a Douglas 1 in 8 barrel, a Leupold M-3 Scope and a Milazzo trigger. It is also accurate well beyond 500 yards on small game.

The benefit of the .223 is that it is the current caliber of choice at NRA High Power matches. This means that every company is striving to provide upgrades for these weapons. It is the only .22 cal out there that has an almost unlimited number of bullet grains available... all the way up to 80 grains. With the right gun and at least a 1-8 barrel, you can shoot accurately to 1000 yds with 80 grain hand loads. Good luck on your choice.

Semper Fi, George

Rifle + scope for under $500 new? Might be tough. A M700 is great, but to keep the cost down, try a Savage (out of the box accuracy is usually as good as the M700) and shop carefully on the scope - nearly anything that is fairly decent will really drive the cost up. Savage has a lot of choices, including a package that you can probably dicker down below your cap of $500.

.223 Rem caliber is good to start with as long as deer are not in your plans right now - and the ammo is not too expensive either. If you might be interested in deer later and intend to stick to one rifle, perhaps you should reconsider the caliber, although a Savage is the least difficult of all commonly available bolt guns for non-gunsmiths to safely re-barrel.

There are some less expensive routes - if your quest does not pan out, re-post.

HTH,

Tom

well. like i said $500 is a nice in between number. im willing to go up and DEFINETLY down. haha. deer? nah...im not interested in deer. like i said, mostly varminting and working on my marksmanship. it doesnt seem to hard to find a decent rifle for that price range. remington offers the 700-ADL from the factory for $500. the scope is what im worried about. obviously its the 2nd most important thing. so glass is a priority, but what exactly do you think would suffice? i prolly (hope not) wouldnt be engaging ANYTHING beyond 300yards...so what would ibe looking for, power-wise?

Scopes for this type of rig are extremely important. Some of the finer units I've owned actually cost more than the rifle itself. A simple rule of thumb is the higher the power ( magnification,) the smaller the field of view. This isn't so critical for hitting a target or long range small game animal. For a quick acquisition site picture the lower powers are prefered. I used a 1.5x 4 variable when I fancied myself a Nimrod on my 7MM Mauser. My .300 H&H sported a 2x7. Most of the time I seemed to be using 4x for everything, and single power advocates like it, or a 6x for distance. You should probably talk to the people who shoot the .223 in matches. there are other considerations ; crosshair vs various post or dot reticles, mounting systems and even detachable mounts. It makes me miss my Westly-Richards .318. It had a peepsite on the cocking piece, 3 leaf express sights and a side mount 2.5x scope <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Buy a .22 long rifle caliber, practice stalking to a reasonable range, and eat what you shoot unless you shoot something in self-defence.

Bountyhunter

good on ya! thanks everyone for the good info. im very interested in that Savage set-up. i'll have to wait a lil bit and shop around (of course)...but i'll def let you all know what i go with.

rather than add a new Post, i figured id just throw it in here.


speaking of guns and all things good, how do you all feel abotu the new .17 HMR round? does anyone have an experience with it?

There's a lot of hype out there, and I need another caliber like (another) hole in the head. I'd like to see something similar to a Ruger 10-22 in the .17 , that would be more fun at a little longer range . All the articles I've read are all glowing,of course and it does look very accurate.

<< I'd like to see something similar to a Ruger 10-22 in the .17 , that would be more fun at a little longer range >>

Can you wait until September? The Hornady 17 Mach 2 is based on a 22lr case, uses the same 17 gr V-Max bullet as the 17 HMR, launches at 2,100 fps and will be chambered by a who's-who list of manufacturers, some of whom are for certain chambering popular self-loaders in the new caliber. I would bet a pop that the aftermarket guys are gonna be selling conversions shortly thereafter - the cartridge is tuned specifically to function properly in popular self-loaders.

And Hornady just released a second loading for the 17HMR that has a less frangible and heavier bullet, so there are already 2 distinct classes of use the the 17HMR.

I think I'll wait for the after-market guys and buy parts to convert back and forth. The 17HM2 is more interesting to me than the 17HMR.

Regards,

Tom