The Verminator 2.0

[MacTech]

A while back, I had "Verminator", a .22LR H&R Sportster with a Bushnell Rimfire 3-9X scope and Shooter's Ridge 9-13" bipod, great little gun, accurate, reliable, and fun to shoot, it netted me a big female woodchuck that had been raiding my small garden that summer, after that kill, I dubbed it "The Verminator"

a few months later, I was laid off from my job as a Mac repair tech, due to the bad economy and a *massive* drop-off in customer traffic, so I had to sell some guns to shore up my dwindling bank account, sadly, The Verminator was one of them

Things are looking up now, have a nice job with a stable, secure company that's actually *still hiring* in this economy, so I figured it was time to replace The Verminator

I had some Christmas money and a gift card to KTP to put towards the gun, I had a spare Bushnell 4-15X AO Trophy and the Shooter's Ridge bipod still around, so all i'd need is the gun itself

So, last night, I stopped in at KTP, and picked up a rather nice little H&R Sportster with the heavy .17HMR bull barrel, and in a departure from my normal firearm purchases, this one was new, plus, thanks to my Christmas money, it cost me nothing out of pocket

I got it home, attached the bipod and scope, and Verminator 2.0 was born , it's sure a heavy little beast as well, with the scope and bipod mounted, it tips the scales at 10 pounds, with all that weight and the heavy bull barrel, it should have no recoil at all

From what I've read about the .17HMR cartridge, and the HMR H&R Sportster, I think I'm gonna enjoy it, the inherent accuracy, the sheer fun of making produce get all 'splodey (potatoes, cukes, tomatoes, citrus and the like), and the terminal effects on woodchucks and other varmints

I love the heavy bull barrel, I think that it will definitely help keep the groups tiny, but I'm kinda' torn on the furniture, I'm a wood-and-steel kinda' guy (preferably walnut and bluing), the standard poly furniture the Sportster wears just leaves me cold, it's nothing special, plain, boring, and mundane, but it *is* durable and weather resistant, still, it doesn't have the warmth, character, or weight of wood

OTOH, in it's current incarnation, in it's poly furniture, it has a kind of "Sniper-y" EBR-esque look to it....

I'm leaning more towards picking up the Buffalo Classic furniture for it, give it a kind of "Mannlicher-esque" look, or maybe even a nice thumbhole stock and matching fore-end

Hopefully, if the wind left over from the blizzard will go away, I may be able to spend the long New Years weekend at the range trying out Verminator 2.0

Pics later...

 

[G27RR]

Glad you got a replacement and a new job. Any pics yet?

 

[MacTech]

And the pics;

 

[G27RR]

Looks like fun. A wood stock woul dress it up, but synthetic does have advantages, too. Congrats again.

 

[BrocLuno]

Now go hit something

 

[MacTech]

First range shots, after getting the gun more or less sighted in on paper (I had it boresighted at KTP to get it "on paper") it was pretty much dead-on from boresighting, needing only 4 clicks to the left and two clicks down, it required the least amount of correction of any rifle I had boresighted yet

here are the pics, in the order I shot them, all five shot groups with Hornady 17 grain V-Max cartridges

group #4 was the tightest one yet

My first shot in this group was absolute dead-center on the crosshairs in the middle of the pie wedges, at first I thought I had missed the paper, but then I saw that tiny .17 caliber hole....

Bear in mind this is from a *BRAND NEW* gun that I have never shot before...

It did take around 25 rounds for the gun to settle into the accuracy you're seeing here, and I'm sure it'll get better the more I shoot it

I resisted the .17HMR for the longest time, thinking it would be a fad, a flash in the pan, but I was wrong, the .17HMR is a bloody good round and is just as accurate as they say it is

Once I'm comfortable with 50 Yard shooting, I'll plan on doing mostly 100 yard shooting with the .17HMR, as it's too boringly accurate at 50Y

 

[Geno]

Single-shot firearms are so under-rated. IMHO, a shootist who uses either a single-shot, or who loads a single round, sends a very clear message regarding their intended target: I need only one shot! I have developed and affirmed my own varmint theorem:

1POA + 1POI = 1 varmint DOA

Kudos, and dang, that is a great looking rifle!

Geno

 

[mshootnit]

Looks to me like you are going to have a half moa rifle there... good shooting. Mine is a Savage 93R17 with the sporter weight barrel. Sharp shooter trigger and glass bed. I have a Weaver 2-7X28 on it in Warne Maxima rings. That is one sweet rifle. With 17 you don't need the heavy barrel, the smaller bore means more metal around it than it needs even in sporter configuration, but from a bench the extra weight doesn't matter. FYI I have always go the best groups with the Hornady 17 gr. ammo (with my rifle)

 

[MacTech]

Agreed, there's a lot to be said for the mindset/skill the use of a single-shot engenders, forces the shooter to concentrate more on shot placement, to make that one shot count....

