22-250 rem.
 

my experience with the 250
back in 1975 I was 15 years old, I wanted a rifle with a scope to deer hunt with, at the local gunshop the only thing they had that I could pay for was a used remington 788 chambered in 22-250, I mowed grass all summer and made weekly payments when fall came I brought it home.
the first thing that impressed me was the flat trajectory, it was very easy to hit targets to beyond 300 yards.
my first deer season I found out that at that time, the 22-250 wasn't much of a deer cartridge but man would that dang thing shoot. when deer were in the picture you either took a head/neck shot or had a diffacult day tracking, you mostly could see the dead deer laying from the first drop of blood you found. I asked myself, should it be this hard? bear in mind this was before there were bullets designed for deer hunting in .224 cal.
That old remington got traded off and I never really missed it untill....1992, I had gotten married, and when I bought my house, just up the road lived a man who would become the best friend I ever had, he was always after me to go hunting be it groundhogs, deer, bear, turkeys made no difference we became inseparable.
when we met I had given up the 223 for a groundhog rifle and was using a model 600 243 win. killed alot of hogs with it at some pretty spectacular ranges, but he just insisted that I needed a 22-250, he had an ffl, offered to order me my choice of rifle and scope at cost, so finaly I agreed, ended up with a ruger #1V 22-250 and a bausch and Lomb 6x24 signature.
used that rifle for years with no problems killed groundhogs at 500 yards, crows beyond 400, just could never fall in love with it, the rifle at its best would shoot 1 5/8's at 250 yards but by then I was ate up with the accuracy bug so it was kinda put aside.
one of the few rifles I ever owned that I could not drasticly improve accuracy over factory loads by handloading, probably just that rifle, but of the 3 22-250's I have owned have never got overly excited by them.
my loads were with varget, IMR 4895, IMR 4064. its a good cartridge I just never had a great experience with it.
RR

RR's post of buying one in 75 came real close to my first date of ownership of a 22-250, my first came in 72, but at age 17. I've owned a 22-250 from the time I was 17 through to now @ 59. And I've still got that first centerfire of any kind in my gun rack, but it's awaiting a new barrel at the moment......may become a 243....not sure yet.

I had the use of a 22 mag & 222 of my fathers right from the git-go, but I had this, "need for speed" bug. So I drove tractor & baled hay & straw when 16 & the following spring I brought home a Rem. 700 sporter in 22-250 with a 4-12X44 Redfield.......back when Redfield gave Leupold major competition.

The reason for my choice of a sporter barrel was not for deer like RR, my gun was to be for both chucks & fox and when fox hunting I would sometimes be tracking them until I jumped them........so no bull barrel.

With today's best bullets a 22-250 can & has killed deer, but does not make it a real good choice for that job even with a 1/9 barrel & hot loads pushing a 75 gr. Swift Sorocco II, which is a ballistic tipped boat tail that also has a bonded tappered jacket. In my opinion it's the best of the deer bullets, though the 70 gr. X bullet from Barnes is also very good.

As a yote gun in a good bolt gun with a 1/12 twist barrel shooting a 60 gr. Nosler ballistic tip, you can drop the song dogs at out to 400 yds with no issues.

My favorite coyote round is the .22-250, because of the speed and distance it can cover, along with the fact that when it does hit a coyote, there's not a huge hole to repair. One draw-back to the round is the small size due to the fact the wind can alter the path of the bullet quite easily. the heavier the round the less change it has in the wind.

The shooting/reloading/gunsmithing bug that bit me was a Mossberg bull barrel 22-250. I can't remember if the barrel was 24" or 26". It was long. It was used, sitting in the gun store rack when I was struck with 'love at first sight'. I used that rifle to teach myself about accurizing. Hand loading for that rifle until i was getting 1/2" groups was my learning introduction to reloading. After enough rounds to convince me that the barrel was shot out, I sold it and moved on. If i knew then what i know now, I would have had it re-barreled.

I mostly shot 50, 52 & 55 grain pills. I did learn that the 1-14 twist would stabilize 60gr bullets only when they started reaching maximum loads. I want to build another one like it, except this time it will be 223 Rem.