The Browning X-Bolt Varmint Stalker
and March 2.5-25x Scope There are lots of reasons to have a good quality
.308 Winchester in your gun safe John Antanies
but in general, longer shots and often in windy conditions. Here is where a caliber heavier than a .224 begins to shine. Classic cartridges include the .243 Winchester and the .25-06, but the .308 Winchester has long been a popular cartridge for long-range target work, so why not for varmints? The .308 Win. may not be a hot-
The X-Bolt has a composite stock and a fairly stiff heavy barrel. The trigger is adjustable. It comes with a detachable box magazine, which some shooters love while others abhor it.
to be unsuitable for varmints. And when it comes to shooting prairie dogs and ground squirrels at ranges out to 300 yards, I couldn’t agree more. Any cartridge that recoils more than a .22
M
any hunters consider any cartridge over .224 caliber
centerfi re makes a day of shooting a bit exhausting. But lots of readers hunt varmints that don’t offer hundreds of shots. Take ’chucks, for example. Whether they be woodchucks in the East or rockchucks in the West, either one means limited shooting opportunities,
shot when compared with a 6.5-.284, but there is no shortage of target and varmint rifl es chambered for this round and, unlike a full-blown custom rifl e, one need not get a second mortgage to pay for them. There are plenty of good quality bullets available in .308 caliber. Finally, the .308 Win. is easy on barrels, unlike some of the long-range hot shot cartridges so popular today. Readers with limited experience
might be dismissing the .308 at this point. After all, it is positively a slow poke compared with most varmint cartridges, and when compared with some of the “super magnums” it looks like a C130 chasing an F22 Raptor. But the most important consideration for a long-range rifl e is not fl at trajectory; today’s rangefi nders have solved the mystery that once limited us to shots of less than 400 yards. Accuracy? It is not a consideration – it is a requirement, for inaccurate rifl es simply will not hit small targets at long range. Lucky for us, the .308 Win. shines when it comes to accuracy. As I wrote in my article “Some
The author chose to write about the .308 Winchester cartridge in the Browning X-Bolt. It's a great long-range cartridge in moderate numbers, but the recoil is too much for high volume shooting like prairie dogs.
Page 74 October — December 2011
Mathematical Considerations of Long Range Shooting” (April 2011), the real limitation of long-range shooting is one’s ability to judge the effects of wind. Shooting bullets with the highest ve- locities and highest ballistic coeffi cients helps, but at some point all bullets drift enough that a shooter must compensate.
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