Light Varmint Loads For A Featherweight Rifle

06/07/2020

Audio Prologue:

Apparently, there are places within these United States where large expanses of rolling plains, clumsy herd animals and hole creating prairie dogs intersect to wipe out a rancher’s only source of income; the herd. Surely you have seen splinted cattle, gimping along on a cattle drive with marked down price tags hanging from their horns.

In those areas, prairie dog populations are controlled with cartridges like the .22-50 BMG-AI matched with 36″ barrel rifles. Why would they not, as the average shooting distances is 1,200 yards!…!!.  In Maine, where cattle and sheep are mostly found in zoos, and modern ranchers raise peacocks and alpacas, varmints come in different forms.

Coyotes decimate our deer herds during periods of heavy snow fall and eat our pets as they recreate on back porches. Fox and skunk contract rabies at a substantial rate and opportunistically bite the hands of Mainer’s, both metaphorically and literally, who insist on feeding them. More common are the gray squirrels that snack on costly structures, and/our vegetable gardens and every grain of seed we plant.

So on my list of varmints are: coyotes that make it a habit of coming out of the woods and hanging out in populated areas, oddly behaving fox and skunk that are flashing teeth at pedestrians in broad daylight and any squirrel in the area of the homestead while I have a firearm in my hand.

A varmint eradication facilitator

I do not own a Model 70 Winchester Featherweight in 243 Winchester at the moment, but only because I currently own a six pound Model 70 Compact with many of the same attributes. The Compact is in queue for a fancy black walnut stock… as it has been since 1998. The problem is that it is in frequent use and I cannot see taking it out of service for six months. Hmm… perhaps I should buy a Featherweight, get the benefit of two more inches of barrel length and time for fitting a new stock on the Compact?

Some of the attributes that make the Featherweight an ideal candidate are obvious. The smooth, controlled feed action, an adjustable super slick trigger, a swing safety for easy field operation, a very comfortable stock for good control and support, and just enough fancy stuff to instill pride of ownership.

The Model 70 Featherweight also has a 2.880″ long magazine well and a 0.175″ freebore behind the rifling that will accommodate significantly longer than 2.710″ maximum length cartridges. All of this combines to give the handloader more latitude in working toward maximum ballistic performance, velocity and accuracy.

In more tangible terms, the Winchester Model 70 Featherweight can easily accommodate everything from a 0.790″ long Sierra 55 grain varmint bullets to 1.352″ long 115 grain Berger Match bullets. The former seated deeply enough to  properly secure the bullet with case neck tension, the latter without deep seating and displacing useful case powder capacity.

Lightweights

Joe, why are you including a Remington AccuTip where there are no mainstream reloading manuals available for us to put your handloads into context? In this case, the Remington AccuTip is actually a 75 grain Hornady V-Max, cleverly disguised with Remington green camo.

Warning: Bullet selections are specific, and loads are not valid with substitutions of different bullets of the same weight. Variations in bullet length will alter net case capacity,  pressure and velocity. Primer selection is specific and primer types are not interchangeable. These are maximum loads in my firearms and may be excessive in others. All loads should be reduced by 5% as a starting point for development where cartridges have greater than 40 grains in capacity and 10% for cartridges with less than 40 grain capacity following safe handloading practices as represented in established mainstream reloading manuals. Presentation of these loads does not constitute a solicitation for their use, nor a recommendation.