Working Guns For Working Guys

It has always seemed to me that gun writers and gun magazines area little out of touch with the realities of most hunter’s lives. The vast majority of the hunters I know live in small towns and cities and work hard for $10 to $15 an hour. On that kind of money they try to pay the mortgage on a modest house, feed and clothe their kids and make the payments on a used car or truck. Most of their wives work because they have to in order to make ends meet.

Money for new guns and hunting trips is scarce as hen’s teeth and most of them hunt near home out of necessity. I recently read an article singing the praises of anew 1911 clone that came with "all the goodies". The writer was ecstatic that the retail price was a "modest" $895. Another writer recently said that he never understood why a guy would put a $100 dollar scope on a $1000 rifle. Well, I have news for both of those guys and the magazines they write for. At $12 an hour a $900 handgun ain’t modestly priced.

I know that compared to having a custom gunmaker put one together with the same goodies it would be closer to $2000 but for a working guy that isn’t an option. Most guys can only dream of a $1000 rifle and, if he could squirrel away that much for a rifle he would be lucky to have $100 left over to buy any scope. When I was 30 years old my entire hunting arsenal consisted of a Stoeger Luger .22 pistol, a Stevens 311 12 gauge double and a Savage 110 5 MOA performance to about 1 MOA after modification.

In addition to the remodeled buttstock the forend has been slimmed and tapered. With the work done the rifle has a much more classic line. bolt action rifle in 30-06. If you are not familiar with these old guns I can tell you that they all had one thing in common: They were cheap! It had taken me almost ten years to accumulate them and I treated them like they were the family jewels. Let’s say you’re one of us working stiffs.

The phone rings one evening and a very excited buddy tells you that him and a bunch of his friends are going on a prairie dog hunt and you’re invited to join them. Wow! It sounds like a ball and you’re ready to jump at the chance when it dawns on you that you don’t have, and can’t afford, one of those high dollar, super accurate thousand dollar tack drivers with the equally high dollar super zoomie 36 trillion power scope.

Much as you would like to have a rig that will shoot the nose off of a prairie dog three counties away it looks like you will have to leave the fun to the rich guys. But wait, maybe not! Lets talk about the realities of varmint hunting for a moment. Like you, at one time all I knew about it was what I had read and I thought all prairie dogs were shot at distances starting from 200 yards out to the horizon. That is just not true!

Sure, guys brag about the long shots they have made but they are shooting them that far out because they can’t get closer. I’ve shot a few prairie dogs and the vast majority were within 100 yards. You only take the long shots to see if you can, not because you have to. If you have a hunting rifle chambered in any centerfire caliber between .22 and .30 and fitted with a scope you already have a varmint rifle. On my last trip all I used was a Remington 700 in .308 and a 3-9 power $100 scope.

I’m a hand loader and brewed up a load that was very accurate with 125 grain varmint bullets. For those of you that don’t already have a rifle that will fill the bill there is still hope that you can make that trip. I set out to find a truly affordable rifle and scope combination that most guys could afford without dip-

If only we can shrink that vertical stringing this gun will shoot! My tests suggest a muzzle dampener may be the solution. It ain’t pretty but it worked, proving that a dampener would help. ping into junior’s college fund. After an extensive search I came up with a New England Firearms (NEF) Handi- Rifle that looked like just the ticket. This is a single shot break open rifle built a lot like the single shot shotguns that many of us started hunting with.

It’s not particularly pretty but it is available with a laminated wood or synthetic stock in just about every standard caliber from .223 to 45-70 for around $200 on the used gun market. I found one on Gunbroker.com in .223 complete with amounted cheap 3-9 power Chinese variable scope. I bid $200 on it and at the end of the auction the gun was mine. First, let me tell you what $200 does not buy. It does not buy fancy walnut hand fitted stocks. The laminated stock stands proud above the metal and is rather blocky.

It does not buy precision optics. It does not include color case hardening of the receiver. The triggerguard and forend spacer are plastic. The Chinese scope on the gun was difficult to get focused and leaves a lot to be desired in the clarity and sharpness of the image. I’ve found this scope retailing for around $45 and if it had not come with the gun I would have sprung for that $100 model we were talking about earlier.

None the less, I cleaned the bore just to make any comparisons fair and took it to the range just as it came out of the box. Now lets see what we did get for our $200. The .223 barrel is a sporter weight and that caused some problems. A quick check while cleaning showed it to have a 1 in 12 twist, which should be best with bullets of 55 grains or less. Perfect, as .223 varmint bullets usually run 45 to 55 grains so this should work for us.

