Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles What constitutes big game vs varmint rifle?

Hunterapp: It depends on what you are aiming your Rifle at (Big Game or Varmint).
Don't let the sounds of your own wheels make you crazy.
I have kill't Varmints with a 7/m Remington Magnum and a 308 Winchester (Remington 700 BDL Varmint) and I have kill't Big Game with a 223 Remington.
Again, what you are "aiming at" is the final definitive answer.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Sounds simple enough, If I am in the middle of a colony of sage rats with a 338 Lapua, I am holding a varmint rifle. Though if It is opening day of dear season and a coyote is taken with a 6mm ARC then I was shooting a predator cartridge. Then 45 minute later from the same deer blind a deer is harvested, then I was shooting a smallish big game cartridge.

Now you’ve got it….😁

I’ve never shot a deer with a 223, but a 223 with a 62 grain Bear claw will kill 200 pound pigs at 200 yards easily.


Grandkids kill deer with 80 grain TTSX out of a 243 without a problem

The day I got my 375H&H, after sighting it in, I shot a ground hog at about 80 yrds. I found it quite adequate. As I recall I used the Winchester 300 gr solid with the truncated nose. The only ammunition I could find at the time. I must admit I was never charged by the varmint. Note: I have also used a 300 Win mag when that was what I was holding.

Well it depends on what a varmint is where you are. Big game to me starts with elk. Deer and such are medium game. So looking at it thusly a "big game" rifle in my humble opinion is something I would shoot an elk with. A varmint in my area generally is a coyote, raccoon or a feral hog.

Rickt300: Suppose I may get a different notion of big game from my state's, Big Game application process. Game categorized as big game on our applications include Elk, Mule deer. Whitetail, Big horn sheep, Antelope, Mountain lion & turkey of all things.

I still can't identify a turkey as a big game critter.

"Big Game" is anything (that you hunt) that is not a varmint. Varmints include hogs. Large game doesn't mean the same as big game. You have varmints, small game, medium game, large game and heavy dangerous game - all but varmints are big game. Varmint rifles include walk-around varmint rifles, but if you use the term varmint rifle, you usually mean a long heavy barreled rifle that weighs more than a normal hunting rifle. Varmint calibers in the old days included .25 caliber. You could use a .270 with light projectiles on varmints, but it still wouldn't be a varmint rifle if it was your walk-around big game rifle.

That one always made me laugh as well. It's a bird ,customarily ground sluiced with a shotgun during mating season. How people get so worked up about it is wayyyy beyond me.

Been following this thread, and after 3 pages, still have the same initial thoughts....

Why do we even differentiate between a big game rifle or a varmint rifle?

Years ago, after chasing deer all over the local mountains and not able to get a decent shot on one, I came home on the last day. The wife asked me if I got anything, and I told her I had skunked.... She told me that "Big Neighborhood Buck" is out behind the house, down the hill a little way, grazing with a batch of does.

I had put everything up, so the one thing that was quick to grab, was my old Marline 25M rimfire in 22 Win mag.
With a 40 grain FMJ filled magazine I kept nearby, walked out on the back deck and about 50 to 60 yds away was the buck.
One shot right in the ear, and he was down, and was busy kicking in a death throe. A minute later, he was dead.

Or a turkey out I ran across while out hunting, a big tom...all I had with me was a 243, since I was deer hunting.
Took a rest against a pine tree and we had turkey for dinner a couple of nights later.. I've shot them in the yards, with a 17 HMR on a Ruger 17/77 action.

Does this make the Marlin 25M, in 22 Mag, taking down a 235 pound blacktail a Big Game Rifle?
Or a 243 with a 100 grainSP bullet a varmint rifle? when used on a turkey.

Use what you have when the opportunity fits the job.

Is a heavy barrel 223 bolt action, that I can shoot 500 plus ground squirrels in an afternoon, with ammo loaded with Shotgun powder, a varmint rifle, when I can use the same ammo and rifle and drop a blacktail with a head shot, does that make it a varmint rifle or a big game rifle?

Bottom line, a rifle is a rifle...just make sure it has enough ooomph to do the job at hand, and shot placement...

if ya wanna use a 458 Win mag on ground squirrels/ sage rats... feel free to... I don't think many folks would suddenly call that a varmint rifle.... If you can shoot crooked politicians with it, then you can call it a varmint rifle.

Above Seafire says: "If you can shoot crooked politicians with it, then you can call it a varmint rifle".
Now I like that!!!

If you are shooting at big game it’s a big game rifle, at varmints, a Varmint rifle!

Not bothered by a failure to retrieve varmints. Simple as that. That's where the difference lies. Not so much about the animal, more about intention.

Last night we finished somewhere in the 80s on dairy farm rats. Majority are DRT, but a fair number make it to dens squealing to a fate of being eaten by colleagues. A CCI Quiet segmented HP is no big game round, right? Nobody in their right mind would use one on deer.

OK, back in the '80s-'90s was shooting meat deer in Columbia Cty, NY. Guy near me drew the attention of ENCON. Seems he was popping every deer on his lawn with a .22rf. He never followed them up, never pushed them.
About 50-100 yds from his house commenced a graveyard of deer, think they decided it was more than 100. Obviously, there were others lost or that survived.

Around my place (central ME) I can't regard .22 and .24 centerfires as big game cartridges for deer. Yes, they kill. IME except with CNS hits they do not anchor, or even close to it. No discernible blood trail, tho sometimes there's pink mist on snow. Cover is a nightmare, not flat, too many deadfalls and root holes to hide a dead animal. If your experience differs, fine. More than likely your circumstances differ too. We use .300s and, lately, a .375. Runs are shorter, blood trail more reliable (yet to need it).

To be clear about this, under different circumstances I have (and would) kill deer (and larger) with .22 and .24 CFs. Just not here.

For me the 6 mm bore just don’t fit
Too big for small stuff and to small for big stuff
Not that it won’t work fine there are just better choices
I have prairie dog guns chambered in 6-250
And 25-308. They are fun to shoot prairie dogs with for a short time but too much recoil and blast
I have a sporter chambered in 25-308 also wonderful on whitetail but still think there are better choices

It all depends on what you want to do with it. Lots of us shoot deer & antelope with .22 CF's and at least one poster here shoots Jack rabbits with a .458.

i have shot a deer and a antelope with a 17 Remington , 22 mag. and a 22 Hornet shot deer for meat. but when i hunt for bigger Whitetail and Mule deer Bucks i use a 257 Weatherby mag mostly but this year i will be using a 257 Roberts and a 30-06 for bigger bucks mostly. i have shot squirrels , crows and rabbits with my 30-06 too.

I killed a lot of groundhogs with my M700 bull barreled 25-06 with 6-24X scope. I’d never lug that thing around as a big game (deer) rifle. It made a hell of a mess on those varmints with the original 100gr ballistic tips.

For me a big game rifle starts at .277. No offense to the 0.264 guys.

No offense taken here, as I have graduated away from the 6.5 mm Grendel to the 6mm ARC. The biggest game I am after may be a 300 ish LB midwest Whitetail or a Mule Deer.

Chambering/bore size doesn't matter for [bleep].

Bullet construction though does, and makes all the distinction one would need.

T
This I suppose is the line of thought I was thinking on. Ill feel better about a 6x45 with a 85 grain Nosler partition for whitetail deer large & small, over a 30-06 shooting rubber bullets or a 110 grain V-Max.