Making Weight and Making Empties:
A Tale of Two Rifl es Part One John Markwell
kindled something that engulfs you. At the 2010 NRA Conven- tion and Show in Charlotte, North Carolina, I bumped into two guys – Terry Eby of Bergara Barrels and Mike Guerra of Colt. Each of these gentlemen made me an offer I couldn’t pass up. It was worse than playing with matches. Colt was introducing the Colt Coyote varmint rifl e on the AR platform and Mike was spearheading the project. Arrangements were made to have a Coyote sent to West Virginia for a review in The VARMINT HUNTER Magazine®. Terry and I got to discuss- ing a light varmint rifl e project that I had been considering and a plan was hatched to have the Bergara folks in Spain build me a really lightweight, .22 caliber, fl uted barrel to be fi tted to the Remington action that I had been sitting on for quite some time. Both rifl es have been on and off the front burner for a year, and now that they are both fi nished, the heat is fi nally being turned up to “high.” Time to get cookin’! THE GOALS
R As this plan evolved, goals were projected for each
rifl e. The goal for the light varmint rifl e project was to see if I could build a light (super light?) 223 varmint rifl e, out of readily available components, that would equal, or come close to, the weight of my New Ultra Light Arms Model 20 in 250 Savage. The “out of readily available components” was the really important part of the equation. Many folks want to build guns but can’t see their way clear to pay the price for some of the custom stuff on the market, like $1,000 actions.
ifl e projects are sort of like fi res. Get enough sparks together and the next thing you know you have
So, making weight was the goal for this rifl e. How close could we come to the NULA model 20’s 6.36 lb. weight? And, how well would it shoot? Having never had an AR platform varmint rifl e, there
actually were two goals for the Colt Coyote. The fi rst was to do a thorough testing of the rifl e to see just how this platform would perform as a precision varminter with an assortment of factory ammunition and my old standby 223 handload, which has shot well in more rifl es than I care to think about. The second goal, assuming the rifl e’s performance was up to par, was to shoot the blazes out of the AR Coyote on both targets and live varmints, thus making lots of empties! I wanted to see how this rifl e shot and how it would hold up, functionally, compared with bolt guns, in the rigors of the varmint fi elds. Could I shoot the heck out of it, like I do my workhorse bolt action rifl es, with as little trouble as the bolt guns have historically given me? APRIL 2011
It took quite a while (almost six months) to get the Colt
Coyote rifl e into my hands. Same for the Bergara barrel for the light varmint rifl e project. Both have been on site now for a while, although the 20" Bergara barrel was sent off immedi- ately to be installed on my action. The Colt AR Coyote is get- ting set up with a Leupold VX-III 4.5-14x40mm (my preferred 223 varmint scope) and should be ready for testing soon. THE COLT AR COYOTE
Although I have a couple of Colt AR-15 carbines and an FNH SCAR16S, I never have owned an autoloading varmint
Fully painted and field ready, the Coyote and the Walkabout should prove to be highly effective varminters.
Page 118 Winter 2012
The Spartan Walkabout on the author’s bench.
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