Sorry for the lack of posts last week. If you caught my bit on the Mannlicher rifle from Merkel, you'll know that anybody who's anybody in the firearms industry was in Las Vegas last week for SHOT show, our profession's industry trade show. And if you know anything about trade shows, you know there's little time to blog or do other constructive work between the o-dark-thirty breakfasts, working the floor, unending meetings, cocktail parties, and dog-and-pony-show dinners. Still, as much work as it is, the SHOT show is a great place to be, and as great a place as it is to be, I'm glad to be back home. Now let's get back to January's series on coyote guns with setup No. 6.
Ruger Gunsite Scout Rifle
I’d like to think that everyone out there who hunts coyotes is doing so in part to keep the hides and make something useful out of them, but I’m not so naiive I don’t realize that there are more than a few ranchers who need to simply control the population. For them, Ruger’s Gunsite Scout Rifle is a smart pick.
With an overall length of 38 inches plain or 39.5 with the removable flash suppressor, this handy little rifle wears a 16.5-inch barrel and a grey laminate stock, which makes this an easy and practical grab from out of the window rack in back of a pickup truck. It also has three half-inch spacers in between the thick butt pad and the stock, which can drop the length of pull all the way down to 12.5 inches, a fit that will better accommodate heavy work coats and parkas in the winter months. The bolt-action gun also comes with a top-side Picatinny rail and a detachable 10-shot magazine. The Gunsite Scout Rifle chambers the .308, which is quite a lot of firepower for taking out the diminutive coyote (though it’s probably a rockin’ good round for the newly delisted and much larger wolf), but like I said, for some, it’s not about preserving the pelt, but rather keeping calves and lambs alive.
MSRP: On the Ruger website, $996 in both left and right hand models.
Remington Managed Recoil Ammunition
Just because you may have chosen the Ruger Scout rifle in .308 doesn’t mean you have to take on a lot of recoil. Remington’s Managed-Recoil ammo claims to cut felt recoil by ½, while still offering ample expansion and weight retention at the naturally lower velocities. This can, of course, aid in sight/optic recovery after muzzle rise and speed follow-up shots. The .308 load wears a 125-grain Core-Lokt Pointed Soft Point. Combined with the reduced energies and lower velocities (just 2121 feet per second at 100 yards, 1878 at 200, and 1653 at 300), as well as a bullet weight retention somewhere in the 76% range, you may even be able to salvage your hides with this ammo.
The Author Recommends: If you're going to carry the .308 Gunsite Scout from Ruger for coyote control, you probably have–or should have–a Ruger 10/22 somewhere in your arsenal. This ever reliable and fun .22 has all sorts of customization options, and so I'd absolutely have to pick the Customize the Ruger 10/22, by James E. and Kathleen A. House. Inside you'll find a cornucopia of accessory addons, plus all the instructions you need to install them yourself and fine-tune this neat little rifle to its most accurate form.
