Im trying to sell my ruger so i can purchase a handi rifle. Im planning on floating the heavy barrel, sending it back for trigger job, 8-32x44AO BSA scope or Bushnell 6-18x50, And plan on shootin winchester varmint 45 grain hollow points. Does anyone know what i should expect for grouping? Or does anyone have ideas about other rifles i shouldlook at. Ive read savage's get good groups. Need some help thanks.

Everyone just not like me or what?

I had a handi-rifle in a 243. I absolutely hated it. It just needed everything tweeked alittle bit. I ended up hating the 243 for quite a few years because of that rifle. I have a 243 in a savage configuration now, and if I can see it, it's dead.
Just a sidenote, the handi-rifles don't feed well with a 20 round clip.
Trigger

I just shot my first groundhog of the year today with a 223 Handi-rifle. 40 degrees and snow on the ground. Texas heart shot ripped her open and spilled her brood all over the grass.

I bought it for closer work around my farm buildings. It's not a benchrest gun. Pests and cats. 50 yards is pretty much the limit. However I did sight it at the 100 yard range once and it shot moa groups with 50 gr Speer TNT hollowpoints. Yes, the factory trigger could use attention!

[ 04-10-2003, 08:06: Message edited by: onefunzr2 ]

My .223 handi rifle will only do about 1.25-1.5" for 5rds at 100 yds,on the other hand my handi in 45-70 thinks it was made for bench rest shooting,almost all groups under .75 or better,one cast bullet load shoots in the .10`s with my brother pulling the trigger,I always throw 1 or 2 out of my group when I start to shoot that well.it has been fire lapped and all I shoot in it is moly coated,cast and jacketed,with cast bullets at medium speeds grouping best,I still need to work on my 223,fire lap,smooth up trigger,moly treat the bore etc,I hope it will do better than it has so far.it likes the 52gr berger flat base bullets the best with h-322 under them.good luck

My NEF Superlight was kinda finicky at first but it's an MOA shooter now. It shot the 45 gr Win Varmint pack loads pretty well, also liked the Black Hills reloads,and Ultramax reloads. I use 40 gr Nosler BTs or 50 gr Sierra Blitz in my own handloads.

All in all it's not what I'd call a tackdriver, but I am more than satisfied with it for the price of $179.00 plus scope.

I also have a Savage 10FP in 223 and it's a real shooter. Heavier than hell though, that's where the NEF comes in - for walk around shooting.

Dave

I have a heavy barreled, NEF, in .223 that shoots very well. I sent it back for another barrel (.243) and a free trigger job. It shoots even better with the "new" trigger. Try some cheap, Winchester, .223, in the white box. It shoots MOA in my rifle (better than any handload I've come up with so far).

I picked up a superlight handi in .223 about a month ago. It took a little tweaking here and there, but now it for sure shoots at least MOA, if not under with certain loads.

Ive tried several different loads in it so far and here are the development results Ive had…

50 and 55 grain vmaxes seated out to within .010 the lands it didnt seem to like. They went about 1.5-2"/100yds using H335.

55grain el cheapo bulk packed win SP bullets seated to the cantalure shot about MOA/100yds using the same load as the 55grain Vmax.

I tried some of the 35grain Vmax bullets using H335. I saw the first hole and through the 12x scope I couldn’t see any new holes after firing three more shots.I walked downrange to check if they were even on paper. I about fell over when I noticed that they were shooting into one ragged hole. Im seating these bullets about 1 cal into the case, leaving _A_ LOT_ of space between it and the lands. The 35 grain bullets are built like a brick and with a BC of .109 they lose enough speed to pretty much be worthless after 300ish yards on larger targets like coyotes.

Overall it seems that my rifle likes the bullets set WAY off of the rifling.

My only real plans for this rifle is short-mid range coyotes, diggers and PDs. If I need to stretch out more thats what I have the 22-250 for.


For the money I cant complain a bit about the rifle. For about $200, it shoots well, its light(scope and all it weighs in under 6.75lbs), dang near 10lbs less then my Savage setup. All in all I think they are a steal.

Changes I have done to the rifle…

Added a rubber washer to the front barrel lug
Removed enough plastic from the two rear ‘tips’ on the hand guard so they don’t touch the receiver

Hope this helps

Mudruck

Shot this group and some others similar with a SB-2 with the heavy "ultra" 24" .223 tube. Heavy factory trigger and all. 27.2 grains of W-748 under a 40 grain v-max col 2.235". Sorry about the 82 yards ...it was off of a picnic table before I had my 100yd range set-up. have some 10x loaded up and ready to try when the weather breaks.

My ultra .223 shoots into 1 1/4 at 100 yards.

I put the factory synthetic stock set on my SB2/.223, polished the chamber, floated the forearm and polished the trigger group.

It shoots the Win VARMINT PACK ammo into .75", this the average of 15 groups fired over 4 different range sessions.

For around $200.00 out the door, you take a slight chance on a lemmon, out of 5 tries I have 3 keepers; the .22mag, the .223 and the .30/30.