Watch out you wily woodchucks . . . .

I've been meaning to be back in touch with Yeoman about his rifle advice from last year. Since our exchange here on the blog I have picked up two smallbore guns, a CZ 527 in .223 Rem, and a Tikka T3 Lite in .243 . (I also picked up a CZ .22lr military trainer, which I and my kids absolutely love.) Here's my report so far:

CZ 527 American
Yeoman, while I think I've come to agree with you about the CZ's overall quality compared with the Tikka, let me tell you that it seems to me CZ makes you work for it. This .223 CZ gun has a very rough bolt and very rough magazine feeding. The bolt was so bad that the gunsmith at the store offered to polish it for me as a warranty repair before I even took it home.

The CZ also makes it hard (though not impossible) to mount a scope, due to (a) the short action, but also (b) the clearance needed between the scope and the bolt handle. I ended up fitting a very nice 4x14.5 x40 Nikon Buckmasters scope on it, but I won't be able to put flip-up scope caps on it.

The good news is that the .223 shoots well and seems to like (so far) Black Hills remanufactured ammo with 55 grain soft points. The set trigger is also kind of fun to play with--basically a hair trigger once it's set.

So basically the main issue is that I've got to wait for the action eventually to smooth out after shooting it a bunch more.

Tikka T3 Lite
Here's more good news. This thing shoots. I've got a Nikon Buckmasters 3X9X40 with a BDC reticle I'm not sure I need. But lookee here--at 160 yards with Federal Premium 70 grain Nosler Ballistic tips:

These rounds will go an inch high at 100 yards and an inch low at 200 yards--about right for the fields around here. While 70 grains through a .243 seems like overkill for groundhogs, one thing I learned from the elephant gun video . . . it pays to use enough gun.

Watch out you wily woodchucks.

My so-called career as a varmint hunter

This summer I've taken up a new hobby, branching out further in the hunting arts to don the role of varmint hunter. We've been inundated with a flood of woodchucks this season, and the final straw was the newly-dug burrow under the steps to our newly-remodeled year-old mudroom. Mrs. Zaitsev finally said, "Go out and get a new gun."

How many times have I longed to hear her say THOSE words.

Ahh, sweet music to my ears. I did some research, made a field trip to Bass Pro Shop, where the salesman, short of .22 cal rimfires, tried to sell me everything from .22 Hornets to .270 "varmint guns." This for woodchucks and generic plinking around the yard.

I then made a second field trip to Gander Mountain, where the salesman very helpfully educated me as to the virtues of the Marlin 980 series .22 magnum guns. After briefly contemplating the more expensive CZs and Sako Tikkas, I settled on a very nice Marlin 983S in stainless with iron sights, and bought a scope with rings and mounts while I was at it.

Marlin model 983S in .22 cal WMR

Brought it home, shot some paper, and was very pleased with its accuracy out-of-the-box, which was my prime concern. Trigger pull also seemed good, a pleasure actually, after years of yanking at my slug gun's trigger. (Remind me to get my slug gun a trigger job for Christmas.) I decided not to mount the scope yet but to see how it goes with open sights.

Next morning I'm awoken at 5:30 am by my eight year old daughter, Sophie. "Daddy, I'm sorry to wake you up, but there's a woodchuck in the yard under my window." I of course jump out of bed, look out the window, and thar she blows: VARMINT!

Downstairs I go, load up a single round, and I'm out the front door. I told the kids they could watch from their upstairs bedroom window.

Now, before I go any further . . . . Some of you may recall the exploits of a certain deer-sniping, air conditioner-loving nuisance control hunter named Zaitsev. Last year he regaled us all summer long with stories about the deer sniping life, stories whose main themes aways seemed to center around how tough and hazardous the summertime deer-sniping business is. Idling the truck, not slamming the door, horseflies the size of pigeons . . . that kind of thing.

Let me tell you, summertime woodchuck sniping is no walk in the park, either.

Out the front door I go. Skillfully placing my wife's minivan between me and the chuck, I creapt stealthily behind the van and tiptoed around the back of my pickup truck. Peering over the truck bed, I realized the chuck was now on the other side of the outhouse that we use to store garden tools. Halfway there!

Without making a sound, I stealthily maneuvered my way from behind the truck to a position just behind our propane tank. Peering over the tank's pressure valve, I located the varmint in the grass a mere eight yards away.

