May well be a printing mistake, but noticed that Ruger is offering subject rifle in 223 caliber on their web site?? Express style open sights, barrel mounted sling swivel band on a 223 rifle seems a bit out of place, but guess it could be used for small critters when needed.
Might just buy one for it's bound to be a scaricity in the future. You never know.

This rifle was a result of several folks thinking that this would be an ideal trainer for the heavier calibers. Set up with the same optics and sling setup it would be an economical rifle to shoot and give most of the gunhandling skills necessary to shoot the big bores better.

I ordered one back in Feb. Got it last week, nicely done. They said the first batch is sold out and none available right now. Downside is they cost the same as the big bores, so when you pull down on a rock chuck with one you just pretend he is a minature "buffalo"

The thought of being used as a "training rifle" occured to me and certainly a good idea. We don't have any rock chucks here, but we have some hefty groundhogs that would substitute for a buffalo I guess.

I had the same idea a while back and went with a CZ 527 LUX with sights in .223,,works well!

uh - how much big bore ammo could i load for the price of a training rifle

I think it would depend on your training regiment..20...200...2000 rounds?

I wish they offer it and the Scout rifle in 450 Marlin. Make a great little heavy caliber carbine that would be a lot of fun.
The 416 Ruger's ammo costs are a lot more and not nearly as much fun IMHO

Cheers, John

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
uh - how much big bore ammo could i load for the price of a training rifle

The plinking load for my 404 Jeffery has enough "feel" to give good practice and is a 350gn GC at 1400fps over 20gn Red Dot so I get 350 shots for a LB of powder. That means there are a lot of rounds go down range from the actual rifle I would be hunting with, not one that is slightly similar. I usually finish with a few of the cast loads at 2365fps pushed by 74gn Varget or 1900fps by 63gn H4350.

To me the training rifle concept is a flawed concept, but the rifle ( that will be used) with training loads makes more sense. The feeding of the ammo, the actual sighting equipment, the feel of THAT particular rifle ,bolt throw etc all breed a familiarity the a seperate rifle with its own subtle idiosyncracies cant bridge other than in a broad brushstrokes sort of way that may not be quite enough when it really counts.

Von Gruff.

If I understood correctly the .223s were originally pushed by some of the shooting schools.

SSR

I used it as a way to jusify another rifle to myself..
Each one of my "hunting" rifles have several loads made up for different usage..fast,slow,cast,pratice,sub-sonic,ect...