Like many folks here on the forum, I have been on a quest for the perfect deer rifle.
I set about by first laying out the "Engineering Requirement".
My choice of rifles ended up being one of the big name compact rifles, synthetic stock, 18" barrel, in .243 caliber.
After mounting the scope and sling, I weighed the rifle and it came out just a bit over 7 lbs. Great.
It was for sure compact and I had no doubt about it being durable. I had read enough about the .243 caliber to know it would work out to 300 yards, would be flat shooting and everyone raved about how low the recoil was.
I was very excited that I had done it.
Now all that was left was to shoot the rifle in and get used to it.
I was very excited on my first trip to the range and set everything up for my first shots. I placed a full steam factory load into the chamber, placed the cross-hairs on the target and fired of a round. There was a deafening explosion out of the barrel and the gun jumped up and to the rear. Wow! I shook my head and quickly checked to make sure I did indeed have my earplugs in. Yep. I said to myself, OK, lets get ready this time and once again let of a full steam round. Ka-bloo-eee ! as fire ripped from the muzzle.
At this point I knew I was in trouble. Further rounds down range had the same effect, so I packed up and left, feeling crummy.
As I am an engineer by profession, I looked at this "problem" as solvable so I set in motion a corrective action plan.
First, I tried factory reduced recoil ammo. Yep, it did help, but the little beast still had a heck of a recoil and muzzle blast. I also faced the fact that this ammo was not lead free, which in much of California, that is a requirement.
Alright, time to go to hand loads. This did in fact start to tame the beast and I was shooting effectively. However, my loads were getting so low that I was not sure of the performance of the cartridge on deer at 300 yards. I am not a hand loading expert and I was getting uncomfortable with me trying to come up with a low recoil, lead free, 300 yard cartridge.
OK, new idea. I bought a muzzle brake from one of the big names and installed it on the barrel. It looked very cool, but added almost a half pound to the rifle. I also noticed that when I shouldered the rifle, the balance of the rifle was completely wrong.
Being out of time for deer season, I went ahead and hunted with this rifle. I hunted in very mountainous terrain, humping it up and down. My lightweight rifle was now not so light and I noticed.
I did not get a shot at a deer, but when I got home, I decided I would try to solve the balance problem.
I started to add some lead weight inside the stock at the rear. But, because the muzzle brake was so far out on the lever arm, the amount of lead I was adding was getting crazy.
Uhhhhhhhh, defeated I was.
My main take away from this experience is that for a recoil sensitive person, muzzle blast is more important of a factor than the felt recoil. To be effective, cartridges like this .243 must come out of the barrel at high velocity, thus a lot of powder must be burned. This becomes a problem with short barrels, like this guns 18".
As Randy N. says, sharing your failures is as important as the successes. I have decided to sell this gun, and for 2017 will be once again trying to meet my engineering requirement.
I have some ideas that I will share in later posts.
Cheers,
Mark
I set about by first laying out the "Engineering Requirement".
- Cartridge choice to be effective on Mule deer up to my range limit of 300 yards
- Flat shooting
- Low recoil
- Weight of 7 lbs with scope
- Small size
- Durable enough to not worry about dings and dents
- Moderately priced
My choice of rifles ended up being one of the big name compact rifles, synthetic stock, 18" barrel, in .243 caliber.
After mounting the scope and sling, I weighed the rifle and it came out just a bit over 7 lbs. Great.
It was for sure compact and I had no doubt about it being durable. I had read enough about the .243 caliber to know it would work out to 300 yards, would be flat shooting and everyone raved about how low the recoil was.
I was very excited that I had done it.
Now all that was left was to shoot the rifle in and get used to it.
I was very excited on my first trip to the range and set everything up for my first shots. I placed a full steam factory load into the chamber, placed the cross-hairs on the target and fired of a round. There was a deafening explosion out of the barrel and the gun jumped up and to the rear. Wow! I shook my head and quickly checked to make sure I did indeed have my earplugs in. Yep. I said to myself, OK, lets get ready this time and once again let of a full steam round. Ka-bloo-eee ! as fire ripped from the muzzle.
At this point I knew I was in trouble. Further rounds down range had the same effect, so I packed up and left, feeling crummy.
As I am an engineer by profession, I looked at this "problem" as solvable so I set in motion a corrective action plan.
First, I tried factory reduced recoil ammo. Yep, it did help, but the little beast still had a heck of a recoil and muzzle blast. I also faced the fact that this ammo was not lead free, which in much of California, that is a requirement.
Alright, time to go to hand loads. This did in fact start to tame the beast and I was shooting effectively. However, my loads were getting so low that I was not sure of the performance of the cartridge on deer at 300 yards. I am not a hand loading expert and I was getting uncomfortable with me trying to come up with a low recoil, lead free, 300 yard cartridge.
OK, new idea. I bought a muzzle brake from one of the big names and installed it on the barrel. It looked very cool, but added almost a half pound to the rifle. I also noticed that when I shouldered the rifle, the balance of the rifle was completely wrong.
Being out of time for deer season, I went ahead and hunted with this rifle. I hunted in very mountainous terrain, humping it up and down. My lightweight rifle was now not so light and I noticed.
I did not get a shot at a deer, but when I got home, I decided I would try to solve the balance problem.
I started to add some lead weight inside the stock at the rear. But, because the muzzle brake was so far out on the lever arm, the amount of lead I was adding was getting crazy.
Uhhhhhhhh, defeated I was.
My main take away from this experience is that for a recoil sensitive person, muzzle blast is more important of a factor than the felt recoil. To be effective, cartridges like this .243 must come out of the barrel at high velocity, thus a lot of powder must be burned. This becomes a problem with short barrels, like this guns 18".
As Randy N. says, sharing your failures is as important as the successes. I have decided to sell this gun, and for 2017 will be once again trying to meet my engineering requirement.
I have some ideas that I will share in later posts.
Cheers,
Mark
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