ARs for Varmints--Pros and Cons

This is a Pro/ con thread.
Your post gets a big Pro!

 

All pro zero con!

 

I put together another AR in 204. Wilson barrel. Should shoot good. Will find out this weekend. It's the middle one.

 

I painted another one. There not just black rifles anymore.

 

Colt 6724. 669th one made . Pro!

 

Just my opinion: I love the AR-15 for hunting "varmints". I hunt hogs, coyotes, and bobcats and exclusively at night under thermal (read: I can't judge distances with thermal easily so flat-shooting is highly desirable). I started with the "standard" .223 Remington for coyotes and a 6.5 Grendel for the hogs (this was before bobcats became a problem and entered my hunting world). I hated changing rifles and didn't want to use the 6.5 Grendel for coyotes seeing it as too large for the intended targets (downrange liability is something I am concerned with) and also too slow to shoot flat enough for shots at or over 300 yards if it was zeroed at 200 yards. I bought a .224 Valkyrie barrel with the idea of using the 60gr Nosler BT for coyotes (and later, bobcats) and the 75-90gr bullets for hogs. The shortcoming of this idea is that the heavier bullets drop closer in, enough that I have plowed dirt while shooting at hogs at distances of about 200 or so yards when I was zeroed for 200 yards with the 60gr bullets. I messed around until I found the 64gr Nosler Bonded Solid Base bullets and now have one bullet that works for all three targets. I have killed hogs with the 60gr Nosler bullets when I got caught expecting coyotes but found hogs, but the shot placement was too critical for my taste to provide anything one would consider an "ethical kill". Now that I've settled on that bullet, I could have done just fine all along with the .223 Remington.

Carrying it further: the AR-15 allows easy configuration/change of most any component from the stock to the muzzle, with countless choices in between. Almost every component is easily changed with simple tools which are affordable. The semi-auto action is invaluable to me for if I miss and need a quick follow-up shot (these critters do not loiter around after a near miss) or if I find a group of hogs and need to take multiple, rapid shots at multiple targets, and the rifle is light enough to walk around with (I do a LOT of walking properties). Being able to run a 10 round magazine when I am only expecting to find coyotes or bobcats and then change to a 20 or 30 round magazine if I'm expecting (hoping) to run into a mess of hogs is also nice. To me, the only "con" is that, shooting suppressed, I get a puff of gas back in my face (even with an adjustable gas block), which is noticeable.

I hunt almost every single night of the week and have for well over a year and a "just a few nights a week" for months before that; I've put hundreds of rounds on targets in that time with this platform and have no desire to change to any other platform. I've got bolt-action rifles (which I love), and have shot/owned several other "platforms" of semi-auto rifles, but the AR-15 is my choice for "varmint" hunting. One last thing which I like about the platform is the ease with which it disassembles for cleaning.

All this "gun stuff" is like religion: everybody's got their own flavor, this is just mine.

--HC

 

I just acquired a 6.5 Grendel upper and I'm loading some 107 gr Sierra's for Coyotes and any other varmint that needs removal.

 

The very first AR I tinkertoyed together was when the flat-top uppers first hit the market via Eagle Arms (maybe '88?).

24" Krieger 12" twist with a std 223 Rem chamber. Burnt that barrel out grinding PD's into chunks. 1000's of them succumbed to that devil. Fixing to build a duplicate for a friend with a better trigger than was available in '88 (which was nothing) once I get the barrel finished up.

 

I have one that I built. For barrel, I would go no longer than 20". You give up a lil velocity, but gain a ton in manueverability. Other than that, pretty much any rig you wanna carry should do just fine. I have a 4-12 Redfied Revolution on mine. 3-9 would be just fine, too. Make sure you have a nice sling as well. Kind of an awkward gun to carry. I'm considering giving a single point sling a try.