I started shooting when I was 8, went through a variety of BB & Pellet guns, then my Dad got me a Marlin 22 for Christmas one year, then a friend who was moving away gave me his Granddad's old 1917 Savage Sporter in 25-20 - that's the gun I first really started getting after the ground-hogs good with. But then I had a young married guy move in next to us and man he was a hunter to his core, and he took me one afternoon to find this wonderful used '79 Remington 700 BDL in .222 with a dandy little Leupold 3-9 Vari-x IIc on it. Got the gun and scope together for $350. I'll never forget the excitement of bringing that rifle home to see what it would really do the first time we shot it. It is to this day one of the most accurate rifles in my arsenal. I've put it away several times over the years, but somehow it always eventually bubbles back up to the top of my projects list - and it shoots just about every combination of components I have ever thrown at it, really well. Loads come together FAST!
I must have killed 1,000 or more ground-hogs with my 222 by now (age 52). Mild, yet deadly, efficient and extremely accurate.
My father passed earlier this year. My young young neighbor a few years before him. A couple of uncles who supported my shooting interests even before that. And I also lost a guy at Church who had always reloaded for me, and I've always regretted not having gotten into reloading sooner as I could have picked his brain and learned a lot I'm sure. He reloaded both my 25-20 as well as my 222 for a while, but he told me early on to save all my brass and I did that for some 15 or 20 years which made it really nice then when I did eventually decide to commit to rolling my own. Now I fiddle a lot with a 22 hornet as well, so I've got a good varmint gun progression... 25-20, which was replaced by the 22 hornet, which was surpassed by the 222, to 22-250, etc.
Good stuff. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
|
11-17-2018, 02:22 AM
Threaded Mode