Plinkin' Rifles
Hey! Just noticed this one. (Lordy! I need a 30-hour day!)
Military rifles for cheap plink duty? The SKS is a pretty good piece, and some I've handled are surprisingly accurate once ya get'em dialed in...but I don't own one, so I can't really make a call on how good your chances are of not gettin' a dog. I've seen it go both ways. One will do pretty well, and the next one shoots minute of dump truck.
One of my current plinkin' rifles is an issue 03-A3 Springfield built by Smith-Corona. Wicked accurate with 168-grain Hornady Match bullets and IMR 4350, and a 200-yard milk jug buster with my 180-grain gas-checked cast bullets and 4064 loaded to 2300 fps.
The Enfields are also good, but ammo can be a little pricey unless you roll your own...and even then if you use decent jacketed bullets. Not so bad if you can find decent non-corrosive surplus ball...but not as accurate with that stuff.
M-1 carbines are fun, but the rising collector status has driven the prices beyond what you'd probably want to spend on one AND shoot very much. PMC makes very good ball ammo for the "War Baby."
Never could get an FR-8 to shoot unless solidly bedded.
Three of my favorite fun rifles did field duty as deer rifles for a long time, until I found that I'd rather take pictures of Bambi and Company than harvest'em. A scoped Ruger M-77 Ultralight and two M-77 RSI International carbines with the neat New England Custom Guns (NECG) aperture sight...
all .308 Winchester...All glass and pillar bedded and all close to One-Minute
rifles with the right ammo. A third, scoped RSI carbine will shoot under a minute out to 300 yards as long as I don't have a third cuppa turbocoffee
before I head for the range. Yes! That DO make a difference.
An M-77 sporter (.223) in a Bell & Carlson stock is my toy that sometimes doubles as a killer of groundhogs when they get so thick that the dairy farmers start payin' a 2-dollar bounty on'em. They little guys are marked for that big pasture in the sky anyway, and I figger that a quick death beats poison....so I go get'em.
If you've got the bucks to spend on one...The RSI international with the
NECG sight is well-balanced, accurate and pretty with the sleek and sexy Mannlicher full-length stock, and once ya get it bedded and work up a good load, about as good as it gets in a light carbine. Classy little rifles.
Did I mention that I like bolt rifles?