Looking for a new .50

[300 RUM]

I am in the market for a new rifle. I have a older White Rifles muzzy that shoots pretty good but only has a 22" barrel. At 75-125 yards it holds its own but all my buddies rifles kill me at 200 yards.

And who really needs an excuse to get a new rifle!

I went to the local shop and peeked at a few. I really want a stainless model with a thumbhole stock. They had 3 options

#1 T&C Omega Pro- fit & finish great, feels good
Con- $$$$$$$$$$

#2 Remington Genesis Pro- Fit & finish good, Feels good, good $
Con- never shot one, havent heard
alot about them yet

#3 CVA Kodiak Pro- Feels good, great $
Con- heard mixed reviews on CVA in general
not in particular to this rifle

All 3 rifles really felt pretty good in hand none had a distinct advantage in the "feel"

Very large price gap from Omega to the other two.

I have shot a few Omegas and they shot well, none really shot that much better than the Knights, Whites or Encore that I have shot.

I really am going back and forth between the Rem & CVA the Omega is just out of my budget. I dont use my Muzzy every year so it doesnt see alot of use, so I hesitate to spend that kind of $$ on something I dont use regularly.

Anyone have any thoughts or personal experience with any of these rifles? mainly the CVA or Rem.

[rattus58]

What do you mean your buddies rifles "kill you" at 200 yards?

If you are referring to point blank range with lighter bullets that is one thing, but if you are referring to accuracy with your White, that is just not the case at all if you will spend some time on the range to learn where you need to hold over for longer ranges.

If your scope has them little ladder type reticles, 200 yards is easy with the white with any bullet. However, if you have not tried sabots in your white, be assured that it will shoot sabots as well as any gun but you will be giving up the "thwack" that the big conicals provide.... provide, by the way, at any range and much further than we'd be advised to shoot.

Aloha... :cool:

[rem 700]

Get an omega! From the z5 to the thumbhole laminate/stainless you can't go wrong.

[300 RUM]

rattus,

At 200 yards with the same bullet and powder I am about 10-12" lower. I assume its the extra 4-6" of barrel they have over me. At 75 yards I am just as accurate but at longer ranges I have more drop and my pattern opens up.

In the areas I hunt it is iron sights only. No scopes/ optics at all. And to hold over with iron sights is very inacurrate due to loosing your target behind the sight. In a perfect world, yes, I would not need to shoot that far. But if I have a 30" buck or a 350+ bull at 225 yards I'm going to throw a bullet.

I really like the Remington my only worry is the barrel says "made in Spain". Most the negative I have heard about CVA is their Spanish made barrels having a very low pressure rating. Makes me wonder if Remington is getting the barrels at the same place to save $.

[rattus58]

Hi 300... :)

Well 10-12 inches lower isn't any handicap if you know it. Point blank range represents an imaginary tube from your muzzle to a point downrange that represents the low point of the trajectory as dictated by the potential size of an animals KILL ZONE. For practical purposes, this represents a side shot on a deer where the circle of what represents the vitals is determined. For the most part, many use 8" for deer, some may then even subtract their group size from this and use THAT figure for point blank range.

In the case of an 8" kill zone, the point blank range for a bullet will be that point where the bullet travels up no more than 4", and falls no further than 4" below line of sight to the target. This means you can aim at an animals center point of the kill zone, and KNOW (theoretically) that your bullet will always fall somewhere within the kill zone within that point blank range distance...

However, knowing that your bullet falls 12" lower than your buddies doesn't mean anything, as long as it does it consistently. You can learn to shoot that distance.

Now... shooting open sights at 200 yards is not recommended by anyone I know on game. That being said... you don't HAVE to hold over on anything if you don't want to. You CAN sight your gun in for dead on at 200 yards and just have to know how much to HOLD UNDER at closer ranges. I do have friends who hunt this way... and yes... its weird... but far more accurate than holding over.

As a THEORETICAL ILLUSTRATION FOR YOU... using 1200 fps as velocity, you can adequately mangage your shots to 200 yards easily by sighting in at 175 yards. Once you have done that then this is theoretically what your trajectory would be with a typical heavy conical.

25 yards = 4.55" high
50 yards = 8.34" high
75 yards = 10.44" high
100 yards = 10.74" high
125 yards = 9.16" high
150 yards = 5.61" high
175 yards = 0.00" high
200 yards = -7.70" low

What this means, is that you can "learn" to aim low for the first 150 yards knowing that you will be in the KILL ZONE. Theoretically, you could hold just above the bottom of the deers chest by a few inches and always be in the kill zone out to 150 yards. Dead on an just under the top of the back for 150 and 200 should pose little difficulty if you can see the animal at that range clearly enough for an ETHICAL shot.

