Coyote Madness IV - (Enter Here, Ends February 28, 2012) (poll added)

[FALFire]

Good luck to any of you that have a chance to make it out for the last day of the Madness. 

VarmintVentilator and I will be making one last attempt to bring the dogs in before the end of the day. We have been seeing plenty but just cannot get them to commit. 

It's been a lot of fun anyway!!

[aer212]

One more for MNT! First female in a long time.

[Feanix]

bah.....somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 stands in the last 6 weeks, probably 200 for the contest and no dogs. only took one shot. frustrated to say the least...

[FALFire]

Well, today was another bust, no dogs killed but we did see a total of 7 within about 30 minutes. They were just too eager to carry on with their own business chasin' mouses rather than come to the call. Then the wind picked up again and we called it a day by 10:30.

[aer212]

Falfire, what are you using for a rifle?

[FALFire]

Falfire, what are you using for a rifle?

I usually use my Tikka 22-250, but on occasion, I'll take one of my AR's either 223, 243WSSM or 6x45. This time of year when the chance of calling in a pair is common, I'll take an AR, but I really don't use 30 round mags  normally just a 5 round mag

[aer212]

What can you tell me about the .243 wssm?

[FALFire]

What can you tell me about the .243 wssm?

The 243WSSM is a great little round that can give you an edge in velocity over the standard 243Win round, not much, but some and of course that too depends on barrel quality and length. The only major downside to the WSSM is the brass, some people complain that they cannot find it, although I have never found that to be the case, usually it is stocked regularly by several suppliers both internet and local, depending on where you are. The brass is thick, I mean real thick and seems to last forever was long as you don't go overboard on your reloads by pushing the envelope on powder charges. Resizing takes a little getting used to, it takes a little more effort to resize the brass but once you get the hang of it, things begin to go smoothly as in any other reloading.

Mine is a 10 twist 20 inch barrel, I purchased it used fom the gun show in Puyallup years ago. It is a factory Oly Arms upper and has turned in some awesome one hole 5 shot groups in the .3's using the Barnes 72gr.  flat based varmint bullets. However, normally, I'll get 1" groups with just about any of the more common bullets i.e. V-Max, Noslers, Sierra stuff. Keep in mind I do all of my testing at 150 yards with a 200 yard zero mainly because most of my kills are right around 150 yards give or take a yard and at 300 yards I'm still easily on hair for a hit.

Velocities and BC's are what make a good coyote gun, especially when you are shooting in wind and where I hunt, we get wind. The 95gr Ballistic Tips perform really well on both coyotes and deer well out to "Oh my God" range, plus they fit well in the WSSM's short case and standard AR15 magwell. You can shoot 105' or 108's but to get maximum effeciency, you may need to modify the magazine slightly to stretch the OAL some.

Factory ammo is available if you do not reload, but I thought that you did, I may be wrong 

You can get a lightweight barrel from Mile Milli at  http://www.dtechsuperstore.com/   Mike will build you a rifle or an upper that will twist your mind in accuracy, but it could take a while to get one delivered, he is super busy building custom guns but it's worth the call any ways. Personally, I would opt for a 22" light profile 8 twist and keep the rest of the setup as light as possible, AR's can get heavy pretty quickly.

Magazines.....You can modify any 20 round G.I. mag to fit and feed the WSSM case, it's really easy to do so no need to buy special mags. The only real catch to it all is the WSSM AR is not something you can build yourself unless you already have the machined upper and bolt carrier group. There are slight modifications that are required to machining of these uppers that need to be left to the smith that knows what he is doing.

Now.......All that said, Oly Arms is now making their factory GameStalker rifle that uses a slightly longer mag well, this will benefit the WSSM shooter in a big way. It will allow the use of the longer VLD bullets for maximum long distance shooting and the lower is compatible with standard AR15 uppers. This is exciting news and something I would look into if I were looking at the WSSM offering. It will accept the newer longer magazines which will compliment the WSSM and 22-250 calibers and that's a good thing.

