4
The author’s mint 30 year
old Remington 700 BDL in
17 Remington certainly worked
a treat on foxes.5
Get ting the ute ready for
a night’s spotlighting.6
Handloaded .17 Remington
cartridges, ready for some
fox destruction.Approaching the tree line
slowly, I caught another glimpse of
those tell-tale eyes from about
200m away. I asked John to get a
little closer as the fox didn’t seem
too concerned by the approaching
vehicle. From about 150m I looked
at the fox through the scope and it
appeared to be chasing something,
a mouse or grasshopper maybe,
but whatever it was, it had the
fox’s full, undivided attention. Not
wanting to get too complacent I
took the shot quickly for an
instant kill.
Ordinarily, I use 25gn Hornady
Hollowpoints in my .17 Remington
but on this occasion I was using
25gn V-max which seemed to work
quite well. I’ve also been using the
20gn V-max which surprisingly
shoot the same point of impact as
the heavier bullets. To be honest,
all three Hornady .17cal bullets
work well. That is, of course, If I do
my part well and hit the target.
Around 30 minutes later, after
having travelled through some
rather unproductive country, we
spied another fox way up ahead,
but unlike the previous fox this32 | SPORTING SHOOTER _ APRIL 2015
I wanted to
score at least
one more red
dog before
night’s end.”
one wasn’t waiting around and
quickly disappeared as we
approached. But I wasn’t giving up
yet. So we took it nice and slow
while having a good look around
with the light. As we got closer to
where it was John picked it up
slinking off through the scattered
timber. The thing about fox
shooting is you need to take the
shot quickly because another
opportunity might not present
itself, and I had a feeling this was
one of those occasions.
When we saw it a few seconds
later, I took the shot before it had the
chance to vanish. As usual, my
Remington 700BDL in .17 Remington
worked a treat, poleaxing the crafty
red dog instantly. What I was also
impressed by was the performance
of my new rifle which was only
purchased a few months earlier after
selling my previous .17 Remington.
My current rifle was made in
1983 and had done very little work,
if any. So after having it bedded
and the barrel free floated as well
as having a new Rifle Basix trigger
fitted and set at 1.5lbs, I was very
anxious to test it out and so far,
so good.
With this being our last night
hunting, I wanted to score at least
one more red dog before night’s end.
So we continued on, searching the
back blocks and unfamiliar areas
hoping to get lucky. While cruising
the fence line to an adjacent
paddock we spotted a fox way off on
the other side of the fence. We had
no hope of getting any closer so
John took the shot from around
250m away. Having a good sturdy
rest made all the difference and an
instant kill resulted in our fourth
fox for the night – this one was well
and truly toast. Grabbing our
torches, we jumped the fence and
wandered over to claim our prize.
This fox was in prime condition too,
unlike some of his mangy
counterparts I’d seen in the past.
Satisfied with the night’s result
we made it towards the quarters for
a few cold ones around the camp-
fire. No doubt, we will be back out
here again real soon to have another
crack at these cunning red dogs.
Maybe next time we might even
score a few more!FOX
SHOOTING4
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