Varmint Hunter’s Firearms Battery

On my website at  www.awolhuntingvarmints.com  I’ve noticed that the greatest interest on the Forum appears to be about a firearms battery for the varmint  hunter.  So I wrote an article and submitted it to Varmint Hunter’s Magazine.  They’ve accepted it for publication, but I don’t know when that will be.

This briefer article then will be a much condensed version of that; but first I’d like to ask you to answer this question before you read further:  “What are the minimum three firearms that a varmint hunter needs?”  If it’s convenient, jot them down on a  piece of paper.  Note down the type of firearm,  action, and caliber (you can be a little flexible here).  There are many good choices but our purpose is to cover the widest range of opportunities with the fewest firearms.  Here’s my opinion (in no particular order because it partly depends on your varmint hunting opportunities). 

1. An accurate, scoped, bolt-action rimfire rifle (single shot or repeater).
2. An accurate, scoped, center-fire, bolt-action repeating rifle of up to .224 caliber (less than .243/6mm).
3. A repeating shotgun of 12 guage (only).

I know that you can argue endlessly about this list – I’d argue with myself, given half a chance — but lets hear what you have to say before I go on to explain my reasoning and to further ‘flesh-out’ this list.

Ken

MORE THOUGHTS ON FIREARMS BATTERY for varmint hunters

There are a lot of reasons to include other firearms into this list but there is one main reason I’ve chosen these three for starters: with these three you can hunt almost any varmint there is.

The rimfire will (within its limitations) take any animal up to about 20 pounds (I’ve shot beaver that were more than 50 pounds, but you have to be very careful to place your shots).  If you carefully take into account the capabilities, you can take foxes and even — though I don’t recommend it for their everyday pursuit – animals like coyotes.

The rifle between the rimfire and .22 caliber centerfire will fill the gap for varmints from foxes to large coyotes.  It’s great for beaver sitting on the shore, and I think you can expect it to be effective for animals up to about 80 pounds.  For sure it will kill much larger animals, but there are not too many of us that have access to varmints larger than that.

Your shotgun takes care of all the flying varmints, particularly crows and those ‘winged rats’ (pigeons).  In a pinch you can load it with large shot or slugs, and it should be effective for anything up to a couple hundred pounds.  But don’t believe all the hype that is sometimes bandied about regarding how deadly a shotgun is:  I once put five slugs into a wounded black bear that I was tracking for another hunter.  One of those shots—not the last—was center-of-chest.

If you have these three firearms, you’re pretty much prepared for any varmint that crosses your path.  Sometimes I’ll carry all three in my vehicle when I go out meandering for varmints; then I have the tools to shoot gophers, crows, pigeons, beavers, dump rats, foxes and coyotes, etc.  Whatever’s there, and legal, I can take.  It usually makes for a pretty good day.

Next time I’ll talk about what you might want to add to these in order to be better prepared for even a wider range of varmints.

Ken

MORE OPTIONS FOR FIREARMS CHOICE

If you possess the three types of firearms that I’ve suggested, you’ll be prepared for most varmint-hunting opportunities that  you encounter—but you’ll probably have limited yourself to a basic ‘meat-and-potatoes’ set of experiences (which, all the same, can be quite a feast).  You can enhance this, I think, by adding a variety of complementary firearms shooting different cartridges and using different rifle actions.

As well — and for me this is important – you should also have the types of firearms that may be more appropriate for common varmints native to the areas you hunt.  For instance, there are places where I live where there are large number of sparrow-sized birds that are consider to be pests (i.e. English Sparrows) so a good air rifle adds tremendously to the experiences I can take advantage of.  If I lived in a place like Australia (I have getting there on my ‘bucket list’), there are numerous large-bodied varmints (kangaroos, camels, goats, etc.) that I imagine are considered to be nuisance animals with insufficient ways to control their populations.  But I’m making some assumptions because I’ve never been there.

 So, that’s it.  If you have thoughts or questions, drop me a line.

KEN