pest control

K

kirbymagnum

New member
lets just say we have a lot of pests and i need a good flat shooting gun that dosnt cost 10000 bucks for ammo looking at a good rimfire need help lots of game such as bever crows ravins megpies piggions gophers squirls skunk and rabbits/ jack rabits i was thinking the 17hmr?
 
I read Ruark as a kid...

'06 seemed to work fine on pesky birds out in the rice, goundhogs in the pasture and fear of broke legs of horses and cattle...rabid raccons and skunks never ran off either...

Not shot the .17, I need to.

.22lr always did me well for affordable ammo at proper distances- and the benefit of stalking and keeping woodscraft skills up .

Granted I do use handguns for some of this...okay perhaps the .454 or .44 was bit much on rabid skunks and racoons...these were in hand and not my fault the critter picked a bad time to show up...

Larry is supposed to get another .17 for his critter control. One of these days I'm supposed to come out and get to shoot one of his .17s ...in exchange for me giving him shotgun lessons...

Err...shotgun slugs work in a pinch...

Did I mention I read Ruark as a kid? Still do? :)
 
For skunks and similar size pests on my property, my RWS model 48 in .22 caliber works quite well for me. And it's quieter than a .22 RF. Ammo is around $12/500 rounds.
For the difference in price between the RWS model 48 and a Marlin model 60, you could buy a lot of .22 LR ammo.
Yeah, I read "Use Enough Gun" by Ruark about 30 years ago. :D That's a GREAT book! Along those lines, the .338 is considerably more effective and flatter shooting than the RWS 48-.22, but it makes large craters in the sidewalk and makes a LOT of noise and disturbs the neighbors.:D The .50 BMG makes larger craters and more noise. :D A 12 gauge with #7-1/2 also works well at close ranges.
For stealth, I like my RWS.:)
 
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17 may be O.K.

However with the light weight bullets they tend to only cripple larger varmints such as the Beaver and possibly the jackrabbits. The bullets explode and cause a massive but shallow wound cavity. I don't know how the 20grain bullets work since I haven'e tried any yet. The .17 on the birds and smaller species you list should be devastating.
 
you might want to just get a Winchester 94 in a pistol caliber like 357 or .38 special that way you can definetly put down larger varmits and you can use shot shells in it for birds like crows. That or I would just go with a shotgun like a Remington 870 pump that way you could use bird shot for the birds and get some 00 for the bigger varmits best bet would be to just get both. neither are that much I believe you can get both of them at Walmart.
 
I paid about $160.00 for my savage 17 hmr bolt action and another $250.00 for the leupold scope. It is deadly accurate 100 yds plus.Not to mention very fun to shoot.
 
The fmj.s from cci and federal called gamepoints are not as destructive and work well for saving meat!
 
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Pick up the .17 hmr. Super accurate and a devistating little round. You can get a good bolt gun for around $150. I suggest a Savage with a decent scope so you're at around $200. It'll take care of all those critters.
 
With an eye toward economy for smaller critters, but for fairly flat-shooting ability and knockdown on critters up to coyote, I got an NEF Handi-Rifle in .22 Hornet. Price about $200.
 
22 Magnum rifle will do everything you want. The 17 caliber will die and the good old 22 WMR will remain. My favorite 22LR rifle is a Remington 541S which you have to find used these days.
 
Sounds like you live in varminter's paradise - where is that?

The .17 HMR would be a good choice for those purposes, 'cept for beaver - though it would likely work fine, they can get large (up to 60 lbs, nearly twice the weight of a coyote), and I'd rather have a .22 hornet or better for a beaver, particularly if I wanted to find it and eat it (I hear they are quite tasty).

A .223 rem, however, would probably be the best overall compromise for the uses you describe - not the .22 hornet since you mentioned cheap ammo.

Also, cheapie Winchester white box ammo comes in .22-250, so that along with .223 would be your good long range choice. Still, either is more $$ for ammo than .17 HMR. In the long run run, for a complete varmint battery, in addition to a .22lr, I'd look to get three - one from each category:

1. A .17 hmr (or .22 mag) for out to 125-150 yards (cheap ammo), and fine for ranges within which one with average skill (such as myself) can actually make consistent hits at.
2. A .223 (or .22-250 or even a .204 ruger if you reload) for out to 250-300 yards
3. A .243 (or .25-06) for out to 400-500 yards.

The latter will buck the wind at longer distances, but it still takes quite a lot of skill and a very good rest to make hits at those ranges, as you know. So I'd lean towards 1 and/or 2 for starters.

P.S. I like the .22mag round a lot, perhaps even more than the .17hmr. But I'd wager that the .17hmr will NOT die - it is very very popular - this transcends a fad that enjoys short-lived popularity, it seems to me. It's a very nice caliber for making not much noise, and extending your range a little, if you want to shoot something like a crow which you do not plan to eat. Plus it seems to be a 'proven' fact, not mere anecdote, that .17s are consistently more accurate rifles than the same gun chambered in .22 mag, due to the necked cartridges keeping the round still when the firing pin strikes the rimfire.

I'm undecided as to whether the .204 ruger will die. It SHOULD die, since it is so very close to so many other cartridges - nearly identical to the .20 tactical, which died, and serves the same function as a .22-250, on a minutely smaller scale, and it's also basically the same as .17 Rem, except on a minutely larger scale. But it may remain, due to the aggressive marketing and resulting popularity.
 
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