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MrTom

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Back in the late 1960's I got hung up on pre-1964 Model 70 Winchester rifles. Over the few following years I gathered several in standard calibers plus a 220 swift, 257 Roberts and a 458. The Swift was always my play toy, but I did have the factory barrel [approx. 70 rounds thru it] pulled and replaced with a custom barrel. Since retiring all of these toys I have put the factory barrel back on the Swift and sold the custom number. Now I'm finding myself wanting to get another small bore to mess with and pretty much have decided on a 22-250 as the caliber, but I'm dinking between the Remington 700 adl or the Ruger American. I don't want a bull barrel and really don't need one. I just want to use this to plink those pesky crows at the cabin or maybe even chase coyotes during the winter closer to home. Actually I'll likely spend as much time just shooting at the range between rounds of black powder.

I've got some first hand experience with the Remington ADL rifle [222 and a 7mm Mag], but nothing of recent manufacture and nothing having the composite stock. The Ruger I really like the feel of but have zero experience with it. Are there any opinions one way or the other over either of these guns? Cost-wise they're about the same for a bare weapon, which I want. I will spend some $$$ on optics and re-loading will be the norm.
 
Id put that 220 swift back to work, reduce the loads down to 3600fps and that barrel will last years. If you just want a new rifle a 22-250 is a great varmit round. As far as which brand is best , flip a coin.

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I'm pretty sure right now that I'll go with the Ruger. I was back out today and handled both guns and just like the feel of that little Ruger rifle. As for backing up on velocity and getting a 223, I have a 222 in a Custom Remington 700 which is a tack driver with hand-loaded ballistics darned near equal to a 223. On days where no rain is forecast I might take the 222 to the range and run a box thru it just to make certain its still shooting tight. Its capable of a ten shot group at 100 yards that can be covered by a dime. The wood on this gun is unbelievable and honestly I like to keep under wraps to protect it. The 222 was custom ordered back in 1970. I want something a bit hotter but I have no plans to use the Swift. Plus I just want a new gun. I want something that will pop a crow or raven at a couple hundred yards. We have a cabin and property in northern Minnesota and crows and ravens are my nemesis' up there. I have a 10/77 Ruger .22 mag bolt that I get after them with but I want more range......accurate range. And I want to see these bird go from birds to pfffffft.
 
MrTom said:
I want something that will pop a crow or raven at a couple hundred yards. We have a cabin and property in northern Minnesota and crows and ravens are my nemesis' up there. I have a 10/77 Ruger .22 mag bolt that I get after them with but I want more range......accurate range. And I want to see these bird go from birds to pfffffft.
A good .22-250 will definitely make that happen. At one time guys also complained that the .22-250 was a barrel burner, but they also shot 40-50 grain bullets with a case full of H380 ball powder too trying to get close to 4000fps. While accurate it is very hot and hard on throats. That is just not necessary. i will take accuracy over speed any day. You pick the right bullet with a slower powder, for slower speed and it will accomplish the same results with less wear and tear on the throat. My rifle started life as a Remington "Varmint Special", in .22-250. I shot that barrel for 7 years before I burn it out. That original barrel loved a Sierra 55gn Flat base Spitzer softpoint over 55.5gn of IMR4064. Not the fastest load (between 3500-3600fps iirc) but it would shoot groups under a dime if I did my part. Shot lots of Crows, Blackbirds and groundhogs with that load in the 150 to 250 yard range. It would about take a ground hogs head off, and make it rain feathers. :D It is a pretty easy caliber to get to shoot well if you hand load. I always hand loaded so can't say about factory ammo, but if you try a few of them out I am sure you would find one the rifle would like. I will always have a .22-250 in my safe. I am planning out a .22-250 AI and have about all the stuff needed to put it together. Maybe next summer. :roll:

I love the little 221 fireball too, but from the sound of it, the 22-250 is more in the area of what you want.
 
Imr 4064 is a great powder for the 22-250, but I only used 35.5 grains behind a hornday 53 grain match hp.

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I'll definitely be loading for whatever gun I get. The 250 has a lot of room for hyper velocity like the Swift but I plan to hold things back a bit and will likely look for accuracy inside the 3500/3700 fps bracket using a 53-55 grain bullet. When I loaded for the Swift I chronoed a load at 3980 fps with a 53 grain match hollow point and this load would evaporate a woodchuck at 200 yards. I loaded the same load only using 53 grain match solid boat tails for fox. These I could head shoot a fox at about any range and the bullets would simply buzz right thru without popping the head but often the eyes would get popped out.

I don't chase fox anymore and as mentioned the Swift is retired as an investment gun now. The cabin offers an almost non-stop supply of crows and ravens and I'm always up to running a few rounds in their direction. The 22mag is accurately effective out to about 150 yards but after a couple rounds those black birds move off a bit further then lobbing shots starts to get iffy. No wind is one thing but up there the wind seems to blow all the time and after 150 yards the little rim fire mag suffers. A 22-250 is just the ticket.

Ma wanted to go to the mall last night so I let her hit where she wanted and I went back to the store with the fun stuff and did another handle job on the 2 guns I am considering and even tried a couple others just for giggles but I keep coming back to those two, the Ruger in particular. Now I'll sit back and wait for a sale.
 
Sounds like a plan.

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Thanks for your input guys, especially on the reloading data. Having a starting point on a new caliber is great help. I have the dies and goodies for both the 222 and the Swift but basically have been away from the bench on those two guns for years. Lots of new powders are out there but I still see some of the old standards available yet and many of those I am familiar with. I have no plans to get too high tech with this gun beyond finding a suitably accurate load with moderate velocity.

Any suggestions on dies.....any one better today than another? I've been looking at Hornady and RCBS. Almost even pricing between those two and I know the name...trust them. A friend suggested Lee dies and I checked them out. They seem to be ok. Just curious what's on the market now that I will have to look.
 
I have 1 set of hornday custom dies , junk in my opinion, the depriming, expander rod keeps bending. Lee dies are ok. Rcbs have worked fantastic for me going on 50 years. There's other good die manufacturers out there, but I haven't used any of those.

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I mostly use only 2 brands of dies for the 7/8 x 14 style press. I use RCBS and Redding, mostly Redding. While RCBS is very good, I think the Redding is better and usually cost a bit more. There are 2 reasons I like the Redding better, I think they have a smoother polish in them and I like the seating, decapping stem style better. But would not turn my nose u as the RCBS. I have one Small based Hornady die and did not think it was near the quality of the RCBS or Redding, but did not need anything special for what I was using it for at the time.

Another Powder that is very good, and was used by target shooters back in the day, is IMR 3031. But I have yet to see a .22-250 that would not shoot IMR 4064 well. 35.5 gn of 4064 was listed as Max but a couple of my custom barrels would shoot 36 with no pressure issues and tighter groups, so start lower and work up like usual. I always liked the 55gn bullets a bit better as I felt they bucked the wind a bit better and gave a real good thump at the slightly slower speed that the 50. But like any rifle the barrel will let you know what it likes. My 2 favorite bullets for the last few years are the 55gn Nosler ballistic Tip and the Berger MEF. If you can get them to shoot the VMax is a good one too. I never got the 55gn VMax to shoot as well as the Nosler and the Berger in my 250 barrels, but the 40gn VMax is outstanding in my little 221 Fireball. I had one barrel once that was quite finicky which was pretty rare for all the barrels I had, and it shot the Berger real well so that was what I fed it.
 
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