ACCURACY AND VELOCITY By Craig Boddington

This old Savage 99 in .300 Savage passes the “paper plate test” easily. Provided the terrain doesn’t require long shooting, older rifles like this should put meat in the freezer with no problem.
This old Savage 99 in .300 Savage passes the “paper plate test” easily. Provided the terrain doesn’t require long shooting, older rifles like this should put meat in the freezer with no problem.

American rifle shooters have long been obsessed by accuracy and velocity, demanding more of both than is really necessary. Mind you, neither are bad things, although it depends on what you’re doing. In target shooting, accuracy is everything, although shooting disciplines and target sizes vary widely. In hunting, let’s be honest, the vital zone of a deer-sized animal is not a small target, and it’s exactly the same size at 40 or 400 yards. If you can consistently hit a volleyball or a ten-inch paper plate you should have venison for the freezer. That vital zone looks smaller and, for sure, becomes harder to hit as distance increases, but it’s still a large target.

This is the level of accuracy that you simply must have for a serious varmint rifle, in this case Boddington’s Ruger No. One in .204 Ruger. Groups like this probably aren’t essential for most big-game hunting…but they build a lot of confidence!
This is the level of accuracy that you simply must have for a serious varmint rifle, in this case Boddington’s Ruger No. One in .204 Ruger. Groups like this probably aren’t essential for most big-game hunting…but they build a lot of confidence!

Obviously, different situations require more or less accuracy. I shoot the occasional coyote on the Kansas farm, and we wear out the armadillos because they dig up the yard, but an annual prairie dog shoot is my primary varmint hunting. A prairie dog is about three inches from back to belly so, that’s the window you must hit, and we do some of our prairie dog shooting beyond 400 yards. A one-inch group at 100 yards, what we call “Minute of Angle” (MOA) can be expected to naturally disperse to four inches at 400 yards…without taking into account wind and wobble. One MOA accuracy isn’t good enough for prairie dog shooting.

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UNDERSTANDING THE .17’S By Craig Boddington

Legend has it that the .17s originated in Australia, during a time when they were overrun with non-native foxes, in pestilence plenty, but still with value on the fur market. The advantage to the .17 was, on fox-sized animals, the tiny, frangible bullet, pushed fast, would enter, do its work…but not exit, leaving the pelt intact except for one tiny hole.

The African Cape fox is similar in size to American foxes. All of the .17s are excellent for this class of game because the light, frangible bullets rarely exit and do little pelt damage. The rifle is a Marlin in .17 HMR, the rifle Boddington keeps handy on his Kansas farm.
The African Cape fox is similar in size to American foxes. All of the .17s are excellent for this class of game because the light, frangible bullets rarely exit and do little pelt damage. The rifle is a Marlin in .17 HMR, the rifle Boddington keeps handy on his Kansas farm.

The idea migrated to North America in the 1960s, with American wildcatters developing numerous .17-caliber cartridges on various small cases. In 1971 Remington necked down the 223 Remington case to create the 17 Remington. It is still the fastest factory cartridge, propelling a 20-grain bullet at 4250 fps.

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