I raised the Marlin stainless to the ready, banging it ever so slightly on the propane tank which resonated an empty metallic-sounding echo. The chuck never looked up.

Using the propane tank as a rest, I lined up the sights broadside on the chuck, still obliviously nibbling the grass, although it had ambled away somewhat and now stood approximately 9.5 yards distant. I mentally re-calculated windage and elevation for this new range, slipped off the safety, and calmly lined lined up the front bead on the belly of the beast.

Pop! The woodchuck jumped, kicked out its hind legs, and then proceeded to make tracks for its burrow twenty yards away. "Hmmm," thinks I to myself. "I couldn't have missed it, could I?" If so, that would clearly be a case of . . . chuck fever.

I rechambered another round and was once more ready for anything. I ground-trailed the beast back to its burrow . . . success! There at the mouth of the main burrow lay an enormous female chuck, belly up, breathing her last. The Marlin was christened!

I gave the thumbs-up to the kids upstairs in the window, and Sophie came outside to assess the carnage. "Look Daddy, its leg is still twitching." Proudly I hoisted the now-dead-but-still-twitching varmint for Sophie to inspect, and after the usual self-congratulatory pleasantries were exchanged, I carried it over to the middle of the sheep pasture and deposited it in the middle. I do not feel the need to experiment with varmint stew (sorry PW), but I figured having a dead woodchuck carrion station out in the middle of the fenced pasture would be good for vultures and safe from our dogs.

There you have it. A notch on the buttstock for woodchuck number 1. Vassili Zaitsev hunts again.

Varmint

second phase of rifle thinking...

Okay, here's where I'm at now. After a week's worth of good hard advice from all of you, I made the jaunt to Bass Pro and was lucky enough to get the salesman who probably knows the most about guns there. Dave is a 68 year old gunsmith with his own shop, who spent more than 25 years doing factory certified warranty repairs for Remington, Weatherby, and other major gun makers.

After gabbing with him for over an hour, he convinced me to reconsider the Remington decision, even though he clearly favors Remington over Ruger, Savage, Winchester, and CZ if those are the only rifles under consideration. In his opinion Remington's quality control is not what it should be, and he believes that it is a 50/50 proposition of getting a great rifle or a great lemon. (Well, if not 50/50 then at least it's a bit of a crap shoot.)

So he thinks that accuracy-wise and materials-wise, the better choices in the "500 dollar bolt action rifle" class are (a) the Weatherby Vanguard, which in synthetic stock with blued barrels is about $440, and (b) the Tikka T3 Lite, which similarly configured would be about $550.

Weatherby Vanguard

Okay, so that's now part of the mix. The Weatherby is a Japanese-made gun (we know THOSE are good shooters) and weighs about 7.5 pounds. The more expensive Tikka is a Finland-made Sako gun marketed by Beretta that weighs 6.25 pounds. In Dave's estimation, the Tikka is a somewhat better made gun, but both should perform similarly. Each comes with a warranty guarantee of 1" groups at 100 yards, right out of the box. He thinks they are the best shooting value in that price range today.

Tikka T3 Lite

Does anyone know more? Anyone want to chip in with more advice? (I know you're all tired of this thread by now, but honest--I'll make it up to you some day.) I guess the real question is should I go with "better" Tikka gun and lighter weight, for more money but also more recoil . . . or should I go with the similarly performing heavier gun and save $100 to put toward better optics? The Tikka comes with scope rings, so actually it would end up being maybe $50-$60 more than the Weatherby.

I think I've probably just answered my own question, but there it is, and I appreciate any more comments that any of you might care to make.

thanks gang.

My so-called career as a deer sniper...

well gang, my neighbor the vineyard owner has gotten a nuisance permit for five deer over on Seneca Lake. While I am planning on diving in with my Rem 11-87 slug gun as soon as I have some refrigeration capability in place, I figured now's as good a time as any to start thinking about using this opportunity as an excuse to grow the gun collection. If you know what I mean.

So I'm looking for advice on purchasing my first rifle. Nuisance shooters can use centerfire guns up until 11:00 at night here in New York, plus spotlighting is legal for the job as well (but sorry Jay, no baiting allowed. go figure). So I thought I'd give getting a rifle some thought, plus I can use it if I ever travel to other states for big game.

So what would folks recommend for a first rifle. I've got some ideas but thought I'd leave this open-ended for now. You can also assume I don't know diddly doo about rifles, either, so go ahead and educate me about whatever comes to mind. thanks in advance.