Keep sharpening

LITTLE ROCK — What do you do when your axe cuts finer than your scalpel?

Keep sharpening the scalpel.

For months I have been playing with rifles chambered in .22-250 Remington. Centerfire .22-caliber rifles appeal to me for several reasons. They are noted for tack-driving accuracy. That term is often misused to describe rifles that are very accurate. It literally means that it shoots so straight that you can hit a tack head with it. They have light recoil, so you can shoot them longer with less fatigue.

Also, they are effective for killing wild hogs, coyotes and other varmints. I want to expand my hunting horizon into that frontier. They are also economical to reload because a hot .22-250 or .223 Remington load uses half the powder of a hot 7mm Magnum load.

Problem is, my 7 Magnum is a lot closer to driving tacks than my .22-250.

I started out with a CZ-550 American in .22-250 last spring. It was a beautiful rifle with a Mauser style action. It was accurate enough for hogs and coyotes inside 200 yards, but I never could get it to shoot under 1 inch at 100 yards. If it won’t shoot sub-MOA, I won’t have it.

I replaced it with a Savage Model 10 Predator Hunter. This is one serious rifle. It has a heavy, 24-inch fluted barrel with an aggressive taper. It has Savage’s highly acclaimed Accu-Stock, the most solid factory stock you can buy. It has Savage’s highly acclaimed Accu-Trigger, arguably the most advanced factory trigger on the market. It is so popular that it forced Remington and Winchester to upgrade their triggers. It also has a really cool Max-4 camo finish. This rifle is made for hunting coyotes and bobcats, and it has the potential to drive tacks.

Except, it doesn’t. But it’s getting close.

I broke the rifle in with some factory Winchester 40-gr. “White Box” loads from Wal-Mart. These are cheap bullets, but they are hot and, by all accounts, very accurate. Just not in the Savage. It pricked tiny little .224-inch holes all over the paper in multiple sittings.

I usually shoot at 134 yards, but lately I moved the target to 129 yards, to a place where it’s more level. My platform is a folding card table and a Caldwell Lead Sled with a single 25-pound weight.

Why the odd distances? Few hunting situations occur at the tidy distance of 100 yards. This makes it a little more realistic.

During break-in, I cleaned the bore after each shot for the first six rounds. For the next 24 rounds, I cleaned it after every three shots. For the next 20, I cleaned after every five.

Then I remembered, this gun is called the “Predator Hunter” for a reason. The 40-gr. Winchester hollow point is made for shooting prairie dogs and ground squirrels. The Model 10, with its 1:12 twist barrel, is made to stabilize bigger bullets.

I bought a repackaged, 100-count box of 50-gr. Remington soft points from MidwayUSA. Right idea, wrong product. Quality control was hideous. I weighed every bullet. Not a single bullet weighs 50 grains. The lightest weighs 50.2 grains, and the heaviest weighs 51.1 grains. You can’t get any consistency with such a wide variance in projectile weights, but I had ’em, so I had to shoot ’em.

I load in groups of three. If three shots don’t group, there is no need to keep trying.

The rifle spurned a vast variety of loads featuring H380, H414, IMR-4064 and Winchester 748 powders. I asked Rev. Tom Harris of Hartford for advice. He said he seats his bullets at 2.5 inches. Whoa! The maximum overall cartridge length for .22-250 is 2.35 inches. With a hacksaw, I cut two notches into the neck of a spent .22-250 case and placed a bullet. I slowly chambered it in the rifle with the idea that when the bullet touched the rifling, pressure would push it into the neck and seat it just off the lands. I carefully ejected the bullet. The length was 2.43 inches. That’s where I seat them now.

One way or another, I was going to win this rifle over, but on my last session Friday, my 7mm Magnum tested my patience and loyalty.

I always take several guns to the range. I shoot a few rounds from one, switch to another to let the first gun cool, and then switch to a third to let the second one cool. I put the Savage aside and put my Model 70 Winchester in the Lead Sled. Compared to the Savage, this gun is ugly. It has a homely black stock and a stainless barrel and action with the big, bulbous BOSS at the muzzle. The BOSS is an adjustable weight and muzzle brake. The weight dampens barrel vibration, and the brake reduces recoil. Even wearing earmuffs, its muzzle blast is prodigious, and the concussion makes your teeth tingle.

My load was a 160-gr. Speer Boattail with 61 grains of IMR-4831. With the BOSS set at 5.55, it prints 1-inch at 134 yards. I don’t know why, but I changed the BOSS setting to 8. Three shots hit three corners of a 1-inch square. Then I fired three lighter loads with only 59 gr. of 4831. Three holes touched to make a group that measured .70 inches. I couldn’t believe it. This anti-tank cannon with a Tupperware stock shoots better than a target-grade varmint gun.

I resumed shooting the Savage. My last loads of the day were 50 gr. PSPs powered by 35.5 and 34.5 gr. of Re15 powder. The heavier charge was a little better than all the others, but the lighter charge made me smile. Two holes touched and one was a tad low. I attributed that one to user error. The group measured .799. Now we’re getting somewhere.

A shipment of 55- and 60-gr. Nosler and Sierra bullets will arrive any day. With those, I suspect I’ll find out what the Savage will really do.