“walking” or sporter weight rifles. A look at my battery will show you what I have for woodchuck hunting here in the Northeast, ranking them from the smallest to the largest cartridges. I still have that wonderful little


Winchester Model 67A that has been with me for years now, and on occa- sion I’ll take it into the woods for ca- sual squirrel hunting. Even without a scope, it’s fun to shoot, and along with its versatility to digest short, long, and long rifle ammunition it still is one ac- curate little rifle. Still in rimfires, my Cooper Model 57M, Remington 504, a custom shop Remington 40-XR and a newer Savage Classic are all part of the guns in my 22 rimfire battery. These days, centerfire rifles take


up most of my time, and with ’chucks where the ranges are longer and the animals heavier, my choices go from the lighter 17s to the upper 22s, and an occasional 6mm thrown in for good measure. I have a pet Cooper Model 21 complete with a Leupold 3-9x Compact scope and chambered in the 17 Mach IV. This rifle checks in at 6 pounds even. It is a pleasure to use for close ranging ’chucks and farther out squirrels. The 17 Rem- ington Fireball will be used for the first time this year, chambered in the lighter Model Seven. For appearances, I recently sent the barreled action to


the Remington Custom Shop and had Tim Butler install a very select piece of wood on the gun. To bring out the grain and color, a glossy finish was applied. To round out the gun, I then added a Leupold 2.5-8x36mm matte scope to match the finish on the gun and rings. I have a whole line of Ruger No.


1 rifles chambered in both commercial and wildcat cartridges that include the popular 204 Ruger, 218 Bee, and


the 22-250 Remington. They are fun to carry, and on occasion we will have “one-shot” hunts with a small wager on the side to enhance the challenge. Regardless of what you may have heard, the Rugers are accurate, and with the addition of rear offset rings, positioning the scope for a more comfortable eye relief is more practi- cal in the field, especially with high powered, narrow field of view scopes. I have one Ruger M77 sporter, cham-


Catching his refl ection in the stream, this fox would be easy prey for a knowledgeable hunter who had the insight to set up a blind north or south of this location.


In the summer, ’chucks are in their prime as this well-developed adult shows.


www.varminthunter.org Page 7


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