Here you never cover the animal, always have a good view of the vitals of the animal and can be confident in your shot. This, like anything else, requires that you spend time on the range with this set up, but like anything, practice makes perfect, and if hold over isn't your forte (and I applaud you for that), hold under works just as well... its just not what we've been taught, so its different, but any good shooter does this naturally when shooting for burgers.

When you know your gun is sighted in 3" high at 100, where do you aim when you want to hit the bullseye at 100 yards? Point taken... :) That's not a Point blank range necessarily, but it keeps your shots IN THE KILL ZONE VERTICALLY and it works with practice gettin over our biases.

Aloha... Tom :cool:

[rattus58]

One more thing.... If you are not using a peep sight, you might want to try one mounted on the rear of your action (rear scope mount holes). This will lengthen your focal plane between the front and rear sights and improve your accuracy at the longer ranges.

Aloha... Tom :cool:

[Underclocked]

Hey Tom! :)

300 RUM, so you bought the Genesis? Which one did you get, finish/material-wise?

Scope it? Any troubles if you did?

Receiver finish doesn't look like spray paint? (Early comments about the rifle indicated a very cheaply done job on that part of the rifle).

General user review appreciated, trigger quality, etc. Sort of intrigued by that rifle in spite of early "pro" comments.

and, oh yeow, about that White :)
http://www.missouri-whitetails.com/data/500/49White1012.jpg

but I do have 2 inches more barrel length. ;)

[rattus58]

Now that is exactly what was needed... the pudding... :D :D

Thanks for the pic.... worth that 1000 words I just spent.... :)

Aloha... Tom :cool:

[300 RUM]

I have been trying to get a peep sight from White but they keep saying they are out. I have went by a few times in the last month or so. I know I can sight in high but it would be nice to have a flatter trajectory to lower the chance of error.

Some times you just get a shooter. I had 2 identicle rifles in the same caliber. One could shoot clover leaf groups all day long. The other looked more like a 12 gauge pattern than a rifle group. Needless to say I now own one.

I have several friends that have the model 98's. One has a 98 that you can stick any bullet or powder combo in and that thing is a tack driver. Even when I shoot his gun, I get better patterns than I can do with my own. But none of the others 98's are quite that good. That gun is just amazing!!

That said my gun is not that bad. Like I said earlier it is good, just not great. When I had it scoped for a short time the best I could get was 2-1/2" groups at 100 yards. That was with the 440gr White "Power Punch" bullet with 100 grains of Pyrodex P. I tried several different powder charges and that seemed to be the most consistant.

I just had a friend give me a handfull of assorted "Powerbelt" bullets in a couple of different weights. I have not shot them yet, Have either of you tried them? I dont know how they will do with the overbored barrel.

[300 RUM]

Oh yea, just curious how much drop are you getting at that distance?

That is quite a little poke for a 476 grain bullets with only 80 grains of powder.

[rattus58]

First off... go straight to Williams for the peep. They have one listed in their catalog as the Whitetail, that is the one you want. You can get it online.

You need to check out http://www.dwbs.proboards28.com/ and learn a litttle more about what is happening with whites. Bullets are all over the place for your gun. The trouble with White slugs is that they are .503.

If your gun is even a little over bore, your bullets won't give you the best for the money. Bullets of .504 or .505 even are better and there are lots out there for you. There is even a gas check bullet that might be just the ticket for you too.

As for trajectory... sighting in High is not going to ruin your chance of best accuracy. If anything, compared to hold over, it will improve it. You need to try it out to see.

Aloha... :cool:

[300 RUM]

What island are you on? My mom was born on Maui, and raised by a Japanese / Hawaiian family. I grew up on Maui (sort of) I lived there when I was about 6 to 14 yrs old. I havnt been back in a long time, but I have 2 brothers that still live on Maui.

Aloha,
Kalani

[rattus58]

Hi kalani.... I live on the Big Island and work on maui just about 1 week each month.

Aloha... Tom

[rattus58]

Hi Kalani .... :)

Drop... Drop is going to be measured in several ways by different people. Ballisticians look at drop as how far does the bullet fall over a distance. This doesn't help us much because for our purpose, it dismisses the line of sight to the target.

In the example I gave above, I used a 175 yard zero. The total drop to 175, in that example, is 56"... and if we were aiming horizontally to the ground, would have to have a target sitting about 2" above ground to be a useful number for us. Total drop DOES represent the effects of DRAG over DISTANCE... because essentially, bullets are all going to fall (drop) the same amount over time... with some modifications for the aerodynamics of some bullets.

Trajectory, on the other hand, represents the rise and fall of the bullet above and below our line of sight. This is useful stuff. In the example given above, the "drop" from zero to 200 yards (25 yards), is 7.70 inches. From a 100 yard zero, the drop to 200 yards is 29".

