Favorite varmint caliber?

[drover]

imho, the perfect Prairie Dog cartridge is the 223 in about any bolt rifle. You can take 300 or more shots in a day for as many days as you are in a good dogtown. It's a very good 300 yard cartridge with plain old 52-55gr SP or HP bullets.

This is the easy and most inexpensive answer.

drover

 

[TheOtherZilla]

Dang hard to choose just one. I love the 17 HMR and 22 mag. I am 69 years old and have used just about every caliber .. 22 LR has accounted for a few thousand when i was a teen. These days it's 22 mag or 17 hummer, 222 Rem and 204.

Just one? 204

 

[Intheshop]

I'm not that picky,but we don't have PD's.Here in the mnts of Va,I like 22-250 or a 6mm Rem.

 

[K22]

My favorite is the 223 Rem in a bolt rifle (I have seven ). Since most of my shots are under 275 yards I like the 223's accuracy, light recoil, and lower noise level. For longer ranges my favorite is the 22 250 and 243 although it's rare that I have shots beyond 275 yards where I hunt.

Due to changes in farming practices in my area it is rare that you will find any holes in the fields, most are in tree lines on the perimeters of fields. Therefore I usually set up on tree lines out about 200 yards. Since I shoot off cross sticks I try to keep my range under 250 yards.

 

[Nomad47]

Well dimpled steel would suck. Is there a particular FPS that damages AR steel? I have a good amount of 3/8" AR500 targets that I would prefer not to damage however I could just keep the shooting to the smaller targets that are cheaper to replace I guess.

100 yards and 4000 fps are what is hard on 3/8" AR500. I let my handicapped BIL shoot my steel with a .284 at 100 yards - couldn't feel a thing on the steel.
But a friend let his dad shoot 55 grain .243 ammo (4000fps mv) at his steel at 100 yards - dimples.

If you keep your steel at least 200 yards away, I doubt any rifle in the normal guy's inventory will hurt it.