I was using some ammo I had reloaded back on October 1, 2008. My load is 24.5 gr. of Varget with Remington 7½ primers and the 25 gr. Hornady HP bullets. Velocity for this load in my rifle is around 3,950 fps. This load is safe in my rifle. Work your way up to this powder charge in small increments if you plan to try it. I had shot around 2,400 rounds down the tube on this rifle prior to today’s outing. I have let someone else use this rifle for prairie dogs for the last four or five years and he has had the barrel extremely hot and the accuracy has suffered quite a bit from all the heat. I managed to hit 6 prairie dogs with the first 6 shots and on that 6th shot, besides killing the prairie dog I was aiming at, I knocked the left rear leg off of one of his siblings. All the customers headed down into their dens, so I walked towards the NW end of the big dog town.
I sneaked around, out of sight of the dog town, in a ravine on the west edge of the dog town. While the wind was blowing pretty hard, I thought it was strange that I wasn’t hearing any prairie dogs barking. When I finally peeked up out of the ravine and took a look to see if there were any PDs out, I was extremely disappointed!! The vegetation was almost shin high and there were no prairie dogs there!!! I began to hike to the east to see if I could find any PDs in that direction. I finally spotted one prairie dog after walking east for about 500 yards. I lay down and scoped out the hillsides to the north and south of the dog town and also the valley area to the east and couldn’t see any of the furry little prairie dogs bustling around. I decided to call it quits in this dog town and head south to another one. I had basically wasted a couple hours and only got 6 shots for my efforts. I would imagine plague or maybe poisoning cut down on the population and I’d be more inclined to blame the plague.
On my walk back to the pickup, I noticed a few yucca plants blooming as well as a couple of bull thistles and stopped and snapped some photos of them.
I arrived at the second dog town and started got my gear out again. I had three prairie dogs barking at me right near the pickup, so I got my headphones on and quickly put an end to their chatter. One of them was about 100 yards away and the other two were 150 yards away. One of the ones at 150 yards was a pup and he was outside the den when I shot. The other one at 150 yards was an adult and she had just her head visible so I used my Leica 1200 Range finder to ranged her to be sure of the distance. I squeezed off the shot and thought I could see red mist in the air, but decided to walk over there with my camera and rifle to make sure I had hit her. The photo below is what I found. The little 25 gr. Hornady HP did a neat decapitation job.
The photo below gives you a close-up view of the decapitated body down in her den hole. You can see both front feet, but the head is completely missing.
I began my walkabout and missed an easy shot at about 130 yards, before hitting on several shots in a row and finally shot the last of the 16 cartridges I had from October 2008. I broke out a box of cartridges I had reloaded on April 25, 2009 and hit on the first four shots. Then I ranged an adult prairie dog at 180 yards at an uphill angle. The wind was just about straight into my face, so I didn’t allow for any windage. I squeezed off the shot and saw the prairie dog slump over. There was another little pup about 30 yards closer and I drilled him. I was feeling confident now and spotted about half a dozen pups up feeding in the grass on the hillside at about 200 yards in distance. I steadied my rifle and squeezed off a shot at one of them. The bullet hit about 25 yards low!!! I wondered, “Did I wiggle?â€Ââ€â€NO, I knew I held steady. I chambered another round, held on another one of the little pups at 200 yards and took the shot. This time the bullet hit about 25 yards low again!!! I took one more shot with the same result. I decided to try some of the reloads I had made on June 30, 2009, to see if that would make any difference. I found a couple of prairie dog pups at about 100 yards and promptly had 2 more dead prairie dogs. I turned my attention to the pups up at 200 yards away again and the next four shots were not only 25 to 30 yards low, but they were also hitting 25 to 30 yards to the right. That was enough for me. I needed to change rifles. I decided to go up and take some photos of the 180 yard prairie dog’s carcass and then hike back to the pickup and get my Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger and shoot some of my 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKing loads.
Here’s a photo of the adult I shot at 180 yards and the pup I shot at about 150 yards posing with my Lilja barreled .17 Remington.
Here’s a close-up photo of the exit wound on the adult PD.
The kill percentage was definitely affected adversely with the tumbling, exploding bullets. I had made 14 hits out of 16 shots with the October 2008 ammo, but with the 4/25/2009 ammo I hit on only 4 of 7 shots and with the 6/30/2009 ammo I hit on a paltry 2 out of 6 shots!!! Results: 20 dead prairie dogs for 29 shots. The throat on my Lilja barrel must really be toasted!!! I concluded that it is time to look for a new barrel.
