Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ask John Barsness Questions About "Affordable Handloading."

don't forget the 99's rotary magazine allows pointed bullets
150gr bullets work great for me. I've shot maine whitetails with 125gr pointed bullets too. 2500fps with these is easy to reach
I have 2 G's with 22" barrel and they shoot great with these rounds
if you would like the recipes drop me a pm

plab

JB,
As I start to reload for the 5.56, I read that this cartridge is not suitable for feral pigs here in Kalif....What say you? Thanks.

Maybe California pigs are tougher, but the 5.56 works pretty darn well on Texas pigs!

I've only hunted pigs once in California, a trophy hunt for a big boar, and got lucky with a 250-pounder that had very good tusks. I used a .270, which might be a little better for a trophy hunt, but for general pig hunting the .223 works fine. At least that's my experience, as well as that of quite a few other people.

+1 The 62 grain TSX in the .223 works great on hogs.

The 60 NPT, 65 Gameking and 64 Power point are also good choices. I'd work up loads with these and the various TSX's, shooting the load the gun liked the best.

IMHO,

DF

I use to kill a lot of pigs of all sizes with factory 64gr power points. I never had a problem. We have even dropped a few with the 204 ruger and 45gr spire points. I'm in California.

I've killed hogs and seen them killed with the .17HMR. We use CCI FMJ's from Wal-Mart to get enough penetration.

I have a custom .223 Ruger Ranch Rifle that prefers 65 gr. Gamekings and Ball C. That's a good bullet for hogs, as are TSX's, 60 gr. NPT and 64 gr. Power Point, as you point out.

I haven't used my .204 Ruger on hogs, yet. Barnes has their 26 gr. varmint bullet, but no TTSX's. I'm waiting for them to roll out a TSX or TTSX for the .204. I think that would be a screaming hog killer.

DF

Just this past week a rancher friend of mine in Northern California killed four smaller pigs with one head-shot each with the 17 HMR that he carries on his quad. I don't know what ammo he was using. He carries the HMR for ground squirrels, and shoots many.

These were the first pigs he has shot, as pigs have just started to be a problem on his ranch. I saw what they were doing to his irrigated pasture. What a mess they were making.

My advice to him, stay after them with relentless pursuit. Those things breed faster than he can kill them.

DF

I bought a box of goodies a couple of years ago for $150 from a local guy on Craigslist. A Lee Partner and a smaller RCBS press, both new in the box. A toolkit with a rcbs 505 scale, a hornady powder dispenser, a bunch of rcbs trays and accessoreies, an auto primer tool and bunch of other stuff including several rcbs dies. It also included a couple of hundred rounds of .308 ammo, three harris bipods and a Weaver K15 AO scope (which was on my .308 when I shot a mulie this year.)
I sold the bipods and paid for just about the whole box.
Picked up a RCBS Carbide die set in .45acp, some montana gold jhp bullets, had 100 primers in the toolbox already, cleaned the cases and finally loaded some rounds last week.
Too much fun! Should have started years ago. My little five and three year old grandsons love depriming rounds.
Elkermarty here on the fire has been reloading for me. I consistently get less than moa from everything he has ever loaded for me. Hope I can do as well!
I can see upgrading to a digital scale and some point and maybe a case trimmer. So far so good!

John I have been working on loads for my 700 vtr 22-250. Have tried h.380 and varget with 50 gr. nosler b. tips! I get very close to 1 inch or a little less , but seems to throw a flier on last shot.. (4 shot groups) No trouble loading for my rugers in 220 swift and 257 bob.. Is the vtr a problem , with the triangle barrel? need help been working on this on and off for a year! thanks.
Ozzie

I've shot a few VTR's, and own one, a .204. I haven't seen that with any I've shot, and in fact my .204 will put 10 shots into 3/4" or so, shot as rapidly as possible.

But that doesn't mean an individual barrel can't have a kink in it that unwinds when it gets hot, or that there's some sort of bedding problem.

Have you tried letting the barrel cool between the 3rd and 4th shots? Are you checking for bullet runout?

Thanks, will look over the bedding again, make sure the barrel is cool. It has been to hot this summer to do much shooting ,so now winter is here will get more work done. thanks again.
Ozzie

bu siteyi seviyorum cunku cok renkli tesekkurler!!Alex Smith Jersey

Bought a .308 VTR as my bad weather rifle. Didn't want to take my New Haven M70 out in the snow and rain.....yea I know it's just the way I am. Anyway it turned out to be my shoot at everything rifle and shoot pretty well it does. Handloading development is still in it's infancy as I fireform the new brass. I use standard die sets and am curious if the competition Redding bullet seating dies would help. Currently use 165 Sierra BT but would like to try Speer Deep Curls in the same weight range but in my area they aren't as readily available. From an ergo standpoint the rifle "hangs" better than my Featherweight for offhand shooting but I am having a hard time with the push feed. Much smoother than the M70 I am used to and I find myself chamber checking to see if a round really did go in. Last time at the range I got 7/8" groups from the sand bags and for a shaky old fart like me I was pretty happy.

I don't get them anymore either for some reason, I would like to get on the list again too, gmsemelgmail.com

Affordable handloading: this spring I was in need of supplies, so I did a little pencil-pushing out of curiosity. I need some new cases for a few calibers. Well, by the time I buy brass and bullets and other things, it will cost me very close to $1.00 per round to load rifle ammo. Rather than buying cases, I had an opportunity to buy some loaded ammo at $18 per box, so I went that route for a couple deer rifles. I will still handload as I have time, but it is nice to have ammo on hand just in case. Cheap handloading for us this summer is .38 special target loads!

Yep - 38 Special light loads are great fun and inexpensive. I stumbled on a 98% condition S&W Model 64 for $250 and load Berry plated bullets ($95 for 1,000) over 3.5 gr. of Red Dot (that's 2,000 loads per pound. I look for used brass at range stores (about $5 for 100 cases), but can't so anything about primers.

I can shoot 300 round at a time and not break the bank! I've got 4 other 38 Special revolvers, but the M64 is a regular shooter.

Put me back on the list. saldivargeorgeyahoo.com

Allow me to preface this by saying, I was unable to read every post maybe this has been covered.

John, in your article about "scope height" you refer to cant. Are you talking about cant of the rifle scope or cant of the rifle; you mentioned sighting in a rifle and then turning it on its side 90� and having POI shift. To make a long question short I'm wondering about your opinion of a canted rifle below a level scope. There seems to be some debate as to whether a rifles action needs to be precisely level under a precisely leveled Reticle versus a canted rifle under a precisely level Reticle. Now it cannot be debated that a reticle needs to be precisely level in order to have accurate tracking but in my opinion as long as a reticle is level the same every time, it doesn't matter how canted the action (rifle) is.

Consistency in shooting form from range to field; in conjunction with a level reticle will produce consistent accurate shooting regardless of rifle cant, correct?