A good friend and I made it out for some chuck shooting Sunday. Sunday dawned much cooler and very windy. It was a nice change from the heat we have had so early this June.
I recently aquired a custom 22 Nosler assembled with top end parts built by a very skilled local gunsmith. Load work for the rifle was very easy and I settled on a stiff charge of H4985, CCI 400's and the Hornady 53 grain Vmax. I have not clocked this load yet but I expect it to be in the 3600 fps range at our elevation and the 24" barrel. Accuracy is very good and I know from experience the 53 grain Vmax is a great varmint bullet.
We hunted one property that features broken rock canyons flowing down into pasture, alfalfa and potatoes.
The property has not been hunted much this year and the chucks were out in very good numbers. We killed 68 rockchucks with 70 shots with the rifle. Shooting was off the hood of "The Beast" a 1970's Suburban with the perfect flat hood that was surely conceived just for that purpose!
I was very impressed with both the rifle and cartridge. While the distances were short-mid range the wind was very tough and given the steep angles the rear bag not always usable. The performance of the load was just what you would hope for. Very explosive and quick humane kills. The Nosler's performance was much more like my 220 Swift and significantly better than my 223's. This is typical of the damage incurred out to 250 yards. Recoil in the semi-automatic was more like a 223 and all hit's were seen by each of us plus the two misses. That is a great feature of the rifle/cartridge especially if shooting alone. The CMC trigger is a very good trigger. My shooting companion has not been much of a fan of the Black Rifles but he is changing is mind after Sunday!
I also had a new binocular with me. I found a great little pair of 8x30 Zeiss Diafun an old model new in the box for $150.00. They are very light and give a great image.
Mike.
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