What was your longest 223 varmint shot?

[oldhoward]

AR-15 223 55 gr bt and a stout load of varget cci primers, 26 inch heavy barrel and T24x scope. Killed a prairie dog at 875 yards. Took 4 shots to send him to the pasture in the sky.

 

[chet]

15yrs ago i had good days when i was heavily into varmint groundhog hunting, my longest kill was at 711yds with a savage 223 bvss 75gr amax 25grs varget 4200 elite 6x24x scope, the next week a skunk at 628yds quite a few kills in the 500yd plus range, for some reason, maybe it was my calculating software, i had a few misses in the 350yd range, over 500 were more consistent kills

chet

 

[IMMORTAL]

My longest kill on a ghog with my 223AI shooting fireforming loads is 576yds. Longest kill on a pdog with same load is 642yds.

 

[varmintshooter]

Although not my longest the one I am most proud of was with an AR15 20" 8 twist shooting 50 gr zmax with 8208 @ about 3350 fps scope was an old Nikon Monarch 4x12. With the farmer there a ghog came out @ 480 yds I dialed it in and shot prone with bipod and rolled him with I shot. I don't know which one of us was more surprised.

 

[walker2713]

Although not my longest the one I am most proud of was with an AR15 20" 8 twist shooting 50 gr zmax with 8208 @ about 3350 fps scope was an old Nikon Monarch 4x12. With the farmer there a ghog came out @ 480 yds I dialed it in and shot prone with bipod and rolled him with I shot. I don't know which one of us was more surprised.

Which one? You mean the groundhog or the farmer?

 

[AckleymanII]

Back in the early 80's, chucks up in Idaho were thick as fleas. Hay fields had the first 50 yards mowed down from the chucks feeding. We sat up 300 yards away from the nearest chucks. We laid down in the hay field, unloaded the truck, then parked the truck 1/2 mile away. We were shooting laying down on a tarp, with spotter sitting on a short legged lounge chair 300 yards from our closest shot, then shot an arc to 600 yards. We kept a low profile and with no loud talking. Past 600, draggers were too abundant.

We used 6mm Rem Varmint, 12T, 85g sierra bthp, with a load of 38.5g of H4895, Fed 210, in Win brass. We massacred the chucks as they had no idea were we were. I still have plastic gun cases scorched to a color of white where the gun barrels were laid to rest on the case.

Scopes we used then were the old Bushnell scope chief 4x-12x with the bullet drop compensators, and we had blank scope dials marked for yardage from actual shooting.

85g Sierra launched at 3150, anchored chucks at 600.

Later on, I built 6 Rem AI.with 12T. 750 yards was about as far as I felt comfortable with using a 12-32 B & L scope. I shot the 75g Sierra's at 3900 and the p. dogs were grave yard dead at 750. 70g Noslers also did a fantastic job, and this was preceding the current age of VLD bullets.

 

[moorepower]

I only have a comment about the "humane" kills. If you shoot a gh thru the heart/lungs and it crawls back to the hole and dies, it seems like it is not a "humane" kill. If you shoot the back half off of a Pdog and it crawls back to the hole before it dies and is eaten by other Pdogs, it is not a humane kill. If you shoot a deer in the heart and lungs and it runs 100 yards before it dies, it's a humane kill. FYI 400 yds. is my furthest Pdog with a .223.

 

[vmaxpro]

Not furthest, but cool factor shot for me was a racoon in a tree at night, 600 yards 75gr amax leupold vx3L 6.5-20 nd5 light and snowing

 

[ranger3]

My longest pd shot with my 223 Tikka Varmint is 330 yds. Used a 80 A MAX w 24.3 varget. They don't go anywhere. My longest shot is 415 yds with my 220 Swift and 10 power scope. I'm working on going out to 400-500 yds, but going to use with a 22 250 or 6br. This next year.

 

[msinc]

What was your longest 223 varmint shot and what kind of load did you use to achieve it? Rifle and scope?

I once hit a woodchuck at like 450 yards. I used a Model 700 with a custom barrel, Timney trigger, Leupold Mark 4 M1 {used come ups, 34 with a 100 yard zero}. Sierra match king bullet. I think a really missed it and the wind blew it back on target!!! Nevertheless, he's dead.

 

[ShootDots]

I'll give you 2 of my favorite "long-range" kills! Just shy of 400 yards were 2 prairie dogs standing maybe 5 feet away from each other. I took a shot with my .223 using 50 gr Nosler B-tips at nearly 3400f.p.s. using 29.0grs of Win 740! WHAM! He flew a pretty good distance! Number 2 stood there as if nothing happened! So I thought "Well buddy, you're either dumb or brave"! BOOM! Not only did he fly up, so did 2 more that were unseen! So how is 4 prairie dogs at nearly 400 yards with only 2 shots! #2 was in New York whilst Woodchuck hunting. However, it was NOT a woodchuck that was shot! A Crow walking around out at what was later determined to be 440 paces, decided to walk straight away from my line of sight! Bad mistake. I was shooting a .257 Roberts A.I. with 85 gr Nosler B-Tips at 3550f.p.s. He did not explode, but he did blow almost in half! On this one, One Shot-One Kill!

