Review: Lithgow LA102 Varmint rifle

This is one of the most accurate rifles I have ever shot. The Lithgow LA102 Varmint was always going to shoot well but in .204 Ruger, a cartridge renowned for pinpoint precision, it is a ridiculously sharp shooter.

No pest, regardless of how small it is, is safe within hundreds of metres.

Lithgow LA102 Varmint test — The Lithgow LA102 Varmint is a good looking rifle in walnut and black … and it shoots beautifully, too

The little .204 Ruger represents a bit of a leap of faith by Lithgow because even though the cartridge has been around for 20 years, it’s not a big seller.

Still, the addition of the .204 alongside .223, .243, 6.5 CM and .308 can only boost the Varmint’s success in the market, and in turn the Varmint can only increase the .204’s profile in Australia.

The pair makes a fantastic team against small and thin-skinned game up to about the size of wild dogs. The little bullets might be small and frangible but with their lightning speed they carry a credible amount of energy.

You’d choose the bigger calibres for larger animals and longer ranges, naturally.

The .204’s attraction is in its incredibly flat trajectory. It’s often likened to a laser beam, not a bad analogy even if it isn’t quite true, and it puts rabbits, cats, crows and similarly small targets in serious danger.

Even the ‘slower’ 40gn bullets have a point blank range on rabbits just beyond 200m.

The 40gn Hornady load was the most accurate of the four factory loads I could source for the test, averaging ½ MOA for five shots. The others were all 32gn loads and none were inaccurate, going to about ¾ MOA.

The only times the Varmint shot groups larger than MOA were when I stuffed up. Such fine-tuned accuracy will uncover any mistakes a shooter makes.

The Hornady 40gn V-Max load, coming out of this barrel at 1073m/s (about 3500fps) and sighted in for a 200m zero, rises to 3.5cm high at about 125m and drops about 3.5cm low at 230m. The 32gn S&B rounds flew at 1235m/s (4050fps), which lowered the peak to 2.5cm for the same zero. That’s why they call the .204 a laser!

All the larger cartridges available for the Varmint are proven for the kind of work the Lithgow is built for and will undoubtedly achieve excellent accuracy in the heavy-barrelled rifle. I’ve shot the Varmint in .223, easily printing sub-MOA patterns of splattered lead on steel targets at 400m.

The Varmint barrel is 61cm (24”) long and tipped with a threaded muzzle — 1/2×28 on the .204 and .223, 5/8×24 on the others. The barrel tapers to 21mm diameter before the muzzle threads, so there is a lot of metal encasing the bore in all calibres.

It screws into the standard LA102 receiver, sandwiching the bolt locking bush between them.

The bolt is standard LA102, too, with the spiral fluting now applied to all of them, and the bolt in this rifle slid in and out with fluid smoothness, just the way it should. Its fat 22mm body is a close fit inside the receiver so there’s virtually no wobble or rattle at all.

The handle carries an enlarged and extended knob with fluting that matches the bolt body’s and provides very secure grip for fast cycling. Its length gives extra leverage against what is already a reasonably light bolt lift, and the bolt’s three-lug head asks only a 60-degree lift angle. The bolt release, which is also the bolt guide, is set into the left rear of the receiver.

The back of the bolt includes the safety catch. With the lever forward, it’s ready to fire; back one step is the full-safe position that locks both firing pin and bolt; the rear position is the unloading position, locking the firing pin but not the bolt. That order makes perfect sense in a three-position safety.

The Lithgow-made single-stage trigger is also good, with ample scope for adjustment of weight, sear engagement and over-travel. From the factory it comes set at 1.6kg release weight with just a bit of creep before release.

I adjusted this rifle’s let-off all the way down to 650 grams, a bit less than the minimum Lithgow lists in its specs, and reduced sear contact to a safe minimum that provided no discernible creep. Every bit helps with a rifle as finely accurate as this.

All the Varmints use an Australian-made Grizzly single-stack box magazine holding 10 rounds. It is built like a tank. Milled from aluminium, its two halves are bolted together with the spring and follower inside.

It looks good and feels bomb-proof, even if it feels a little clunky when you’re slotting the little .204 rounds into it. It was utterly reliable in feeding rounds into the chamber.

Lithgow fitted the Varmint with the walnut stock from the Crossover, cutting a wider barrel channel. It suits the role well with its flat-bottomed fore-end and semi-upright pistol grip. The butt is deep and flat on its base, too, so it rests more solidly into a bag or similar.

While the action is right-handed, the stock is very much ambidextrous. It also has what I’d call a very neutral shape: no palm swells or angularity or anything else that might prevent it fitting someone, and as a universal varminting stock it will suit almost everyone.

The dark, oil-finished walnut matched with the black Cerakote of the barrelled action creates a very good looking rifle.

The butt has a gentle 6mm rise from the front of the comb to the heel, ensuring it falls away from you under recoil and reducing the amount of kick you’ll feel — something more relevant to the bigger calibres, perhaps, but it helps make the little .204 even easier to shoot well. The recoil pad is soft, too.

The combination of weight and the .204’s lighter kick reduce recoil to where I could see my hits without losing the sight picture. It’s not only very satisfying to see your success, but lets you move on more quickly to the next target as you’ll know immediately whether your first target is properly hit.

The walnut stock contains no special bedding but is beautifully inletted to fit the action perfectly. It seems to provide all the stability necessary because you can’t knock the rifle’s accuracy. There is a recoil lug sitting in the stock just ahead of the front action screw, another doubling as the anchor point for the rear action screw. The front lug engages with a slot cut across the base of the action and the rear one fits into a dovetail under the tang.

The action comes with a pic rail attached to make scope mounting simple. I fitted a ZeroTech Thrive 4-16×50 scope with PHR II reticle, which I’d consider an excellent option for varmint shooting with its ballistic-drop graduations, especially with one of the larger calibres that has a more arching trajectory.

The Thrive’s adjustable parallax focus, mounted in the left turret, was perhaps its most valuable asset of all, because with a clear view of the target and the excellent performance of the LA102 Varmint, any parallax error could be the one thing that spoils a shot at a small target.

The fairly compact ZeroTech 4-16x sat well on the Varmint, which is a practical walkabout varminter in this guise, weighing around 5.5kg field-ready including sling and bipod. With the Crossover stock, the Lithgow is comfortable to shoot in various field positions, not just on the bipod. The hefty barrel does help stabilise your offhand hold — as long as you don’t try to hold it for too long! Naturally, the rifle has a very front-biased balance.

Lie down behind this rifle, though, and it will reward you with all the accuracy you can muster. The Varmint has a lot going for it, such as its classic good looks, quality build, great trigger and reliability, but by far its biggest attraction is the way it puts bullets into tiny groups, one after the other.

It’s another Lithgow rifle that promises three-shot sub-MOA groups but delivers something much better.

It comes at a recommended $2350, but some shops sell it for less. It has a fair bit of competition at higher and lower prices, but the Lithgow has the performance to prove itself — especially if you want a little laser beam like the .204.