Oops, I almost forgot to include the “Hero†photo:
As I was taking photos of the dead PDs, I noticed some cactus blossoms and some bull thistle blossoms, so here, for your viewing pleasure, are a few blossom photos. Some photos show bugs in the blossoms. This first one is a yellow throated cactus blossom and it had a variety of bugs crawling around inside it.
The blossom below had a red throat and a variety of bugs busy crawling around.
Here’s a bull thistle blossom with a small insect crawling through the petals.
I made the hike back to the pickup and cased up the Lilja barreled .17 Remington. It was around 1:00 p.m. so I also ate lunch. After lunch I took out my Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger and one box of reloads with 35 loaded rounds left in it and one 50-count box of 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKing reloads. These are loaded a wee bit above the listed max load with H4895 powder and the Remington 7½ primers in WW casings. Muzzle velocity with this load lately has been around 3,825 fps. I got done with lunch and since I hadn’t shot a fouling shot through the barrel since cleaning it and treating it with Lock-Ease, I fired one fouling shot at a dead tree trunk and it was right on the money. I shouldn’t have wasted that shot on a dead tree!!
The wind was still blowing 12 to 15 mph, but every once in awhile, it became almost dead calm, but not for long. I continued to walk around the north side of the dog town and got into some pretty good shooting conditions for numbers of prairie dogs. Not many opportunities for doubles, but plenty of dogs stayed out even after the 2nd and 3rd shots!!! The box that had 34 loaded rounds in was soon empty. When I fired the last of those 35 cartridges my hit and miss count was 30 singles, 2 doubles, 2 missed shots, and one dead tree for a total 34 dead prairie dogs and one dead tree trunk with those 35 shots.
Here’s a photo of the Savage and four of its victims.
Here’s a closer look at those four victims which include 3 pups and one adult:
You run into all kinds of strange things when walking around prairie dog towns. Here’s part of a backbone and the hip bone socket of what may have been a young calf, antelope, or deer (just guesses on my part). This bone wasn't there when I was there on June 3, 2009. It definitely had been chewed on, and quite recently.
Here’s a close look at the hip socket:
I heard a couple of birds singing some pretty melodies and finally spotted this well camouflaged bird sitting on a big rock.
This bird and, presumably, its mate, flew to the west of me and both landed on a very large rock outcropping and posed for the following photo, with one of them on the top left-hand side of the outcropping and the other one sitting on a ledge in the rock a couple feet below:
I broke open the box of 39 gr. Sierra reloaded cartridges I had loaded July 1, 2009, and took 13 shots with that ammo. I hit on 11 singles, 1 double, and had 1 miss with those reloads for 13 dead prairie dogs with 13 shots.
I got back to the pickup at 5:30 and loaded up my gear and headed up north of this dog town to do some investigating on the east end of the big dog town I started out in that didn’t have many active mounds. The east end of that dog town is still very active. I may have to head out there and do some PD control one of these days. I continued my drive and discovered another dog town that I had never hunted in before. This one is about a mile long, east to west, and about a half mile wide, north to south. The prairie dogs seemed to be quite tame compared to the dog town I had just been shooting in earlier in the day. Note to self: Come back here and put some fear of the sound rifle shots in their tiny heads.
The percentage of hits was not real good today, but I sure had fun anyway. Now, I have the prospect of looking forward to a new .172 caliber barrel on my Remington 700 BDL action and all the fun (and work) of getting a load that works. I have around 2,500 .17 Remington casings, so I’m pretty sure I’ll stay with that caliber, but the .17-204 and the .17 Tactical have piqued my interest too. Most of the necks on my loaded rounds measure .1925" to .194". The fired casings come out of the current chamber measuring around .201", so there’s quite a bit of case neck stretching. The new chamber WILL NOT be a SAAMI spec, but will be a no-turn neck (probably.198" to .199" if I stay with .17 Remington brass. I have necked down a few .204 Ruger casings to .17 caliber and the loaded rounds with that brass measure .198" in diameter and may just go through all the work of necking .204 Ruger bass down to use in this new barrel. However, the neck diameter of a reamer for that brass would have to be around .201" to .202". I also plan on using a reamer with a shorter freebore than SAAMI, something around .010" to .020". Are there any suggestions from you mentors???? I'd be very thankful for any and all input.
Well, Happy 4th of July to all. Be safe and sane and drive carefully if you are doing any traveling.
