My shooting buddy James contacted me recently with the news he had access to a new property where even the rabbit warrens had their own warrens. Was I interested? Is the 204 Ruger an awesome cartridge? Yes and yes!! Had nothing that couldn’t be dropped that weekend. Checked the weather forecast for the area – light winds and almost zero chance for rain. I was in. Obviously going to bring the Remington 700 SPS Varmint in 204 and the Brno 2E in 22LR. My conundrum was that I had bought a Howa 1500 in 308 Win which still needed christening and was it morally wrong to shoot rabbits with a calibre of that size. Rather have something and not need it than need it and not have it so the 308 came along too.
Headed up there early on Saturday morning as the drive takes less than 3 hours and the Friday night trip out of Sydney is too congested. When I got there it was 8am and got the chance for a good catch-up chat with his missus. She makes us awesome sandwiches when we get weekends like this so for me it was a great start to the morning. Out to the property to meet the owners. It was less than 20 minutes out of town, over a short causeway which would have drowned my car and on to the property. It was a pretty flat property near the main roads and at the back of the property there were plenty of hills like the edge of a mountain range. There was a stream running though the property which was up because of the recent rains. To me it is beautiful country and the only thing which would have made it better if I’d been told that the stream was full of bass or trout.
Just driving up to the homestead we saw a fair few rabbits in the nearby wood stacks and old equipment. The owners were a couple of brothers with a typical dry country humour. They took us around the back of the shed and pointed out all the rabbits sunning themselves. Shoot as many as you can were the instructions. So I got to go shooting, help out landowners at the same time and have an awesome lunch to forward to. Memories are made of this.
Out came the 22s for the short range stuff. We walked around the area, shot a fair few rabbits and found a few more warrens to keep an eye on. The use of sub-sonics kept them from spooking too much but if they were legal here it would have been better if we could have used moderators. At this time of year we were both at an advantage and a disadvantage. Due to the relatively temperate climate rabbits breed more frequently than they would in their home climate. At this time of the year there are lots of baby rabbits (kittens) which are less cautious but they make a much smaller target. At one stage James headshot two kittens but their nerves were still active so they kept jumping up a foot or so into the air. An almost surreal sight. Once we felt we’d put a reasonable dent in this population we drove over to one of the nearer hills. There was a valley leading up to the top of the hill. We parked at the bottom near the lip of the dam and set up our gear. We counted at least 7 warrens but one was on the crest of the hill so we couldn’t shoot at that one. James had his 17 Remington and I used the 204 ruger. The ranged shooting distances were between 120m and 280m. Playtime for these two calibres. During the day I worked out that my rifle is not shooting consistently off the bipod. I know off the bags when I first bought it was consistently sub-MOA at 100 yards with Hornady 32 grain V-max. The way it was going over the weekend I would have missed a small apple on the odd long shot. James had to check the sighting of 17 Remington but once that was done anything under 150m was pretty well gone. We spent a few hours watching and shooting. I had a rabbit at 275m which I was pretty sure I got but my longest confirmed was 270m. For reference, the tree in the centre of the photo below was about 170m. There were three warrens in the nettle patches (lighter green) to the left of the tree. There were three warrens near the top of the hill and another couple to the right out of the picture.
We then went to the next valley around the hill and found another 6 warrens and a dead cow (wasn’t us) and spent a few more hours shooting rabbits. The sun was going down so back to the homestead. Spent some more with the 22s. While taking a short cut from one field to the next I managed to get zapped by the electric fence. Funny as it gets when it happens to a friend, less so for myself. Wasn’t carrying the rifle at the time so not really a safety issue. Popped in to the homestead for a cup of tea with the owners and a chat. We were invited to come back the next day. How good can a weekend get?
Day two and we checked the sighting in of the rifles and it confirmed my 204 wasn’t shooting overly consistently. After wandering around the homestead we had some fun at the valleys of the day before. There were less rabbits in sight. The day before we took some of the rabbits with us for meat for the pets but we still left a lot where we shot them. As a result the local crows and a beautiful wedge tailed eagle were feeding on the carcasses and I suspect they were scaring the remaining rabbits. We still picked up and shot the odd rabbit. James had his 8x68 with him and I took out the 308. The reticle in his scope is graduated to suit the drop of the projectile so it was a good chance to check it on a small target. I was happy with the way the 308 was picking up small targets out to 220m and I’ll get better once I get some ballistics charts worked out. The 8mm would almost gut and skin the rabbit in the one shot. When walking over the warrens at the end of the session James called me over and we found this rabbit laying back in his burrow like he was in a spa.
Later that afternoon we took the opportunity to shoot a few more rabbits around the homestead. Between the two of us I think we picked up around 70 rabbits over the weekend and I really hope it is not a long time before I get up there again.
As to my 204 not shooting consistently, I talked to a few of my shooting mates and hopped on forums. I always clean my rifle out with Hoppes 9 as recommended by the people I bought the rifle from but found out recently that Hoppes number 9 is not particularly good on copper fouling. So I talked to James as his 17 Remington is notorious for fouling and one of the guys at work who used to shoot serious competition and it turns out they both use Sweets 7.62 to sort out their copper fouling. Went to the gun shop to get some Sweets (plan A) and to look at the Tikka TX3 in heavy SS barrel varmint (plan B). I like the feel of the rifle and the fact that it has a free floating barrel.
Had some time to kill so read the instructions on the bottle and started cleaning the rifle. I left the sweets in there for 5 to 10 minute intervals and then dry patched it out. The instructions said I could stop when I stopped seeing blue on the patches. Two and a half hours later it was almost all gone so it seems there was a bit in there. Finished job and oiled barrel.
Off to the range this Sunday to see if it is back to what it used to shoot. If it shoots well off the bags again but not the bipod then I will be looking at the Plan B Tikka SS Varmint in 204. The Remington also has an issue with the extractor shaving edges off the cartridge rims and leaving them in the receiver. It was probably going to cost a bit to fix so I won’t be heartbroken if I change rifles but I am so sticking to the 204. Love the calibre.
This week I also got a call from another shooting mate about a trip to a sheep property to hit the foxes again. Think we scored about 70 foxes between our last two trips there. From literature I have read the foxes can kill between 30% and 50% of the lambs depending on what food sources are in the area. The owner said each lamb was worth $141 to her. So hopefully I will submit a foxing report in a few weeks time.
