Well I had, had two tremendous days of rim fire shooting in Saskatchewan and as I was leaving to head back to my motel, there were several gophers still standing in this field catching some sun. So I pulled off the road into the field, went in the back seat and uncased the CZ 527 American. This fine shooting rifle had yet to shoot anything besides holes in paper. When I bought it , the deal came with 250 rounds of 35gr Hornady ammo. The red mist was evident after I was done in this field, love the way this rounds gets gophers airborne. Super accurate from 50 feet to 100 yards. So I shot off 50 before heading back to the motel, then shot another 150 the next morning.
Never did get out the HS in 204 as there just wasn't any place to set up with that howling breeze that blew for the 3 days I was there.
Did shoot off a 100 or so 17 HMR's and several hundred round of 22. In my 2 and 1/2 days of shooting I'd say that I killed well over 500 of them critters.
That said if I'd stopped and shot at all the gopher that I would see in my 35 mile trip from the hotel to the farm, I'd never get there. Just aaamazing. FS

Stop it, your killing me, I am sitting here with snow covering all the places I usually hunt for ground squirrels this time of year. I thought I would be able to get out this weekend but it stormed the whole time I had off. DW

Gotta love the Hornet, it's a classic, I have shot a lot of rockchucks with it, most of them out my kitchen window!

I use the 35gr Hornady factory load in my Browning 1885 LoWall. It is amazingly accurate to 150 yards, and is devastating on gophers. Yes, I believe the century old, 22 Hornet may be the ultimate gopher calibre.

Hornet did I hear Hornet...

Way to go, and great little bullet that 35 grain.

The Hornet is a really cool cartridge. I have a CZ LUX Hornet with a 3-9x40mm scope on it. Great walk around GH rifle. I shoot reloads with the 35g V-max and Lil'Gun in it. Groups about 3/4" at 100 all day. It drops the biggest ones right in their shadow with one shot.

Did I mention I really like that rifle?

I have a CZ American in .223Rem that I'm almost done developing a good walk around 40g V-max GH load for. I can hardly wait to try that. 5/8" at 100, 3606 fps, +/- 1-1/8" from line of sight 16 yards to 228 yards. That ought to be a nice accurate flat shooting rifle and load combination for light wind conds. Going to be tough to choose between that amd the Hornet. they are both serious fun to shoot.

I love tough choices like that!

Fitch

308Sako,

Tell us about the gun in the photo.

Stonecreek, the proof marks say this is a 1949 production BRNO ZKW .22 Hornet with the double set trigger, two folding leafs. I used a spares set of Sako medium rings with the little nub on the rear ring removed (in this case by a .375 H&H Sako Mannlicher stocked version.) Wicked rifle which I rebarreled in my foolish youth. But that is yet another story.

Almost wish the BRNO was a 1950 model as we would share birthdays...

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Almost wish the BRNO was a 1950 model as we would share birthdays...

A vintage year: My recently acquired Sako Riihimaki .222 was built in the year of my birth also, 1950. (Not that I wouldn't be willing to trade for a 1970 birthdate these days .)

I thought those looked like Sako rings. How did you adapt them to the BRNO?

I have a Sako Model 78 Hornet that is a pure joy to shoot. Feeling that since less is good, even less is better, I shoot it mostly with a load of 6.7 grains of Bluedot under a 35 grain V-Max for about 2500 fps. You don't have to hurl the little V-max very fast for it to have a devastating effect on smallish mammalians.

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Originally posted by Stonecreek:
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I thought those looked like Sako rings. How did you adapt them to the BRNO?

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The little projection on the Sako rear bridge ring needs to be removed, then the reach of the dovetails allows the clamp down. The only problem is a very slight tendency to drift forward from "hush... recoil" over many rounds.