 

[2506]

It was around 30 or so years ago when I was doing quite a bit of ground hog shooting. I had a Savage 110 in 223 Rem. It has been so long I can't remember the load but it was with AA2230 and 50 gr Sierra blitz king bullets. Killed most between 200 and 300 yards but one I remember was about 500 yards. The wind was gusting 10 to 20 mph and I was shooting from one hill side across a valley over to another hill in the mountains of east TN. Ground hog would stand up and I was using Tennessee elevation and Kentucky windage and got close on three shots. After each shot the ground hog would dive in his hole for a while and then come back out. On shot 4 I could tell I hit him but he was standing right beside his hole and he dived into it. He did not come back out so after a while I took the long trek over to where he was and there he was dead as a hammer with his back legs sticking out of the hole. Bullet had hit him right in the chest.
Probably the best shot I ever made with that 223 was right at 300 yards determined by amount of bullet drop. This was before range finders and is hard to pace off when you are shooting from one hillside across a valley over to a hillside. Hillside was almost straight up and a ground hog was laying in his hole that looked like a cave in the hillside. I could just see his head as he was just laying there sunning. From the angle of the hillside I was on I had to shoot from a sitting position. I held the cross hair where I knew would be where I had previously shot on a range to hit 300 yards and placed it right on the ground hogs head. At the shot the ground hog rolled out of his hole and the hillside was so steep and the grass had been eaten down so short by some goats the farmer had that the ground hog roll for about 2 or 3 minutes and made it all the way to the bottom of the hillside. I hit exactly on my 300 yard hold on it's head. I wish I had kept that rifle but moved up to a Rem 700 Varmint in 243 Win which was better in the wind. Sold the rifle to a fellow that hunted with me and my buddy sometimes that had heart surgery and needed a rifle that had no recoil. It is hard to find a ground hog around here now unless it is in town because of the coyotes. They have cleaned them out.

 

[jpx2rk]

510-520 yd pdog kill with a Savage FV12 223, completely stock, even the stock. 23.0g of Varget & 55g Nosler Varmeggedons tipped, . Took about 5-8 shots to walk it in on the bugger, just punched a hole in it and it fell over. In SD, the wind always blows from some direction.

 

[BULLET 05]

Longest kill with a .223 to date. 245 yards. 40 grain berger h335 powder. I shot one last year at 375 yards with that bullet and it did not do the job. So I have went to a 52 grain berger and I am waiting on a 300 yard shot to try it out.

 

[Mikemci]

Prarie dog, only had his head visible due to a berm in front him. 390 yard head shot. The first bullet hit the berm, I aimed a little higher and that was all she wrote for him!
The rifle was a .223 model 10 Savage, hand loaded 65 grain V-Max bullets. I don't recall what scope it was. I can still see the whole thing in my mind....awesome!

 

[dryhumor]

If flys are varmints...

I had pulled out my 220 Swift, and got ready to shoot. I noticed a fly on the target and told my shooting buddy I was gonna shoot the fly. “Go for it”, he said while watching through his scope.

160 yd cold bore shot. Nothing but fly guts around the bullet hole.

No whistle pigs or p dogs around here.... gotta take what cha get.

 

[K22]

This isn't going to impress anyone but my longest shot with a 223 Rem was 264 yards. Since I hunt off a shooting cross sticks I was quite pleased with the shot. I've taken several in the 250's, again not going to impress anyone except me.

Rifle used on the 264 yard shot was a rebarrelled Rem Model 700 with Douglas match barrel, no. 5 contour, 26" length, 12" twist. Scope was a Bushnell 4500, 4 x16. Bullet was a 55 Nosler BT.

 

[sscoyote]

Watched a buddy shoot 3 cottontails between 700-730 yds. in 7 shots with 2 different loads from his AR using 75 A-Max and 77 TMK with a big Leupold of some model and the old LRP VLD magazine. Never forget spotting for those shots with my 10X Leicas as it was a crisp clear morning right after an unsuccessful coyote-calling stand. I called correction for him and saw every vapor trail as I remember. The last cottontail did flips off the ravine bank he was shooting at. It was an awesome shooting/spotting experience.

 

[oldhoward]

My son shot a pd at 875 yards with a 223 ar 15. 55 grain BT, tac powder, not a max load. It took 3 shots to get the rascal.

 

[1raggedhole]

7.... 7 yds