.220 Swift

[Travis]

I love this round! It is about the most perfect for varmints and it still is the king of the commercial rounds for being the fastest made still to this day. I have a severely beat and Bubba'd K98 Mauser {Lubecker Model} and Neil and I have discussed taking this speed demon round to another level in my K98.

Re-Barrel it to .220 Swift WITH Ackley Improvement! Mr. Parker Otto Ackley was no dummy, and purely a cartridge genius and his "Improvements" sure have spiced up a lot of rounds over the years.

I may just go with a standard .220 Swift for the time being because I have absolutely no room to set up my reloading equipment, and then later on after we move from this "shed" and I can set up my stuff, then I'll ask Neil to "clean up" my stock .220 Swift chamber to the "A.I." specs.

Anyone have a certain varmint round they like and why?

[stalkingbear]

I would recommend you just have it chambered for .220AI. That way you can still fire factory .220 swift ammo, as you can with all AI chamberings because they still use the same point of the shoulder to headspace on. Then later when you're able to set your reloading press back up, you'll have once fired brass in your chamber. The .220 AI is an excellent round, I've had 1 myself and it does improve on the .220 a decent bit.

[jeffs]

I've always been partial to .243. The 22s just seem to lose velocity too fast. A 70 gr 243 at 3500 will pass up a 50 grain .22 that started at 3900 in about 300 yards. Out here varmints means mostly coyotes. Squeakers (ground squirrels) and jackrabbits are fairly easy to whack with a 22 rimfire, so song dogs are the fun varmints. You can use amplified calls too. It's most fun at night - play the call a little, and then scan with a searchlight looking for eyes. All kinds of fun.

[Travis]

Jeff, I like the 6mm Remington, just a shade longer in the boiler room and a tad more speed. But then again, we all have our preferences. ;D The .220 Swift was based off the semi rimmed 6mm Lee Navy, which is kind of in between the .243 and the 6mm Rem.?

Neil, Sounds like a winner to me. We may just have to do that.