seafire

I pretty much ran the gamit of cartridges shooting long range rock chucks for the 18 years i lived in NE Oregon. Back in the day I found the 6.5-280 with the old pre-interlok Hornadys to give the best long range (500yards +) performance both from exterior ballistic perspective and the terminal perspective. After a few years many of us thought it sacraligous to shoot a rock chuck under 300 yards. ) - 300 yards is what God invented PDs and Picket pins for.

Any ways with the advent of the 85 gr Sierra BTHP the 6mm Remington with a 12" twist in a 26" barrel became my odds on favorite. In a varmint weight rifle recoil did not lift mmy view through the T16 scope off target from a prone position with Harris bipod so I could see the hit of miss which is half the fun. That 85 gr Sierra and the newer tipped bullets of the same weight range have the velocity and the BC to buck the wind and still will "frizbe" a rock chuck off a rock at 600 - 800+ yards.

I used the .223, 22-250, 22-284 (atrocious barrel life), .243, .243AI, 6mm, 6mm06 (atrocious barrel life), 6.5-06 and the 6.5280 in varmint style rigs. Of course I did manage numerous rock chucks with other rifles and handguns of sporter weight but do not consider any to be long range varmint rifles. I even managed a few with an original M700 (M40) 7.62 NATO sniper rifle (bring back from Viet Nam (it now resides in the Oregon National Guard museum) with some 165 HPs.

My 6.5-280 has about 1 more rock chuck hunt/shoot left in her and will be rebarreld to a 6mm Rem with a 28" stainless barrel with a 12" twist.

Larry Gibson

6mm Rem, 49gr Reloder19, moly 87 Vmax, 27 inch Shilen supermatch (1:10 twist) on a long-action 700 Sendero= 3400fps, tiny groups, witnessed one-shot kills on groundhogs out to 1135 yards, very good in the wind and much more effective on chucks than the 105 amax or 105 Berger(though it shoots them well also). The first year I had this rifle I got 50 groundhogs at an average range of over 800 yards!