the evolution of a coyote rifle.

I started out hunting predators with the only suitable rifle I had at the time. It was a Frankeinstein of a gun built with parts from at least 3 major manufacturer, Winchester, Ruger and Remington. It was a single shot .220 Swift that I had built myself a few years earlier and it did the job for a while but it was clear in my mind that this wasn't IT for the type of hunting that I do. This rifle still has my longest shot to date, a 475 yds fox. That was also my only double on foxes so far.

Thus started my quest for the ideal predator rifle. At first, I didn't want to spend too much on the project because, by then, I knew enough about predator hunting, to be aware that this rifle would be abused. So I looked around the shop and found an old Remington 722 in 222 Rem. This rifle had a beautifull slim 26 inches barrel so my first thought was to rechamber it in .220 Swift, but the condition of the barrel was so so, so more looking turned up a pull off Ruger barrel in .243 Win, so I fitted that to the action, openned up the bolt face, put a Sako type extractor, fitted a comp to the barrel, bedded the action and painted the whole thing winter camo with Duracoat. The scope was a Leupold Vari-X 3-9x

Paulie's coyote rifle V 1.0 with my first coyote.

It soon became apparent that a 3-9x scope wasn't going to be enought for this game, so the first thing I changed on the rifle was the scope. The Leupold was replaced by a Burris Fullfield 4.5-14 with a Ballistic plex reticle. I'm a leupold guy at the core, but if you're on a budget, this has to be one of the best scope around fot this type of hunting. Mine went through hell and it never let me down .

Paulie's coyote rifle V 1.1 with my first hand made electronic call

I'm a big fan of light hunting rifles, so as I became more addicted to this hunt, it soon became clear that the wood stick had to go. So I looked around and found Wildcat Composits in Alberta, they make light fiberglass stocks, so i orderd one, installed the rifle in it and at the same time I replaced the comp in the rifle to a longer on in order to help with accuraccy. The barrel wasn't shooting my new load well because of harmonic issues and going to this new comp did shrink my groupes by 0.5 inches at 100 yds. New camo paint job et voila!

Paulies Coyote rifle V2.o

Never liked the paint job, I was out of white Duracoat so I had used Krylon so the next year I redid the camo with Duracoat and also installed a HS Precision detachable mag.

Paulie's Coyote rifle V2.1, that's the evening my Foxpro got attacked by an owl so it's missing the decoy.

Yeah, I know... what's with all the foxes, isn't this to be about Coyote rifle?

I build the rifle for it's biggest intended target but my hunting spots have more foxes in them so that's what I kill the most.

The next change was a major one and at the time I believed it would be the final version, predator hunting had become a passion and it was time to finally put the finishing touch on what has become my favorite rifle.

So I installed a slightly longer B-7 barrel and replaced the scope with a leupold vari-3 4.5-15x50mm with a Varmint hunter's reticle and built a cheekpiece on the stock to work with the bigger scope. Once all the work was done I redid the camo and ended up with my perfect Coyote rifle. Accurate as hell, dead on with the cold bore shot no matter what the temperature, weights in at 10lbs with the bipod and mag on. MY PERFECT COYOTE GUN....

Paulie's Coyote rifle V3.0

Unfortunatelly.... there will be a version 4.0 of this rifle. The B-7 stainless barrel is accurate no doubt about it, but his choices in steel sucks, so with less than 200 rounds through the barrel, the erosion is bad enough that i've lost 150fps on my hunting load. So as soon as the season is over this barrel will be replaced with one by a maker who knows what he's doing. Ansd since i'm changing the barrel, I'll be trying a new caliber that's kinda the same as a .243 but just more.... perfect.

I'll tell you all about it when it's done.

P.