Coyote Rifles

A variable power scope is best for a coyote rifle. This hunter has a Nikon 4-12x on his .223 Remington.

Hunters had better study up on proper coyote rifles before examination day with Professor Coyote, the master of maneuver and masquerade. A coyote might slink into a call only to scram when it discovers there is no such thing as a free meal. That close shot will be at a greased streak hightailing it out of the country. The next chance at a coyote, though, might come across a wide stretch of country. To connect, a hunter must take a long shot that requires a quick and accurate estimate of range and a flat-shooting rifle. Hunters better be prepared for all the possibilities in between, too, because there is no grade inflation in the coyote’s class of life and death.

The whole shooting match rides on the first bullet out of the barrel. That bullet is the one that catches a coyote distracted by the imitated squeals of a wounded rabbit or looking the other direction during a stalk. Succeeding bullets carry an ever-decreasing likelihood of connecting, because when a coyote hears a bullet whizzing past, it will nearly turn inside out switching directions to run. Once in a great while, they will stop way out there to look back, but mostly they run clean out of the country.

A bipod or shooting sticks are the handiest addition a coyote hunter can add to his rifle. They keep the rifle up and ready, so a hunter’s movement can be kept to a minimum when a coyote comes to the call.

About the only time a second bullet helped shoot a coyote was when I sat in a snow drift to call. After calling for a couple of minutes, my backside started sinking into the snow. It was too late to move, though, because a dark coyote was coming at a lope from across a basin. By the time it came into sure range, my rifle was pointing at the clouds. I slid the rifle down the outside of my leg and stretched my neck to see above the snow. I fired as best I could, which wasn’t nearly close enough. The bullet plowed into the snow well short of the coyote, and the snow bank muffled the muzzle blast. The coyote looked around, unsure where the sound had come from. I was so deep in the snow, it failed to see me wallowing around to turn over into the prone position with the rifle. The crosshairs settled into the dark fur, and the second bullet rolled the coyote.

Although the first shot is the most important, few serious coyote hunters carry a single-shot rifle. I’m very fond of my Cooper Model 22 single-shot .22-250 Remington, and if I had an elastic band around my wrist or the butt of the rifle with a few extra cartridges close at hand, the Cooper would be fairly fast to reload for follow-up shots. But I rarely hunt with it because I just know I will run into a pack of coyotes. That never happens, however, so the notion that I might need two, three or four quick shots is mostly imagined.

This hunter bagged two coyotes at one sitting. A bolt action can be operated quickly enough to take two or more aimed shots in a few seconds, the time it takes a coyote to turn and run.

That notion of fast repeat shots has made auto-loading rifles very popular in recent years. A friend who participates in coyote calling contests says an autoloading rifle is es-sential. He says if two or three coyotes come to his call, it’s imperative to shoot all of them to have a chance of winning a contest.

The AR-15 type rifle chambered in .223 Remington/5.56 NATO is the most popular autoloader. In fact over the last five years, it has become one of the most popular of all rifles, and it seems every young hunter after coyotes is shooting an AR-15 of some type.

I’ve been shooting a Smith & Wesson M&P15 PC .223/5.56 NATO built by the gunsmiths at S&W’s Performance Center. Over several months of shooting, the M&P15 has cycled every cartridge without a hitch. With its one-in-8-inch twist, the M&P15 PC has shot very well with bullets from 40 to 77 grains, with three-shot groups of .5 inch and five-shot groups only a touch larger at 100 yards. It also shoots five-shot groups close to 2.5 inches at 300 yards with handloads of Nosler 69-grain hollowpoint boat-tails and 24.0 grains of TAC propellant. Such a rifle begs for the coyote hills. Or is it me who pleads for a day with the coyotes?

Thomas Haviland shot this coyote at 100 yards when it came to his calls. His 4-12x scope set on 4x provided plenty of field of view to quickly find the coyote and shoot.

