Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles My egg shoot chicken coup protector

Well I passed the 100 round mark with the Walmart M700 .223 so today I refined my egg shoot load. I figure the .224 and .223 diameter Hornet bullets tested earlier will be just fine for the coyotes, foxes and raccoons that steal my eggs and chickens occasionally along with not bouncing much when started at 3200 fps. I decided to use the 26.2 charge of 748 as a starting point as it did well with the 45 gr, Speer Hornet bullets but changed the bullet to the 53 gr. Hornady flat base match bullet. I used up 5 getting it sighted in 1/2 inch high at 100 yards but I am in that odd situation where my groups are hitting 1/4 inch to the left. If I adjust one click to the right I am 1/4 inch to the right. The scope is a Bushnell Elite 3x9. I can live with this though. As for accuracy I put the next 5 in .4. I love the ragged hole look. I still may bed the forend in Black automotive silicon but the POI does not move even when I run 10 shots at a 1 per minute pace. Sunday is the first egg shoot of the year, previously I was challenged to shoot it with a dead stock factory rifle and this is the only reason I have not siliconed the barrel to the stock after removing the contact points there. I moved my shooting bench back to the 150 yard line to do a little egg shooting practice. The eggs are set on the bottom edge of a 21/2 inch hole hole sawed into 3/4 inch plywood. The rules are you can't hit the wood, if you make a clean hit you win but you have to walk down and set up another egg, if you miss you ante up another 5 spot. I know all the guys here can regularly hit an egg at 150 yards with their centerfire rifles but I must know a bunch of mediocre shooters. I only had two eggs and hit them both "clean". I'm ready. My best competition is an ex Marine shooting a Savage Axis in 25-06 topped with a 4x12 high end sniper style scope. Now that I am shooting a stock rifle and it only has a top power of 9x do you think I can call 9 power as the most we can use (bring this up for me)? Another contender shoots a heavy barreled AR15 he "says" is put together with production parts? When he's good we go thru a lot of eggs. There are usually around ten guys that show up for the drawing of shooting order. We bring at least a dozen eggs each and none make it home!

Palidun:

Enjoyed your post as I also shoot the Speer 45 gr. soft point w/ W-748 in my .223; it's a great bullet and very decisive on large groundhogs at all ranges here in NW Ohio. So its worth more than an egg shoot load! I got about 400 of the Speers at a very low price and have never regretted it. The Hornadys are fine, too.

The egg shoot sounds like a lot of fun. Set up the board at an unknown range for increasing the challenge e.g. 138, and then 119 etc....don't tell the participants.

I also used to raise chickens and the correct spelling of the word is "coop" rather than coup.

Ya got me there, coop not coup! You can also vary the size of the egg involved as they come in various sizes. Only 6 guys showed up today but we all had a good time, especially me! The home court advantage is a real edge. They were shooting pretty poorly, around 33 percent so I cleaned up on em. Steve, the Marine couldn't find the shells his rifle liked and it really hurt his shooting. His excuse anyway.

great post and a great idea.
I suppose a guy could use clay targets on a stick at various ranges for a little variation...

Clay targets are too big, farthest I can shoot is 150 yards. However I might be able to coax some of the mediocre guys out more than once a year if I switched to clay targets.

How about Ritz crackers or off brand Oreos or the duplex cookies....saltine crackers... Triskets....

Spent shotgun hulls

Some of the targets used in sporting clays games are pretty small but i like the idea of crackers. Oreos are meant to be eaten, however...

I could shorten the range to 100 yards and use bottle caps.

That's why I Said the off brand!!!! laffin...

Got a bag of 48 golfballs @ Wally last weekend for $14 bucks. A .22 knocks em 30 yards or so... Need to try a .233.

We did it again. I tried to get away with my heavy barreled 22-250 but was voted down. Still I have had time to optimize my load and seating depth in my Walmart 223 and it is shooting under 1/2 inch for 5 shots. Cleaned em out again!

I had one of the Walmart Remington 223 and couldn't get it to shoot worth a dang! Glad yours shoots that good! Traded mine for a Savage 223 and it shoots great. Been my experience with the last few Remingtons I have owned! Wish it wasn't so, because I have been a Remington fan for most of my life. As for the 748, it seems to be the magic powder for the 223, wish I could find some!!!!!

HeavyBarrel

I really like the new trigger on the 700 series. Easy to adjust to near perfection. If I didn't already have a 243 and a 6MM Remington I would get another Walmart special in 243.

Palidun, haven't heard of egg shoots for many years... When I was just starting reloading and serious shooting, my gunsmith/friend was a fan of all completion shoots.. He often went to egg shoots, but as I remember, they shot off hand at 100 yards.. They had the egg suspended maybe in a mesh bag... He also loved dynamite shoots.. They shot at a quarter stick at 150 yards... Haven't thought about those shoots for many years.. Best of luck with the future shoots...

Well if we shot offhand we would be there all day and shoot way too many shots! I am ashamed to say the average shooting ability has really deteriorated.

Paintballs are a REAL challenging target at 100.

Hey thats a good idea!

Paintballs on a golf tee are fun, drill a 2x4 with several holes for the tees.
Charcoal briquettes hanging from a string are fun too but you have to drill a hole in them and hot glue the string in.
They disappear when hit but the wind can give you fits as they spin and swing.

Paint balls on a golf tee are the next plan. don't want to make it too tough for em.