I hope this helps 

[aer212]

Wow! thats a lot of info. Thanks. In your experience, is it realistic to think of saving fur with any of the .243 wssm loads?

[FALFire]

Wow! thats a lot of info. Thanks. In your experience, is it realistic to think of saving fur with any of the .243 wssm loads?

VarmintVentilator uses 95 grain Ballistic Tips in his 243Win, I use 55gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips in my 243Win. We have both found that the Noslers are somewhat of a tough bullet and in many cases make a small exit hole that can easily be sewn up by the taxi. The V-Max bullets tend to blow the crap out of the pelts leaving them, for the most part, useless. Now that doesn't mean that every time we shoot a dog with a Ballistic Tip that we end up with perfect pelts but we have found the Noslers tend to be more forgiving in most kills. Again, the velocity differences between the two calibers (243Win and 243WSSM) is not a determining factor of bullet fragmentation.

So for the sake of saving fur, the 243 is not your best choice to begin with, but you can get by with it by using certain bullets and being careful where you place it on the animal. If I were to build an AR15 for a long range target gun (600) yards, I would opt for the Grendel, 6BR or 6.5BR because the brass is top quality from Lapua, but for coyotes, even the WSSM is a fine choice. Don't get caught up in the old BS of "Well I can load factory magazines with 20 rounds in my 6.5XXXXX whatever. For coyotes, a single shot works just as well and you really shouldn't need more than 2 or 3 rounds on a pair of dogs, anything over 3 shots on a pair is slinging' lead into the atmosphere and is worthless spent ammo. For the fun factor, I have sent lead flying a time or 12 but usually I'll send one or two and call it good.

[MtnMuley]

Wow! thats a lot of info. Thanks. In your experience, is it realistic to think of saving fur with any of the .243 wssm loads?

FalFire summed it up great.  Personally, to me, the 243wssm isn't too realistic of a pelt-saving gun.  My favorite this time of year when the pelts basically rubbed and not suitable to sell.  Talk about some knock-down devistation with a larger grained v-max bullet!

[VarmintVentilator]

Falfire, could you repeat that?      You should be out hunting with him and make the mistake asking about an AR.    So much for any dogs coming in.   

[aer212]

I would like to go with some of you guys sometime to see how my calling techniques compare to others. That last coyote I posted, I took Raul Duke out and showed him how to howl in a coyote. We had another one but I made a preventable mistake. We setup calling uphill to a treeline and had one howl at us so I knew he was up there. Kept up my sequence and about 10-15 minutes Raul finally said there he is. He talked me onto him and I got him in the binocs. After trying a bunch of different sounds I realized he wasn't coming in. I asked Raul to get a yardage, he said 290. I asked if he could make the shot, he thought he could. So I told him to "go ahead whenever he is ready, you got plenty of time, don't rush it". He shot while I was watching through binocs and I saw fur fly but he took off like he wasn't hit bad. Right away I told him we probably won't recover that one but you hit it anyway. We picked up the call on our way to go check out where the coyote was and right away I saw why it wouldn't come any closer. From the coyotes view, he could see the call easily but from our view we couldn't see that the coyote could see it. He was seeing exactly where the sound was coming from but he couldn't see the animal(s) making the sounds. Anyway I struck out today, too windy and too cold and too snowy. I was hoping to finish the contest real strong. The reason I asked about getting the 2nd, 3rd and 4th coyotes to stop after the shot was because last Thursday we called in 12 coyotes and only got 3. There was two groups of 4 and 2 sets of doubles. Friday we called in 7 more, a triple and a group of 4, and once again we only got 3.

[CamoKen]

Well crap! For some reason I thought we had to the end of the month. O well here are some I was saving. 24 for TDF.

[carpsniperg2]

OUCH! Just a day to late. That is a nice pile of dogs as well