SmallCaliberCentral

Had an unexpected case of white mist over the weekend. Being Australian I’ll be using metres rather than yards but I hope you’ll enjoy the recap.

One of the benefits to a very early start are mornings like this.


Went hunting with my long term shooting buddy over the weekend at a location a few hours North West of Sydney. I bought along my recently (well a year and a bit ago) acquired 204 Ruger Remington 700 SPS Varmint and he bought along his new toy – a drilling (or dreiling in German which is translates as triplets). It consists of side by side 16 gauge shotgun barrels with a 7 x 57 rimless rifle underneath. The gun comes with an insert which fits into one of the barrels and allows him to shoot a 22WMR. Three calibres in the one gun at the one time.

My friend's toy


We were lucky enough to get a break in the afternoon rain when we arrived at the property. There are a couple of sheds and a container where the rabbits like to live and about 220m away there is a gate on a rise which overlooks the area. We parked at the gate and my friend noticed a few rabbits about 50m away. Out comes the drilling and he takes down two rabbits with the 22WMR. Excellent start. I rest over the bonnet and realise there are two rabbits past the container near the gate leading into the next paddock. Later lasered at 251m. I line up a little above one of the rabbits and a little to the left of its head to allow for the wind. Gently squeeze the trigger. Bang. Watch the rabbit get knocked over in the scope. Loving the 204 Ruger as this is the type of shooting I bought it for.

We didn’t see any more rabbits at that stage so we wandered down to the sheds via an adjacent paddock. Near the fenceline a startled rabbit races off at our feet. As we’d seen it earlier we were expecting it. My friend lines it up in the 1-4 power scope and the shotgun boomed. A cloud of fluff was left on the ground and the rabbit carried another metre or so further from momentum. Rabbit number four.

Walked into the next paddock and spot another two rabbits about 60m away. The grass was too high for me to use the bipod. We were on the wrong side of the fence for me to use it as a rest. No choice but was going to have to take the shot standing. At that range it is hard for me to keep the barrel dead still so there was going to be an element of timing and luck when I took the shot. My friend was watching through the binoculars. I took the shot and lost the sight picture. My friend makes a “huh???” comment. Turns out he’d seen a cloud of white mist when I took the shot and on top of that we couldn’t see the rabbit. As the second rabbit was still sitting there he jumped the fence so he could use it as a rest. This time I was watching the shot. I hear his gun roar and thought it was a bit louder than expected. Turns out he’d used the 7x57 (slight overkill). Rabbit was down but as it was a head shot it wasn’t quite as spectacular as it could have been. We walked over to where his rabbit was and then looked around. We have something in Oz we refer to as paddy melons (similar colour to a water melon but round and with white flesh which is apparently not very edible). There was one of about 150mm (6 inches) diameter blown apart close to where my rabbit had been sitting. I had horrible visions of never hearing the end of how I’d managed to blow a paddy melon into white mist and yet missed a rabbit. We looked at a nearby hole and realised there was some spatter around it. My friend reaches into the hole and pulls out a headshot rabbit. Felt a lot better at that stage.

Good company, beautiful scenery, some good shots resulting 6 rabbits in an hour or so – I live for days like these.

My scorecard at the end of the round

Glad you guys got out & had some fun Derek!!

sounds like a fun trip , never heard of white mist before good shooting , you should put those paddy melons out on a fence a couple of hundred yards away and show your mate what the 204 can really do ,cheers bazz

Derek nice recap on the trip and good shooting . That drilling looks like it might be a touch on the heavy side but to have an all in one has many benifits.

His gun is quite a few years old. It seems they were/are popular in Germany but with the tightening of the gun rules people are selling them off as time goes on. Actually the drilling is surprisingly light (says the guy with the heavy varmint barrel) as they seem to have used some sort of alloy in the construction. The designer has put a fair bit of thought into it. What you can't see on the photo is the plate in the underside of the stock in which you can keep four or five 7 x 57 rounds. I believe the trigger has a set trigger functionality. The scope is claw mounted and can be easily swung off and there is a switch which brings the back dovetail sight into play if you want to use open sites. The 22WMR has screws so that the point of impact can be adjusted relative to the scope. The 16 gauge doesn't seem to lose much to a 12 gauge from the reports I have heard.

If it wasn't that I had bought the 204 on his advice as my first centrefire then I might be a bit more jealous than I am. He used to shoot a lot of foxes with a 17 Remington years ago and the first time I used it I loved its laser like trajectory. I wanted something similar but without the fouling issues and something which did not require me to get into reloading. The 204 met those requirements but I have to say I was upset to find out that it seems we can no longer get the Hornady V-max value packs when I went to gun shop the other day. Something about it being made for a large department store in the States but has now been discontinued.

The day after the white mist episode we went to the same property but this time he bought the 17 Remington. I was happy to let him have the first few shots. He knocked a rabbit over at 230, then 240 and then two at 310m. He then missed a shot which he was not happy with till we worked out what had happened. The area we were shooting at has some deceptive distances and one of the shots he took at what was assumed to be 300m distances we worked out later to be about 430m. Probably would have allowed for a little more drop if we'd realised that.