Cheapest target round?

[wisconsinteacher]

After all is said and done, with my hunting rifles, I would like to get another rifle for plinking/target shooting. I am looking for something that is light on recoil and cheap to reload. With that said, I am thinking .223 or similar. Maybe .17 or .20 cal also. What would you build on a Savage action that is fun to shoot, accurate, and easy on the wallet? I would be shooting from 100-300 yards.

This is the list I developed:

22BR
22 Hornet
20 Practical
204 Ruger
17-204
17 Rem

 

[velvetant]

I would go 223.
The market is slowly getting better but I still would go for easy to get brass/bullets

 

[FOTIS]

223 Ruger American clone

 

[SJB358]

Yeah, it's hard to get cheaper than a 223. I've got a 222 Rem I like a lot. For 100-300 yards you could pick just about any of the .22 center fires.

 

[Guy Miner]

.223

It's proven accurate weekend after weekend at matches to 600 yards.

Loaded ammo and components are readily available, again.

"Target" loads are well known and easily duplicated.

Surprisingly easy on barrels. I know a fellow who used a .223 in a Rem bolt action, with over 7,000 rounds through the factory barrel - and he took home a trophy from a match I shot in over in Idaho.

It's also a dandy varmint cartridge if you decide to use it on prairie dogs and the like someday - perhaps on that antelope hunt you're planning.

I do have both the .204 Ruger and the .223/5.56, both are good. Components and ammo have been easier for me to find, and generally avail in good quantity, for the .223 Rem.

Guy

 

[FOTIS]

Yeah, it's hard to get cheaper than a 223. I've got a 222 Rem I like a lot. For 100-300 yards you could pick just about any of the .22 center fires.

Except the 22 Hornet!!! 200 is pushing it

 

[muleman]

I reload 17 Hornet for cheaper than I can buy 17 HMR. Loaded below max the brass is wearing well; I've have 5 loads on some of them and I haven't lost any yet. Great plinking round good out to 300yds. A .223 would be cheaper to get going and be more versatile
Scott

 

[Wincheringen]

Yeah, it's hard to get cheaper than a 223. I've got a 222 Rem I like a lot. For 100-300 yards you could pick just about any of the .22 center fires.

Except the 22 Hornet!!! 200 is pushing it

12 grains of Lil Gun and any bullet makes it pretty cheap, but brass is in short supply and of course Lil Gun is pretty spotty in availability since it is a popular 410 shotshell and magnum handgun powder.

 

[FOTIS]

Agreed the 22 Hornet is indeed cheap to handload BUT a 300 yard cartridge it is not.

 

[JD338]

223 Rem and don't look back.

JD338

 

[Wincheringen]

... BUT a 300 yard cartridge it is not.

Oh really? I regularly knock over steel silhouettes with it.