The .17 Remington I was shooting on Saturday has 26" stainless steel super match grade Pac-Nor barrel on my Remington 700 ADL action. I had purchased a reamer from Pacific Tool & Gauge several years ago that has a .1945" tight neck and at the time it had .064" of freebore. I had my gunsmith send the reamer back in and PT&G cut the freebore down to .010". My new barrel is a 1 in 9" twister with three grooves. I got the gun back from my gunsmith in March, but the weather prevented me from doing any load testing. Lately, I had been working feverishly to find a load I could use on prairie dogs and found several good load combinations. I picked one of the best and had about 100 rounds loaded and ready to go.
I was anxious to see how this gun would shoot in the PD killing fields, and I wanted to see if there were any pups up yet. I got first blood with it around 12:30. Here's the the rifle and the victim. I'm shooting 27.8 gr. BTHP Hammett bullets using a load of 22.74 grains Varget powder fired off by Remington 7½ primers and getting 3,931 fps at the muzzle (DO NOT use this load in your rifle unless you start well below that powder charge weight and work your way up.) This bullet really opens them up on the exit side!!!
Just before I stopped for mid-afternoon lunch, I got into a spot where I was able to shoot seven prairie dogs in fairly rapid succession. My barrel was getting pretty warm so I was thankful all the live targets were down underground!!! I took time to gather up all but one of the PDs I shot in this spot and had a little photo op.
Here's a little closer look at the carcasses so you can see the way that little pill makes them explode. Most of these prairie dogs were standing straight up when I shot them. Distances were from about 100 yards to 170 yards. I got lucky here and got 7 prairie dogs for 7 shots.
I was way at the SW end of this dog town and beginning to make my way back to my pickup when the first pup of the day appeared outside a den. That is the only pup I saw all day. He got a dose of 27.8 gr. Hammett medicine, but it killed him!!! Most of the carcasses I checked were either males or dry females. I did not see one wet female amongst all the bodies I checked. The pups probably won't be feeding themselves much for another week or so.
I only took 41 shots and hit on 35 of them. Shots ranged from 50 yards on that pup I shot on up to 228 yards. Most of the shots were in the 100 to 170 yard range. My barrel cleaned up real easy. That's one thing I like about these custom 3-groove barrels. They are usually a snap to clean. I had fired 9 shots through the barrel getting a new scope sighted in and adjusted before my 41 shots on Saturday. The last five shots I fired seemed to be a bit off and I had two misses out of those 5 shots, so I'm pretty sure accuracy was suffering from the 45 shots I had taken before then. However, I am not complaining about getting 45 pretty accurate shots before cleaning the barrel seemed warranted. I am, however, going to begin shooting bullets coated with Danzac to see if I can extend the time between required barrel cleaning. If I get into some good populations of prairie dogs, I'd sure like to be able to shoot 75 to 100 rounds and still have decent accuracy so I don't have to hoof it back to the pickup to exchange rifles.
It was late in the afternoon and because there weren't hordes of prairie dogs out to shoot at, I decided to call it a day. Normally, I would have grabbed my Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger and spent a few more hours walking around that dogtown. My Savage has 2,384 shots down the barrel and it is still shooting pretty good. I have a brand new stainless steel super match grade 1 in 11" twist 3-groove Pac-Nor barrel for my Savage. I ordered it so it is 1.200" in diameter for the first 3" and then it tapers to .825" at the 26" mark. That barrel is sitting in my basement ready to go to the gunsmith when accuracy on my factory barrel goes south. My gunsmith has a match grade reamer he bought that has only been used to cut one chamber. It has a .230" no-turn neck and 0.00" of freebore. I would have preferred at least .010" of freebore, but I'm not interested in buying a new reamer, so I'll try his reamer. The barrel he chambered with that reamer is the exact twin to my barrel. The fellow who has that barrel on his rifle said it is a "KILLER" barrel. It shoots many different loads with extremely good accuracy and is super easy to clean. I'm almost hoping my Savage barrel accuracy degrades so I can get to using the new barrel, but I'll be patient.
I hope you enjoyed the hunt. Ordinarily, when my son is along, he gets some fabulous photos of prairie dogs doing their acrobatics after the shot. Unfortunately, he wasn't along on Saturday. I'll have to try to have him along on my next hunt or get a remote control for my camera?!?!?
