Custom Rifles - The Coyote Rifle
2014 marks the year that LongRifles, Inc. and O'Neill Ops officially collaborated to bring a cutting edge rifle for pro class coyote and hog hunters. With an annual harvest of over 100 coyotes, almost a million YouTube views and 10,000+ subscribers, O'Neill Ops takes coyote hunting to a whole new level.
Our relationship began in December of 2012 with the development of "The Coyote Rifle"; a compact platform able to harvest dogs out to 400 yards with one shot kill capability. The caliber of choice is the Remington 22-250 loaded to a velocity of 3,600 feet per second using 50grain Hornady V-Max bullets. It makes for a flat shooting, lethal combination while observing the need to preserve fur.
The Coyote Rifle is a baseline platform. As with all the rifles we build, we tailor each job to individual needs. For the O'Neill project we chose the Bighorn Action made by A.J. Goddard in Brighton, CO fitted to a Muller-Works barrel. As with all LRI full builds, the stock began as an uninletted T5-A blank from Tom Manners, owner of Manner's Composite. These top shelf components made our job easy and the rifle delivers with sub 1/4 MOA accuracy on a broad diet of commercial and hand prepared ammunition.
Because O'Neill Ops films every hunt or "set", the system requirements for this gun demanded a compact unit as they pack a lot of gear in the field. James specified a max effective range of 400 yards for the rifle. Most shots on film however are from less than 200 yards. The reasons are simple; Even with the best video and photography equipment, a coyote often will resemble a house cat when filmed from extended distances.
The point were making here is that filming kills in high resolution is a radical departure from conventional hunting. As with all of our builds, we focus on application first. "Stretching your legs" to extend the "kill box" for these guns is as simple as adding barrel length.
2014 marked the debut of the "Coyote Rifle Mod-1". Long distance shooting certainly has its place, however with this application we went to the opposite end of the spectrum. A close range, subsonic, ultra quiet suppressed rifle for kills inside 100 yards. Chambered in 300 AAC Blackout, we entered the project with a bit of skepticism as the cartridge has had a mixed reputation at subsonic velocities. Fortunately our efforts were rewarded. We fitted this gun with an LRI accurized Remington 700 action, a 30 caliber Muller Works barrel, Manners Composites T4 mini chassis folding stock, and decked out it with a 6x optic from US Optics.
The choice of glass, short barrel length, and use of a suppressor requires a slight modification to the EFR mount. The shorter focal plane means any peripheral NVG/Thermal device needs to be mounted closer to the objective lens. Reversing the conventional mounting arrangement solves the challenges and further aids in keeping the overall package even more compact.
This rifle delivers 1/3rd MOA accuracy and one shot kill capability with a variety of 220 grain 30 caliber bullets out to 150 yards.
It reinforces the notion that careful preparation gets results.