Of course, the biggest "drawback" I'm finding to the .17HMR, and Handis in general, is they're just too much fun...

As I stated previously, I had resisted the .17HMR for the longest time, surely it was nothing more than the latest fad, that it wasn't going to stick around, that it was better to stick to the proven "classics", the .22LR and .22 Mag, after all, how effective could a tiny 17 grain .17 caliber bullet be, heck, even the 20 grain is only three grains more weight, that couldn't amount to anything.... and the .22 Mag gives me bullet weight ranges from 30 to 50 grains, and with the heavier bullet, hits harder, heck, the CCI Maxi-Mag HP+V is almost as speedy as the HMR and a heavier 30 grain bullet to boot...

Logically, the WMR should utterly stomp the HMR....

I also have a Marlin 883SS tube fed bolt .22WMR, but I have yet to find ammo that it likes, and I also need to scope it to make sure both guns get a fair comparison, it's not fair comparing an iron sighted WMR to a scoped HMR at 50 yards, at the moment, the WMR groups are beyond unacceptable (closer to shotgun patterns) due to the iron sights and I not getting along, but I'm going to withhold judgement until I get the 883 properly scoped, I still have to try CCI Maxi-Mag, Maxi-Mag HP+V, Remington polytip, and whatever Hornady loads for .22 Mag before I give up on it

I can see myself putting far more trigger time behind the HMR, it's just plain *FUN* to shoot, no it may not have the wide range of ammo availability of the humble .22 standard (S,L,LR, and power from Super Colibri to Stinger), but it shoots like a frakkin' laser, and those ballistic tip V-Maxes do an impressive job on produce (vaporizes apples easily) and cuts a good size crater into the sand/gravel backstop at the range, it easily created a softball-sized crater in the gravel

Plus, KTP has been running specials weekly on HMR ammo, last week it was the Hornady V-Max for $10.99, this week, the Federal TNT for $11.99, and that's about what they're selling WMR ammo for, pricing for the two magnum rimfires is pretty much the same, but they move a heck of a lot more HMR per week, the HMR is definitely more popular in this area

...and now I know why

Oh and Handis/Toppers are just as addictive as Lays potato chips to boot, I just realized that my H&R's outnumber all the other guns in my collection (Topper Deluxe Classic 20 gauge, Buffalo Classic Carbine .45 Colt, Sportster .17HMR)

I guess that's why they refer to the acquiring of multiple Handis as "Handiholism" over at Graybeard Outdoors.....

I've actually been contemplating trading the Marlin 883SS towards a Handi Rifle in .223 if I can't get it to group well once it's scoped, my minimum criteria for rifle accuracy is 1" groups at 50Y, 1/2" or lower is preferable, and at the moment, my 883SS is not meeting my accuracy criteria, and it's the only rifle in the collection that's not grouping well

I truly believe that "only accurate rifles are interesting", if it can't shoot a minimum of 1" groups, it doesn't get to stay with me....

 

[MacTech]

What a difference a sunshade makes....

Strangely enough, the black poly furniture is actually ......growing.... on me, it may not have the warmth and weight of a nice walnut or beechwood stock, but it has a certain ....evil charm.... of it's own, and besides, at around ten pounds as you see it there, i really don't think adding any more weight would do anything other than making freehand shooting more difficult due to supporting a ten pound weapon

I think the only thing this rifle needs, aside from more ammo and more range time, is a set of flip-up caps, and that's mainly to protect the glass at both ends of the scope tube, this is going to stay a strictly *functional* rifle, I have no plans to "Tacti-cool" it out by adding a lot of extraneous useless add-ons, everything currently on it is on it for a functional reason

This is my precision/benchrest rig, I've tried supporting it on a front sandbag/rest and with the bipod, there's practically no difference in accuracy there, too many other variables, wind, temperature, shooter ability for bags/bipod to make any appreciable difference

Bipod; there for support when shooting from a bench, the ground, or other solid, flat surface
Scope; the HMR has no irons, so a scope is the only viable option, and as it's going to be used for both varminting and paper punching at ranges from 25 feet to 100+ yards, AO was a requirement
Sunshade; keeps lens flare to a minimum when varminting
Hammer Extension; needed to be able to thumb back hammer when action is closed

Since I'm looking for pure functionality with this gun, me putting wood furniture on it would be a purely cosmetic reason, and not a functional reason, so even though I prefer wood, in this case, wood furniture could be seen as a "useless cosmetic accessory", it does nothing that the stock poly furniture doesn't already do except look nicer

Bear in mind that the last paragraph is coming from someone who prefers wood and steel over the latest "plastic fantastic" craze, the only poly guns in my collection are this H&R, and my Ruger Mark II 22/45 pistol, everything else is in wood furniture