I started hiking into the hills with the M&P15 as morning light filtered through clouds heavy with snow. The rifle was heavy at 9 pounds, 10 ounces with a Zeiss Conquest 6.5-20x 50mm scope. But it rode fine on a sling over my shoulder. I made a few stops and called 20 minutes at a time, but nothing came – not even an inquisitive hawk circled overhead.

A couple of miles from the road, a steep draw of Douglas firs fanned below into a sagebrush flat that looked perfect for calling. I sat on the side of the hill with an open view. After 20 minutes of calling, I was disgusted with my luck and stood up to put on my backpack. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a brown spot staring at me from the lip of a slight rise. I dropped to the ground and fumbled to put the rifle on the shooting sticks. The coyote ran across the draw. I thought there was still a chance when it stopped at 250+ yards and stared. I brought the scope to bear, but it was like looking through an ice cube because it was plastered with snow and ice. I rubbed the lenses with my thumb enough to take a bead on the coyote. The bullet hit somewhere, but not the coyote. It ran through the sagebrush and snow, and I gave it my regards with a quick second shot. But then I switched the rifle’s lever to safe and watched the brown dot fade into the distance. All the cartridges from a 30-round magazine would not fix my mistake.

This big coyote was taken with one shot from a Smith & Wesson M&P15 PC autoloader. Although the rifle can provide 10 quick shots, only one is needed when a hunt goes according to plan.

The next stand went the way it’s supposed to. A big coyote came trotting to the call across the wind. It saw my movement from 40 yards as the rifle swiveled toward it, but it was too late. A single bullet killed it as it turned from predator to prey.

That day I would have done just as well with a bolt-action rifle. The weight of a bolt-action .223 is a pound lighter on my shoulder too. My Remington Model 700 SPS .223 weighs 81⁄4 pounds with a Leupold VX-3L 3.5-10x 50mm scope on board. With larger cartridges, like the .243 Winchester and .25-06 Remington, the bolt action has an even lighter weight advantage over autoloading rifles.

If you have a big game rifle, you have a coyote rifle. A few unfortunate coyotes have seen the muzzle of my .338 Winchester Magnum and the .338’s 250-grain bullets expanded little, if at all, and poked a small hole. Hides have all been ruined, however, by hunting weight bullets I’ve shot from the .270 and .30-06. Shooting a lighter bullet, like a 110 grainer in the .270 or 125 grains in the .30-06, rips even larger holes in the hide. With depressed fur prices, hides are worth little, so gaping holes are of little concern.

Big game hunters occasionally run into coyotes. The deer rifle they have in hand at the time will work just fine. This hunter used a .325 WSM to take this coyote.

A dedicated coyote cartridge, though, should produce a flat enough trajectory to aim on a coyote out to about 275 yards. Bullets should hit no more than one inch high at 100 yards to attain that trajectory too. Any higher bullet impact at that range and we’re going to miss. What looks like 350 yards to most of us is actually 250 yards, and we aim according to what our mind computes and, alas, shoot high.

Years ago a friend and I headed out for a day of coyote hunting. Corey was carrying his new .223 Remington, which he had sighted in 3 inches high at 100 yards. He had the rifle sighted in like that to compensate for what he thought was the .223’s steep bullet drop compared to his pet .220 Swift. His bullet whizzed a foot over the back of the first coyote he shot at, because he thought the range was well over 350 yards. We paced it off at 225 yards. At about the same distances, he flubbed a shot at a second coyote and later a red fox by also shooting over them. He refused to believe the 50-grain bullets from the .223 actually shot relatively flatly out to 300 yards or so.

This lineup of cartridges fairly well encompasses pop­ular coyote cartridges. They include, from left: .204 Ruger, .223 Remington, .22-250 Remington, .243 Winchester and .25-06 Remington.

