".223?" Charlie Sisk asked, raising his eyebrows. "Wouldn't you rather have a big game rifle like a .416 Rigby, 9.3 or .458 Lott? How about something more exotic – say, a 6.5-284 Norma or a .257 Ackley Improved?"
"Nope, I want a .223," I said. "I'll get a lot more use out of it than any other cartridge I can think of. Deer, elk and pronghorn seasons last only a few weeks. You can hunt varmints all year long.
"But there's a catch," I said. "The rifle should be lighter than a dozen hummingbirds, yet accurate enough to regularly kill prairie dogs 300 yards away. Oh, and it must shoot everything from 40- to 77-grain bullets well. That's a tall order, but it's what I want."
Charlie said he'd have little trouble with the first two specifications (He wasn't sure what a dozen hummingbirds weigh.), but handling the full range of .22 bullet weights might require a pair of interchangeable barrels, each with a different twist.
Swapping barrels would be a bother, but I told Charlie to go ahead with the rifle. A week or so later I mentioned the project to Rick Jamison.
"You don't need two barrels," he said. "I've just finished working with a couple of .223 rifles, each featuring a one-in-8-inch twist. Both barrels shot everything I fed them just fine. Forget one-in-12 or one-in-14 twists," he added. "One turn in 8 inches should do it all!"
I phoned Charlie and told him about the conversation. "What d'you think?" I asked. "Will a one-in-8 twist do the job?"
"It just might," he said, after a minute of thoughtful silence. "I'll build the rifle with just one barrel, then we'll see what happens."
When the rifle arrived a few months later, it was a real beauty. Charlie had blueprinted a Zastavia Mini Mauser action from Charles Daly, then added a 22-inch stainless steel Lilja No. 2 barrel. Barrel and action received a tough, matte black Cera-Kote finish and were then bedded to a High Tech stock with contrasting white spider webbing. The stock was mated to the action with Brownells ACRAGLASВ®. A Timney trigger replaced the original Mauser trigger.
As it turned out, a dozen hummingbirds weighed exactly 5 pounds, 9 ounces. Adding a Leupold 3-9x 33mm Vari-X II Ultralight EFR scope brought the ready-to-hunt heft to a delightful 61вЃ„2 pounds. I own lighter rifles, but none with the easy-carrying balance or striking good looks of the Mini Mauser Charlie delivered.
The little rifle arrived the day before I left for a four-day prairie dog shoot. There was barely time to sight in the rifle with Black Hills ammunition loaded with Hornady's 40-grain V-MAX bullets. The first three shots fired from 100 yards made a tight .28-inch group. This rifle was ready to hunt!
I wasn't prepared for how well the Sisk rifle performed on prairie dogs. In spite of its wand like barrel and 6 1вЃ„2- pound heft (including scope), the Sisk rifle did a good job of holding its own. The 3-9x scope was a limitation, but prairie dogs 350 yards (sometimes more) away were in jeopardy. I didn't connect every time, but often enough to encourage continued attempts at this barrel-stretching distance. Targets 100 yards closer were seriously at risk! A single shot was usually all it took to nail them. While I hadn't yet wrung out this surprising rifle on paper targets, all those dead prairie dogs told me I had something special on my hands.
Returning home, I spent sometime creating a variety of loads at t h e bench, then headed for Barnes's pleasantly cool underground range. It was mid-July, and Utah temperatures daily exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The desert range where I usually did my testing was no place to be!
Barnes had been experimenting with a new varmint bullet prototype, and I managed to snag a small supply. Pushed by 26.0 grains of Hodgdon Benchmark ahead of a Winchester WSR primer, the bullet averaged 3,518 fps from the Mini Mauser's 22-inch tube. This load grouped three shots into .5 inch at 100 yards. Winchester 53-grain factory fodder served up .815-inch groups, while Hornady's 40-grain V-MAX ammunition punched a tight .315-inch three-round cluster.
Switching to the other weight extreme, I tried Black Hills factory ammunition loaded with 77-grain Sierra bullets. Average muzzle velocity was 2,713 fps. The first three-shot group measured .415 inch between centers, while five-round clusters miked an even .5 inch across.
To my happy surprise, this rifle really did shoot well with everything I fed it. I hasten to point out that these groups were produced from a rock-solid rest in Barnes's 100-yard underground shooting tunnel. Conditions were tightly controlled – no wind, no blazing desert sun, no mirage or any other common distractions. The icicle - snapping , crisp 2-pound Timney trigger added to the rifle's precision. Plus, I must have been holding my mouth exactly right. I know how rarely a new rifle will perform that well, adding to my appreciation of Charlie's custom gunmaking skills.
The whole point of owning a light , easy-toting varmint rifle is to carry it afield in pursuit of foxes, coyotes and other critters less trustingly gregarious than prairie dogs. I soon got together with Ty Herring, a fellow yodel dog addict who runs the customer service department at Barnes, and we planned a quick hunt.
After a 4:00 A.M. start, we drove to what we hoped was a coyote hot spot several miles beyond Strawberry Reservoir. Arriving shortly after sunup, we parked the truck and hiked over a rise to a vantage point overlooking a broad, sagebrush-covered valley.
While I looked for a good vantage point, Ty nestled the Johnny Stewart electronic varmint call in a clump of sagebrush 90 yards away. I'd used the call earlier with good success and had recently added a transmitter that allowed me to operate the call at a distance. Hungry predators zero in on the sounds broadcast by a call, so it's good to focus their attention away from where you're lying in wait.
The call features a whole repertoire of sounds, but I've had the best luck with Johnny Stewart's "whitetail fawn in distress" tape. Coyotes hear this as a dinner bell.
On the second setup, toward the end of the morning, a hungry coyote trotted into view not five minutes after we'd turned on the call. I was using a 53-grain Barnes Triple-Shock X-Bullet backed by 25 grains of Varget. The coyote angled away as I fired. The all-copper bullet exited the far side and kept on going, taking a good chunk of the animal's shoulder with it. The coyote died on the spot. A laser rangefinder(used after the fact) measured the distance at 78 yards.
I now own a tack-driving .223 that won't tire me – even if I carry it all day. My new knee should soon heal, so it can support extra weight, but that won't change my mind about heavy rifles. Like other featherweight firearms I own, the new Siskwalkin' varminter has undeniable appeal. It's light, easy-carrying and exceptionally accurate. This is a handsome, practical custom rifle I'll use with pride. And Iadmit it – it suits my lazy nature.