North Dakota hunting. Three hunters with
three different ideas
regarding a coyote rifle cartridges. 6mm Rem, 223 Rem , and 7mm Rem Mag
were all taken afield on this hunt.
Winchester is offering the first new
varmint cartridges in 30 years
by L.P.Brezny
While handgun rounds have been developing like they were
going for half
price, and rifle cartridges for deer and elk are over flowing on the
dealers shelves, varmint hunters have been largely left in the dark for
far to long, or at least that’s the way Winchester sees the situation.
This year for 2003 varmint hunters will be introduced to a
totally new
development in center fire rifle cartridges dubbed WSSM for Winchester
Super Short Magnum, and the two current rounds in this configuration
will be offered in .223 caliber and 243 or 6 mm which ever way you want
ot view the bore size configuration.
With time on my hands and a long winter in the Black Hills
of South
Dakota facing me I took up an offer from Winchester to get the new
almost prototype guns and loads into the field for some hands on warm
target review work. They didn’t have to ask twice and I was on my
way to
central Texas by air, then a drive down toward the Mexican boarder for
some predator hunting in some of the best coyote populations known in
the world today.
During the first four days of hunting I was working with
Gerald Stewart
the top gun at Johnny Stewart game calls. Gerald was giving me a look at
his new digital calling system as we took the first Browning A bolt
prototype rifle chambered in the new .223 WSSM afield in search of
coyotes or cats. In truth hunting was not up to par with ugly heat, and
very high winds plaguing us every day. Not the kind of conditions in
which you want to call dogs. Even so the rifle was put to paper, and the
learning curve by this writer was being established in terms of sorting
out fact from fiction regarding this very short steep shouldered super
varmint round.
The 223 WSSM is unique.
Designed with a full case length of only 1 1/2 ”, when
a .224 caliber
Nosler/Winchester Combined Technologies 55 grain BST is set atop the
nickel plated brass tube, it takes on the look of a miniature beer keg
with a needle standing on top of it. Very short and steep shouldered,
the case body is very fat and developed not from an existing case
dimension, but one that is all WSSM from the primer pocket to the neck.
As to the why of all this change in shape ? It is because for a very
long time it was a known fact that the specialized bench rest rounds as
in the 6 mm PPC produced deadly accuracy, didn’t flow out case necks,
and because of their short length and sharp case shoulders, burned
powder efficiently. The primary problem with the PPC cartridge types was
that they didn’t push bullet velocity remotely to the levels of existing
varmint cartridges, and as such, there was not much in the way of
reasoning to chamber a new rifle in them as applied to field varmint
hunting work. Even of those adventurous companies that did try and
market a rifle in 6 mm PPC none were very successful in their attempts.
With that background in mind Winchester beefed up the case
in size from
the old PPC standard, added a larger rifle primer to be as affective as
possible in terms of burning off all the powder cleanly, then stacked
the state of the art 55 grain BST on the business end of the cartridge,
which culminates in a very quick moving and accurate varmint round of
ammunition.
On day two while calling via a Johnny Stewart PC 3 jackrabbit
mouth
call, and I indicate this call because of the high winds and its ability
to get out through rough field conditions to dogs ears, I successfully
called a large dark male yote straight into the lap of my partner on the
calling stand Wayne Fears. Wayne being an old hand at getting lead on
coyotes turned loose the quick .223 caliber pill down the dry wash I was
calling through and upended the dog at a solid 85 yards . The bullet
crushed the forward half of the coyote sending it off the high ledge and
over the wash wall into the rocky dry river bed blow. I had to admit the
shot was impressive, and the first kill I had witnessed via the new fast
moving almost 4000 f.p.s. 55 grain varmint round.
Not to be denied I got my chance three calls later as again
blowing the
jackrabbit high volume mouth call a song dog came in from my right, but
failing to turn and close to the call I took him through some light
broom weed at a range of 110 yards. At the shot the yote dropped in its
tracks, as the return sound of the bullets “plop” indicated
a solid hit
against the critters body. In truth,I had almost missed the dog, and as
such if the bullet / load had been any lighter I most likely would have
been subjected to some heavy blood tracking, or even a lost coyote.
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