The real question is what kind of accuracy can you expect out of this bargain basement varminter. To set a base line for any improvements I make I The results are much nicer looking. used handloads I had worked up for a Remington 700 in .223. As to the results, well, it ain’t a thousand-yard tack driver. With this load, 100 yard ten shot groups ran around 3.5 inches. Yeah, I could have shot a series of three shot groups and picked one or two that gave sub minute groups.

In prairie dog hunting things can get fast and furious and I’d rather give you a result as close to the reality of what you can expect from a barrel that will get very hot than what it will do under ideal conditions. Still, that group is within "minute of prairie dog" and every shot in it would send a varmint to the happy no-hunting ground. Would I take it hunting? Just invite me and I’d happily take it, as is, and we would have

The yellow lines show where wood was to be removed. In this photo the grip cap is already in place. a great time. Can it be improved? Ah Grasshopper, now you are asking the question that can really drive up the cost, or perhaps not. The Chinese scope had to go! It wasn’t sealed and no amount of adjustment centered the group. In keeping with our economic theme I found a 4-12 power Pentax scope on clearance in the Sportsman’s Guide catalog (sportsmansguide.com) for $69.95.

The real problem with the rifle was that it was stringing shots vertically. Groups were an inch wide and 3 1/2 inches from top to bottom. Normally this suggests a problem with the forearm putting pressure on the barrel. To get a handle on the problem I bedded the forend with Acraglas Gel from the receiver to the stud that attaches the forend to the barrel and free floated it from there forward. I saw an improvement but was still bothered with that darn vertical stringing.

A friend suggested that I try adding weight to the end of the barrel. Duct taping three pieces of empty brass to it realized an immediate improvement. Wanting something a bit nicer looking than the duct tape and empty brass concoction I improvised a muzzle weight made of solder and hose clamps. Groups never did really settle down with that ugly thing so I purchased a Limb Saver Barrel De- Resonator. This rubber gadget slips over the muzzle end of the barrel and I can attest that it works as advertised.

Consistent one-inch five shot groups were shot over and over once the right location on the barrel was found. At about $10 the De-Resonator is worth its weight in gold. Now, you may still not be impressed with one inch groups as 100 yards but keep in mind that this was with one load and one bullet. If you area reloader you know that there are dozens of powder and bullet combinations available, not to mention a variety of factory loading options.

Now that I have the gun behaving itself and have established a base line I can play with other combinations of powder and bullets until I find what this particular rifle likes best. The factory trigger was pretty good, breaking at five pounds, but felt pretty gritty. I disassembled the gun while referring to The Official Guide To Firearms Assembly: Rifle and Shotguns and simply deburred and polished the parts.

No fancy changing of angles or major modifications was done, just a quick touch with a fine Arkansas stone. Upon reassembly the trigger broke smoothly at three poinds. At this point I had a nicely shooting varmint gun but, always one to try to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, I just couldn’t leave that stock alone. Basically, there are four problems with the stock and forend. First, they are made of laminated Birch. Two, they are oversized and clubby looking to my eye.

Three, with the recoil pad the 14 1/2-inch length of pull is too long for me and I had to crawl all over the stock to see through the scope. Last, but not least, it has a comb that makes it look humpbacked. I started out looking for a Walnut replacement stock set but was not able to find one that was priced in my range, so there was nothing I could do but modify the laminated factory stock.

Removing the recoil pad and replacing it with a plastic one was a no brainier that reduced the length of pull to 13 1/2 inches. Then I went to work with the rasp reducing height of the comb just in front of the buttplate to a more classic style, gently tapered the thickness of the stock from butt to grip and cut flutes at the front of the comb. I then added a grip cap and slimmed the pistol grip down. None of that made the gun shoot better but it has made me like it more.

The forend was likewise reduced to a slim taper with a less aggressive Schnabel giving the gun a much more classic look. To sum it up, the only real problem with the stock is that there is just to much of it and anyone with a few basic woodworking skills can easily solve that. For an affordable varmint gun at less than $300 I think we have a winner.

When your ship comes in and you win the lottery or that long lost rich uncle dies and leaves you a fortune I’m sure you can find love in a $2000+ rifle and scope combination. Until then the Handi-Rifle will get you in the game and serve you well. AG