When I was 13 I bought my first rifle, a Savage 34M, or I should say my dad bought it but I paid for it with my trapping money. We lived on a dairy farm and I hunted woodchucks, raccoons, fox and coyotes with that little rifle. There was rarely a day till I turned 18 and left for college that I didn't carry it. I racked up some serious numbers of all the above critters with the Winchester 40 grain HP. I flirted with the Federal 50 grainers when they first came out but my rifle didn't like them. The same for some of the lighter offerings. Nothing shot as well as the Winchester 40 grain HP. The CCI version shot almost as well and I shot a quite a bit of it if I couldn't get the Winchester. I still have that little rifle and around 1800 rounds of the Winchester 40 grain loads.
The 40 grain HP's killed foxes wonderfully. Coyotes sometimes took a second shot but with a good solid chest shot they never went far. I found raccoons sometimes harder to kill with a chest shot than coyote. Foxes went down pretty quick with good solid kill zone shots.
I haven't had that little rifle out in a while. Now I'm excited to spend some time with it this winter.