The .223 Remington along with the .204 Ruger, .22-250 Remington, .243 Winchester and .25-06 Remington fairly well encompass popular coyote cartridges. These cartridges put their bullets on the mark at 200 yards when sighted in .25 inch either side of an inch high at 100 yards. The bullets drop between 5 and 6 inches at 300 yards, so with the crosshairs on top of the back of a coyote at that distance, they will roll it over. After another 100 yards, though, bullets from these cartridges truly start falling, with three times as much drop as they had at 300 yards. At 500 yards the drop is double that at 400 yards.

For years I used a Burris fixed 10x scope on my Ruger Model 77 .22-250 Remington to hunt coyotes. Its field of view was a bit narrow for a quick shot at 50 yards, but we still gave the coyotes trouble. It provided all the magnification needed to hit a coyote at 400 yards. If the coyote looks like it’s that far out, aiming with a crack of daylight between the crosshair and back compensates for the .22-250’s 15 inches of bullet drop.

One January a coyote came running across a sagebrush bench. I sat waiting for it to come closer with the .22-250 resting on my knees. It slowed to a trot when it reached a line of quaking aspens in a draw. At somewhere close to 400 yards, the coyote must have seen the movement of bring-ing the rifle to bear, because it stopped and stared. I fired when the crosshairs steadied with a sliver of daylight between the crosshair and the top of the coyote’s back. It spun in a circle at the shot and fell.

A rangefinder has limited use in coyote hunting, except to measure distance to various landmarks for reference on incoming coyotes.

A variable power scope is more versatile because it can be set on the magnification that provides a balance of field of view and a close look. That wide field of view comes from a variable that turns down to about 4x. With some practice quickly getting a scope on target, that power can be bumped up to about 6x. After using the Burris straight 10x for years, there is little need for more power for long shots. The Leupold VX-3L 3.5-10x 50mm scope on the Remington .223 Remington covers all the bases. Then again so does the Sightron 4-16x that now sits on the Ruger Model 77 .22-250 Remington. However, when I twist the power ring on the Sightron scope for a closer look on a long shot, I find later the scope is set near 10x.

Turned to a low power, like 4x, a variable scope provides a wide field of view when coyotes run in fast to the call. A higher power provides a close look at distant coyotes.

With all this talk of possible long shots, you’d think a range-finder would come in handy. In reality, however, a rangefinder has a limited use in coyote hunting. One can be used at the conclusion of a sneak to determine the distance to a bedded coyote napping away the afternoon. One can also be used when setting up at a calling site to laser the distance to various objects. That way if the coyote figures out the jig is up, you’ll have an idea of yardage as the coyote strokes it across the ground. Mostly, though, the seconds are unavailable to place the reticle of a rangefinder on a coyote and push a button to determine the range. If the coyote hasn’t seen you before, it will pick up the movement of you fiddling with the rangefinder.

When a coyote is about to beat feet, go to the rifle and hope for the best by estimating range and using a scope with a reticle that incorporates aiming points on the bottom wire for shooting at different distances. These reticles have become fairly popular in the last few years, and I like them. The Leupold Varmint Hunter is one such reticle with hash marks along the bottom wire calibrated for bullet drop at 300, 400 and 500 yards. Those holdover points in the Leupold VX-3 4.5-14x 50mm scope on a Cooper Model 22 .243 Winchester are within a few inches of the trajectory of Nosler 70-grain Ballistic Tips at 3,450 fps sighted one inch high at 100 yards.

The Zeiss RAPID-Z Varmint reticle also contains numbered hold-over lines that correspond to target distances and wind compensation hashes to correct for crosswinds. Once the distance and crosswind have been determined, the corresponding hold-over line is placed on the target for a precise shot. The Varmint reticle was in the Conquest 6.5-20x 50mm scope I used on the Smith & Wesson M&P15 PC rifle. With the particulars of my .223 load typed into the appropriate spaces, the Zeiss website stated the Conquest scope set on 12x would provide the correct spacing to use the various hash marks to aim out to 600 yards. That setting was pretty close.

Some homework at the range and in the field is required with scopes with holdover reticles. Studying the trajectory of your rifle’s bullets along with practice in calling and stalking will help on test day with Professor Coyote.