One of my favorite things to do is a late season "walkabout" hunt. This is when I go into new territory on big land (most of the time NF) and just see what I run into. My favorite time to do this is the first weekend in December. Pretty much all seasons are open in the NF. Deer, bear, small game, waterfowl and fur bearers.
In the past I would carry a shotgun with waterfowl legal loads and a handgun in a deer killer load. I've wanted to use a Savage M-24 with a top barrel in a good center-fire round, but have not found one that has either the 30-30 or 308 top barrel. I got one with a .222 Rem top barrel a few years ago with the intent of getting it chambered in .223. Then I found out the twist rate is too slow for one of the bullets that would be okay to use on deer sized game. It went n the safe and never came out again.
A couple of weeks ago I discovered that Norma is now making a .222 load with a 55gr Oryx bullet. That is a bonded core bullet and it's pushing it at over 3000fps. It also has over 1000flbs of energy. Hmmm, that will definitely kill a deer with proper shot placement.
I got a couple of boxes of it and was pleasantly surprised to be printing 3MOA groups at 100 yards with open sights with it yesterday. That's really good with these old eyes.
In the past I would carry a shotgun with waterfowl legal loads and a handgun in a deer killer load. I've wanted to use a Savage M-24 with a top barrel in a good center-fire round, but have not found one that has either the 30-30 or 308 top barrel. I got one with a .222 Rem top barrel a few years ago with the intent of getting it chambered in .223. Then I found out the twist rate is too slow for one of the bullets that would be okay to use on deer sized game. It went n the safe and never came out again.
A couple of weeks ago I discovered that Norma is now making a .222 load with a 55gr Oryx bullet. That is a bonded core bullet and it's pushing it at over 3000fps. It also has over 1000flbs of energy. Hmmm, that will definitely kill a deer with proper shot placement.
I got a couple of boxes of it and was pleasantly surprised to be printing 3MOA groups at 100 yards with open sights with it yesterday. That's really good with these old eyes.