So... let’s consider... 29" of drop from a 100 yard zero. That would mean that you would have to hold your crosshairs possibly a foot over the back of a deer to hit it. If you know your gun, have a scope with them little ticks to accommodate such shooting.... no problem if you know your gun.

Open sights.... SHEER FOLLY.

However, when you consider the alternative, which is sighting in at say 175 yards, the total drop from 175 to 200 being only about 8"... means that holding on the back or slightly below the back is more feasible than say a foot.

The ultimate rise of your bullet on its way to 175 is about 11" and makes for a much easier adjustment for hunting at long range... which I would then ask you is how far do you normally hunt now?

Aloha... :cool:

[300 RUM]

To clarify


There was no bullseye visible in the pic, so unless he was just shooting at a big blank piece of card board, the bullet struck (most likely) below his aiming point (bullseye). I am guessing below when in actuality it could have hit high, left , right etc.

Where did the bullet impact in relation the the point of aim (bullseye).

If it was below than the aiming point, how far below?
What distance was the gun zeroed at ? (assuming the above is correct and the bullet struck below the point of aim)

[rattus58]

I'll have to let Rich clarify that for himself, however I believe that he was shooting for groups... that is, how well will the gun group its shots at varying distances. In this case, it is an outstanding group, REGARDLESS OF DROP.

If the gun will group as such, then finding out where you have to aim to accomplish this is a matter of range time. If you took the time to peruse the above posts, you will recognize that drop and trajectory are not quite relevant to each other.

When measuring TOTAL DROP... a bullet traveling 1200 fps at the muzzle will have a total drop of 56.20 inches at 200 yards. It will have a total drop of 42.34" at 175 yards, or a difference in drop of 13.86 inches between 175 and 200 yards. The drop at 100 yards is 13.09 (on paper) or a difference of 39/3 inches from 200 yards..

However, when measuring trajectory, and sighted in for 100 yards, the hold over for that particular group would have been, as I think was mentioned earlier, somewhere on the lines of 29" requiring a holdover of approximately 2 feet on a deer.

Using a method of sighting in for 175 or 200 yards makes your sighting in challenging, yes, but the subsequent hunting with that sight picutre (holdunder) is relatively easy compared to holdover and the problems associated with not being able to see the animal.

Aloha... :cool:

[300 RUM]

No doubt that was a fantastic group.

I assume the rifle must be scoped?

[Baylian]

Check this site out:

randywakeman.com

I have an old CVA Hawken .50 that my dad and I put together from a kit. It has iron sites and hits where ever I point it.

Good Hunting, TJ

[Underclocked]

As I recall, the point of aim was actually 32" above the group. You HAD to know that didn't you? ;) The rifle was zeroed at 100. When they group that steadily, and you know the range and bullet drop......

Don't expect those Powerbelts will do anything but spray.

Try some Bullshop conicals, in particular try some of his 460 grain MT NEx or 500 grain N373 bullets. His prices will make your jaw drop in pleasant surprise.. and he gets them to you from Alaska in fairly short order. I just ordered in 500 of his 460NEx myself, even though I cast. I believe total cost was $111.xx delivered for 500 beautiful lubed conicals.

http://home.mchsi.com/~rltsr/bullshop.jpg

[Underclocked]

and yes, it's scoped with a 3x9 Leupold - an old one.

Here's another pic to consider :D

BigBoys (http://www.missouri-whitetails.com/data/1/49bigboys.jpg)

Three of those groups are mine, the rest from others.

[300 RUM]

I may stop by White and see what they have in stock. They seem to take a few rifles in on trade. I may trade it in or keep the 97 who knows.

[trex]

I used to have a Remmy 700 ML. Loved it to death, but it got stolen. Very accurate. In looking at some of the other ML's out there I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to spend what some of the manufacturers wanted for their guns. I like the Omegas, especially the thumbhole stainless model, but it was just too much money for something I was only gonna hunt a couple of days with. Same for the Encore, except I also have never seen one out of several that I was overly impressed by in the accuracy Dept. I thought long and hard about the new Remmy, but the thing I didn't like about it was the fact that the hammer wouldn't clear the muzzle when you went to clean it. In other words after you pulled the plug out you have to clean from the muzzle end, which is going to make alot of stuff get down in to your hammer/trigger mechanism. I almost got the Optima Pro due to the fact that I have seen a few that shot pretty good for what they cost. In other words just as good as the Encore for half the price. Also never heard of anyone having any problems. I ended up getting the Optima though. Only difference is 2" less barrel and a pound lighter. If I need the extra velocity I'll switch my charge from FFg to FFFg 777 and gain the itty bitty bit I'll lose from not having those 2". I'll also have a gun that weighs plenty, but isn't too heavy. All this is in theory though as I haven't shot it yet. Got the scope on it and it's ready to go, but I've been hanging stands and other stuff. I'll report what I see.