I have been getting access to a lot of semi urban properties, just out of the city limits often with Horses and cattle on the acreage. This is good. I have been given firearms rules though and this is usually 22 centerfires and/or shotguns only. This happening to anyone else?

landowner rules .. that generally mis-equate 22centerfire 3500-4000fps, 600 yard max shooting range, with 22LR - 1300fps, 100yards max. They also think they are "low report" .. for the record, if they are worried about richocettes and noise, they should go with 45/70 and 30/30, classic loads ... the sound is deeper, but doesn't crack nearly as bad...

but "everyone" knows that shotguns are shot range, and non-gunowners also "know" that 22's are also shortrange!

Both of the landowners hunt and play with guns. I'll bet they figure that bullets from reasonably fast 22 centerfires won't go far after they hit something. Slugs don't go far either but I don't have a lot of experience using them yet.

Everyone knows that bullets from a 22 centerfire explode on the first blade of grass it hits, thus nothing left to richocet.

Shotgun slugs or buckshot thus richocet further than 22 centerfire bullets, but not much further.

So, it's one good excuse to use a 223 with TSX bullets.

KB

The shotgun solution wouldn't bother me a bit. Personally, and I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean by semi-urban, if the possibility of hitting something or someone is somewhat real, I'd probably be more nervous than the landowner about using a "high powered" rifle. You may be miles from houses however, and that would make a huge difference to me. But hogs with a shotgun still sounds somewhat challenging and fun to me.

I am extremely carefull where I shoot. My 20 gauge H&R Ultra Slug hunter is rifled and using 1 ounce Buckhammer slugs will shoot 2 inch groups at 100 yards. I also have a 20 gauge Remington 870 with a scope on it and it will put Winchester rifled slugs into 4 inches at 75 yards so I am covered in the slug gun dept. I am thinking about building a fast twist 22-250 to push 70-80 grain bullets around 3300 fps. Or most likely one of the heavy Barnes bullets.

I would ask them if a ML would be O.K. this opens up a ton of options for me.

Crossbows have a very short learning curve, if you can live with the range limitations.

I like the crossbow idea but they are so expensive and I hunt mostly at night. Plus this will give me an excuse to build a long awaited rifle.

I was able to steal a new Parker Spartan on Ebay. I bought it on a whim because it was cheap. Even though it's an entry level bow, it's very impressive and very easy to use. It comes with an el cheapo red dot, which can be inexpensively upgraded. Parkers are fairly expensive crossbows, but I'd pay retail for one after my experience with the Spartan.

My takeaway was to buy an entry level bow from a quality manufacturer rather than an upper tier bow from a lower grade manufacturer. If you shop around and are patient, there are deals to be had.

That said, a new rifle is always a good idea.

Regarding the .22 centerfire, the obvious choices are a fast twist .223, a .22-250 or a .220 Swift. I think that it's very difficult to go wrong with a .22-250 and Barnes TSX combo, but there's one gotcha: many .22-250 rifles come with a 1:14 twist which will stabilize the 45 gr TSX, but may or may not stabilize the 53 gr TSX.

Anyway, I have an XR 100 and love it, but it's a single shot and I wouldn't want to carry it far. For a carry gun, I'd think a BLR in .22-250 would be pretty slick.

quote:

Originally posted by analog_peninsula:
Regarding the .22 centerfire, the obvious choices are a fast twist .223, a .22-250 or a .220 Swift. I think that it's very difficult to go wrong with a .22-250 and Barnes TSX combo, but there's one gotcha: many .22-250 rifles come with a 1:14 twist which will stabilize the 45 gr TSX, but may or may not stabilize the 53 gr TSX.

Anyway, I have an XR 100 and love it, but it's a single shot and I wouldn't want to carry it far. For a carry gun, I'd think a BLR in .22-250 would be pretty slick.

I have shot the 53 gr TSX out of my 22-250 with a 1:14 twist ratio successfully and have been impressed with the on game performance of that bullet. The accuracy was a little less than the Nosler BT's but still very good for that caliber. It went from .6-.8 groups up to the 1.0-1.3 range, which is still ok. Seems to my, from my experience that the TSX line improves the field performance of most of the calibers in that line.

I have a 1 in 14 twist 22-250 which shoots the 53 gr. TSX's just fine. It's a heavy barreld varmint rifle and I need a sporter.