Recently, I was asked to join several friends and others to go varmint hunting. Knowing nothing of the sport, I grabbed several of my lightest bench guns and my newly rebarreled 40X in .22BR. A real lightweight at 18 pounds due to its extreme bull barrel, I received more than a few snickers when it was seen in the bed of my truck.

Several hours were required to reach the shooting site and we all passed time discussing loads, guns, and my pride and joy that others called a boat anchor. No manor of explanation could relieve their glee in ridiculing my stainless steel, 1 in 8 twist, air gauged Hart barrel. No discussion of range and accuracy with a 69 grain hollow point boat tail projectile on Accurate powder could stop my pain.

With thanks to heaven, we reached our turn-off and set up shop, as it were. To my surprise, folding plastic sawhorses, bench rests, and a 2’x 4’ sheet of plyboard earned chuckles to a guffaw. Everyone else either lay on sat on the ground. Giving the dog town a short period of time to settle down, and the shooting began.

As I always enjoyed difficult shots, I chose dogs as far away as I thought prudent and watched them magically disappear on little red puffs! The 40X worked well to 300 or so yards and a 30-06 happily tore them up out to about 400. That is when I did my part.

The trip back to Phoenix was a continuation of laughter at my rifles and especially my bench and rests, however, the barbs were less sharp and comments to my range were occasionally noted. I shared techniques on neck turning, primer pocket prepping, and flash hole uniformity. Much sharing of mirage and wind doping was passed to me.

In all, a good trip and a wonder aspect of shooting. Although next time I’m going to take my Ruger #1 in 300 Win mag. Maybe they wont laugh so hard at me then.

Dean De Boer
Field Writer