Rifle Selection Help

[schmeky]

I am a senior THR member, but I shoot pistols. I have a good friend that has many rifles and is shooting at ranges up to 1,000 yards, but mostly 400 or less.

He has a good collection of varmit calibers, .223, .204 Ruger, 22-250's and 243's. We plan on doing an outing in a couple of weeks and he is going to bring a cachet of rifles and ammo. He's a reloader and so am I.

I feel I can make a good "what's good/best for me" decision on caliber after I get a chance to do some caliber comparisons.

My question is: I am very partial to CZ's, based on my autoloader experiences. I am therefore leaning heavily towards a CZ 527, varmit model. I know there are many good rifles out there. Who else makes a very good varmit rifle that needs virtually nothing out of the box (except optics of course) for a fair price.

I am also leaning towards the 22-250 and my only use will be just fun shooting at long range.

Help me out here. I trust the THR members input.

 

[Schleprok62]

Savage Model 12FV
Remington SPS Varmint

 

[Shawnee]

The Savage model 40 single-shot bolt-action in .22 Hornet is usually $350-400 and a major "sleeper". Many on GunBroker.



Hornady 35gr. Vmax 125yd zero

V-max 35 gr., .109 B.C. www.hornady.com

Range (yards) Muzzle 25 50 75 100 150 200
Velocity (fps) 3000 2783 2576 2378 2189 1838 1528
Energy (ft.-lb.) 699 602 516 440 373 263 182
Trajectory (125 yd. zero) 0.0 0.6 0.8 0.6 -1.2 -5.6

 

[HM2PAC]

+1 to Shawnee.

The .22 Hornet is a nice round.

.22-250 is no slouch, I'd like one.

 

[rangerruck]

your thoughts on cz are just fine, I bought 4 rifles, on the strenght of the 2 pistols I had, and they are flawless. I would go with a 223 at first, just because their are a million diff types and loads to buy, and reload.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

I think you'll be pleased with any CZ, including a 527. .22-250 is a fine cartridge. But does the 527 even come in .22-250, or is .223/.204/7.62x39 the biggest it handles? I don't have a 527, but I do have 550s and 452s, and love them. I am thinking of getting this HB 527 in .17 Rem that's been sitting at my gun shop for about 5 years now. I'm going to make them an offer on it since it's just taking up space down there. Beautiful rifle.

Now just so you know, there HAVE been reports of feed reliability problems from the magazine in 527s - dunno how strong/true these rumors are....

Yeah, .223 rem and .204 ruger is the max you're gonna get in the 527:

http://www.cz-usa.com/products_smallbore_rifles.php