killed an inordinate number of prairie vermin with shots ranging from about 50 yards to about 500 yards and under all manner of conditions from dead calm to "Hold on the second fence post to the left," with occasionally stronger gusts.
We were thrilled to note three surprising things about these 5mm SMc guns. First, all kills within about 350 yards were simply spectacular. We noted that all three bullets performed similarly in this regard and that typical center-of-mass hits resulted in something that we had not seen before – the target would balloon to the maximum elastic limit, pause at that size and shape and then disintegrate. Rather spectacular, to say the least.
I have coined a term for this effect: "The Blowfish Special." Owing to the mental image this term engenders (from memory) I like this name so much that I have considered renaming the 5mm VarmintMaster as the 5mm BFS. Smalley has noted that one has to be sick to get a kick out of such things. Since our fellow shooter at the time, Jim Ricord, was laughing hysterically after observing this effect for the first time, I noted that Smalley and I are both sick and that, evidently, we are in good company.
Second, recoil was in a different class from what we had seen with high performance 22s. For example, Jim Ricord, used his new Savage Low Profile 223 that, excepting chambering and bore size was identical from butt pad to scope to muzzle crown with the 5/35 chambered Savage that I was shooting. Moreover, his load launched a 40-grain Nosler BT at about 3900 fps using a stiff charge of BenchMark. My load launched the 40-grain Hornady V-Max at about 4250 fps using a few more grains of the same propellant. Hence, my 5/35 chambered gun launched the same