Small Game, Predator and TrappingFrom shooting squirrels in your backyard to calling coyotes in Arizona. This forum now contains trapping information..
Looking at picking up a rifle for summer ground hogs and winter coyotes. I reload so price of ammo doesn't really matter to me. Which would you choose? Muzzle blast or lack of it is never a bad thing considering that all hunting is on farmland.
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Use quality ammo., not that 32 gr. BK or V-max stuff, and IMO 300 yards is not over extending the .204. When calling coyotes, most shots are 100 yards and less, with occasional 200+ yarders. I've only killed two coyotes with my .204 past 300 yards, and have only taken a couple other shots past 300 yards that I missed. One this year, was all luck, that was a lazered 432 yards. It was in high gear and I killed it dead. That's my longest kill shot to date.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.
As the .204 has become more and more popular for coyote hunting, there is a trend that is coming to light. Of all the coyotes that are lost to hunters that are using the .204, all of them/hunters, that I can find, were using the rapid expanding/ plastic tipped bullets in one configuration of another. IMO, those bullets don't always hold together enough to penetrate enough on a coyote. They were designed for extreme rapid expansion and work excellent on prairie dogs, rock chucks, whistle pigs, etc. Unfortunately, there aren't many other choices in the factory ammo. although I beleive you can now buy .204 factory ammo. that have the 45 gr. sp bullets, which may prove to be good medicine for coyotes. I haven't tried the 45 gr. sp's and won't be trying them because I've been very pleased with the 35 and the 40 gr. bergers bullets. The bergers are a match hp bullet, but they have a proven track record on coyotes.
I know plenty of guys have killed some coyotes with the BK and V-Max bullets, BUT I also have read about the lost coyotes that were also shot with those bullets. I have yet to read even one report of bad performance of the 35 or the 40 gr. bergers, and I suspect thatmore coyotes are shot with the bergers than the plastic tipped bullets. SO it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see which bullet very apperantly performs better for killing coyotes.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.
.204 vs. .22-250
