jbat35 said:
Reread my Op, notice the "Currently." I currently own a benelli cordoba and a ruger 10/22. I have had other guns, including the .243 savage that started 1 moa and worked its way to 5, which marked the point I threw a new barrel on it and sold it.
I read your OP a few times, and I read that you currently own a .22 lr and a 12 ga. Most people would add as well that they had some experience with other cartridges at that point, either that they had owned or shot in the past. You still didn't answer the question I asked about how fast it your rifle went from a MOA shooter to a 5 MOA shooter? Most people I know that have a consistent MOA shooting rifle will do something about it when they can't get it to shoot better than 1.5 MOA anymore, let alone shoot it to 5 MOA and then rebarrel.
Another thing why rebarrel and then sell? Why didn't you rebarrel to something else if you thought the .243 barrel burnt out too quickly? You could have probably changed it to a .223 for less money than the new Savage you bought. Why spend the cost of a new/used take off barrel, even if you installed it yourself just to sell a rifle? A Savage action is worth between $250 and $400+ depending on features.
I asked why you though it was a barrel burner because I have an old Parker Hale Mauser that I bough used 22 years ago. For years I used it as a varmint rifle shooting prairie dogs and coyotes, besides hunting deer and pronghorn as it was my only rifle. I've probably shot more than 5K rounds through it in dog towns getting it past too hot to touch and it still holds 1.5 MOA these days and it never was consistently better than MOA in my hands from the day I bought it. I'll get around to rebarreling it someday along with glass bedding it but I don't hunt with it much anymore and it probably only sees a box of factory ammunition a year of that.
jbat35 said:
University apartments don't allow guns or ammunition on campus, and its not an option. As long as I am getting $4000 of room and board for free per semester, that takes priority to my want to have a place I could reload. Buying crates of ammunition, I can get 2000 rounds of decent federal or hornandy for $600 or $800 a crate. This is for either .223 or .308, but .308 does not match my volume.
Yes you can but you stated you didn't want surplus because you wanted to shoot "well 90% of the time."
jbat35 said:
I singled out surplus as I am out to shoot well 90% of the time, and will buy more expensive ammo over cheap because I want better groups.
Now you are quoting prices of "new" surplus and Hornady SM ammunition. What happened to buying more "expensive" over "cheap" for better groups? I mean if your really that serious about shooting groups why aren't you buying Federal Gold Match? I'm sure the Federal M193 and Hornady SM will shoot well, but it isn't going to be as good as Federal GM ammunition. Besides are you seriously going to lay down $600-800 for 2000 rounds before finding out what your rifle likes?
I get that most Universities aren't gun friendly as they are usually run by a very liberal board of directors. So you have to store your firearms and ammunition off campus, can't you reload there? I get it if a friend or family member is storing the guns and ammo for you and doesn't want you over there reloading or if your paying for gun storage.
jbat35 said:
Also, in my research, the amount I would save on ammo would be negligible, as when I am out to shoot I am out to shoot well. I also do not have the time to sit and reload that quantity of ammo, on top of other arrangements, and when I factor my time vs. working, it is not worth it. I would need to buy a progressive to make it worth my while.
You said you wanted to shoot around 2K rounds a year, and you shoot nearly every weekend. So for 2K rounds a year you shoot 40 rounds a week on average.
It takes me an hour on a single stage press to reload 50 rounds of better quality .223 ammunition than I can buy, about 1.5 hours if I have to polish the cases, 2 hours if I have to trim. The press kit I showed you will allow you to more than double that an hour. So for one hour of work you could shoot for a whole month before you needed to sit at a bench again. Or you could sit for six hours and load a 6 month supply of ammunition, once you finished load development, which from my experience with .223 doesn't take very long 20-50 rounds to find a good varmint load.
Ammunition costs aren't going to get any cheaper nor is the equipment to reload, you would be far better off investing in the equipment now while you money isn't going toward things like rent and utilities, mortgages, or insurance. Trust me the equipment will pay for itself very quickly as you start adding more firearms to your stable. However you can't see past the shooting stage yet, to realize you don't need a $1200-1500 progressive set up.
jbat35 said:
Wind here goes from 15-40 mph, and is never constant. At just 20 mph gusts I am looking at a .17 hmr drifting like you said up to 8 inches. If it was constant, and exactly to the side or behind/infront of me, then yea it would be fine. But wind doesn't just flow, it gusts. And 8 inches of horizontal gust is just a LOT, that is a hit or miss on a squirrel or prairie dog.
Your wind isn't anything special nor do you live in the only place that it blows harder than 20 mph, or that it gusts, shifts, and swirls. Like I said learning to read wind and still hitting your target is as much fun as making small groups IMO. Once you learn to read the wind you can usually make an 80% or better hits on target in a dog town, and better percentages on larger targets. I've used my .22 WMR effectively all the way out to 150 yards, using Federal 30 grain TNT ammunition. Don't get me wrong wind is and can be a PITA, but if your going to learn to shoot effectively you're going to have to shoot in the wind and just have to learn how to read it. If I had to wait for a calm day to enjoy shooting I wouldn't shoot.