Horizon Firearms Venatic Rifle: A Lot More Than a Quarter-Bore

Ergonomics are such that they enhance the shooter’s accuracy by minimizing much of the bad influences commonly imparted by us inconsistent humans.

Weight—which in a precision rifle is certainly tied to shootability—is kept relatively light through the use of aggressive skeletonizing of the steel action, deep-cut fluting on the barrel and premium carbon fiber in the hand-laid stock. It’s worth noting that although the 6.5-pound bare weight is light, the Venatic is not so light that it’s twitchy and difficult to shoot well.

Along with other popular rounds, the Venatic is chambered in .25 Creedmoor, which is debatably the best of the Creedmoor cartridge family. Why is this important to a rifle review? Because the Venatic model by Horizon Firearms is arguably the best rifle currently chambered in that round.

We’ll take a look at the .25 Creedmoor cartridge in this article too, but our focus here is on the rifle that shoots it so well.

At $3,799, suggested retail price isn’t cheap. However, these rifles often shoot like full custom jobs which cost double that. The Venatic is much like the top-tier rifles built by Weatherby, Seekins Precision or Browning. Those that own and use them generally agree they’re worth every penny.

The Sum of Its Parts

Let’s dig a little deeper and unpack this intriguing model. The name “Venatic” has Latin roots and means “to hunt,” or “used in hunting.” Horizon Firearms is owned by Kaspar Outdoors, the same parent company that owns Stiller Actions, so the company has excellent actions readily available and in a myriad of options.

Use of the Stiller Wombat action is tied to the model’s primary purpose: hunting. The Wombat is light—nearly as light as many titanium actions—but offers the superior strength and wear properties of stainless steel. Stiller achieved this by machining out all superfluous weight—and that includes creating some windows machined right through the sidewalls of the rear receiver bridge.

Bolt and bolt shroud are both aggressively fluted to additionally reduce weight. The bolt handle is hollow and skeletonized. Up top, a lightweight aluminum optic rail is beautifully machined to fit and factory installed with both pins and robust screws.

Bottom metal is made in-house by Horizon, of premium aircraft-grade aluminum. It’s nicely fit to the stock, and is AICS-compatible, making it easy to obtain high-quality magazines. Each Venatic rifle ships with a U.S.-made 5-round A2-5 polymer magazine by Amend2. The system makes it easy to switch to a 10-round magazine for competitive work or for high-volume varmint control, or to a flush-fitting 4-round premium magazine by Hawkins Precision, or whatever other AICS-type magazine the owner may want.

Trigger and Barrel

TriggerTech triggers are used and offer easy click-adjustability in pull weight. I’ve got the go-switch on my test rifle set to release with a lovely, crisp 2-lbs. pull.

Each Wombat action destined to become a Venatic hunting rifle is fit with a match-grade Benchmark barrel made of 416 stainless steel. Depending on cartridge, barrel length is either 22 inches or 24 inches—and in some cases, you get to pick. At the time of this writing, all barrels chambered in .25 Creedmoor are cut to 22 inches, which is exactly what I’d have picked anyway.

Each barrel is fluted with four deep, wide spiral flutes, resulting in a racy, eye-catching look that provides the additional benefits of reducing weight and offering more air-to-surface contact for accelerated cooling.

Muzzles are threaded 5/8-24, making it easy to mount a suppressor, and come with a nice indexable, side- and top-ported muzzle brake. The solid bottom of the brake greatly reduces the dust signature kicked up by common radial brakes with ports all the way around, plus its directional upward thrust tames muzzle jump, making it easier to spot your own impacts and get right back on target.

Action and Stock

Wombat actions are finished in a super-hard, extremely durable coating called Hyperpolished DLC (diamond-like carbon). Barrels, on the other hand, are finished in a nice contrasting KG Gun Cote in Horizon Green.

Stiller and Horizon’s parent company also owns Iota Outdoors, which makes extremely nice carbon-fiber stocks. Hand laid and hand-finished, the EKO X version chosen for the Venatic model weighs just 24 ounces. It’s got some really nice features that make it superbly shootable.

The comb is good and high, enabling shooters to achieve a good cheek weld. A negative slant on the cheekrest makes it drop away from the shooters’ face as the rifle kicks, reducing felt recoil. Recoil pads by LimbSaver are installed and are wonderfully squishy; they dampen recoil very effectively.

Up front, a short section of Picatinny rail is inset into the forend tip, flush with the bottom of the rest of the forend. It makes for a nice slender profile that’s still compatible with a bipod that attaches via rail.

My favorite aspect of Iota’s EKO X stock, though, is the grip. It’s nearly vertical, but open enough to feel responsive and comfortable when mounting the rifle quickly to the shoulder in offhand positions. A subtle palm swell provides comfort without feeling fat. A “thumb detent” hollow on each side of the action tang provides a perfect place to index the thumb and helps with both feel and consistency.

Perhaps most importantly, custom machined-aluminum pillars provide a secure, consistent, stress-free bed for the action, enabling the best-possible accuracy.

Testing the .25

When I first received the Venatic .25 Creedmoor rifle pictured here, Horizon sent 30 rounds of handloaded ammo with it. At that point the .25 Creedmoor cartridge was still a wildcat, so factory ammo wasn’t available.

Early testing indicated that the rifle would be more accurate with a suppressor mounted, which is a relatively common situation. That was fine by me, since I really intended to only shoot it suppressed anyway.

With a quantity of Alpha Munitions .25 Creedmoor brass in hand, I began handload testing. The .25 Creedmoor’s .257-inch bore diameter is just .007 thousandths of an inch smaller than the 6.5 Creedmoor’s .264-inch bore diameter, and case capacity is the same. As a result, I figured it would probably like the same gunpowder. Since H4350 is the world standard in the 6.5 Creedmoor, I started with that. Bullet choices were Hornady 134-grain ELD Match projectiles and Berger 133-grain Elite Hunter and 135-grain Hybrid Target bullets.

To my surprise, the Venatic didn’t like H4350. After rather stubbornly attempting to convince it to shoot well with that powder—and failing—I switched to Reloader 16, which is a favorite of mine in the 6mm Creedmoor. Magic happened. With the first charge weight I tried, the Venatic shot itty-bitty groups. Velocity was impressive for a 22-inch barrel, and standard deviation numbers were gratifyingly small.

Great Accuracy

All three projectile types shoot well in the Venatic. Check out the accuracy averages in the accompanying chart. Of the three, I found the rifle prefers Berger’s 133-grain Elite Hunter by a small margin. Groups averaged 0.44 inches at 100 yards. Muzzle velocity is 2,872 fps and standard deviation runs about 5 fps over 10-shot strings. That bullet’s ballistic coefficient is actually the lowest of the three tested, but at 0.613 (G1 profile) is still darned impressive for a quarter-bore bullet.

Horizon Venatic Specs

• Type: Bolt-action rifle
• Caliber: .25 Creedmoor
• Barrel: 22 in,. 1:8 twist
• Weight: 6 lbs., 8 oz.
• Capacity: 5 rounds, included AICS-type magazine
• Stock: Iota EKO X
• Finish: Hyperpolished DLC
• Sights: None; factory-mounted optic rail on receiver
• Trigger/Safety: TriggerTech trigger,  2-position safety
• MSRP: $3,799
• Manufacturer: Horizon Firearms, horizonfirearms.com

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