I arrived at the dog town I planned to shoot in at 9:16 a.m. and got my Lilja barreled .17 Remington out. This is the rifle that was throwing rounds way short and off to the right on my July 2, 2009, prairie dog hunt. After that hunt, I gave it a thorough cleaning with GM Top Engine Cleaner and IOSSO Paste for carbon removal and soaked it for days on end with Wipe-Out Accelerator and Patch Out as well as many treatments with BoreTech Eliminator. When I had the barrel clean, I ran two wet patches soaked with LockEase down the barrel, let it dry a while and then ran a couple of real small synthetic patches down the barrel to clean out the excess LockEase.
Before venturing out into the prairie dog town, I fired a fouling shot with an old 20 gr. V-Max reload at a small dirt clump at 100 yards to foul the barrel. The dirt chunk died on the spot. I set up a target box at 100 yards and fired off one more round of the 20 gr. V-Max load to see exactly where that load was hitting. That bullet hit 7/8" high and was right on for windage. I also shot one round of the 25 gr. Hornady HP loads and that shot hit 3/4" high and 3/8" right. I cranked the windage adjustment 1/4" left and began my walkabout at 9:58 a.m. The wind was whipping along at 1 to 2 mph out of the NE with gusts all the way up to 6 mph
These were tough shooting conditions, but I would continue the hunt anyway. 
I had never shot in this dog town before, and decided to go clockwise around the town. It stretches for about 1 mile east to west and is probably 3/4 mile wide at the widest point, north to south and there’s a four-strand barbed wire fence running pretty much down the middle from east to west.I was using some 25 gr. Hornady HP ammo I had reloaded in April and June of this year. 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. There were quite good number of prairie dogs out, most of them pups of the year, but there weren’t many opportunities for doubles. Most of the shot opportunities were from 130 to 220 yards. I had only 12 rounds in the first box I opened and downed 10 single prairie dogs with those 12 shots. Here are six of the happy recipients of the 25 gr. Hornady HP bullets. That’s my white Ford Ranger over the top of the rifle butt.
Here’s a close-up photo of the six happy prairie dogs. There’s 1 adult and 5 pups here.
Since the 20 gr. V-Max was shooting real close to the same POI as the 25 gr. HP, I decided to use up the last 8 rounds of that ammo too. I managed to get 7 prairie dogs with those 8 shots. I broke open a 20-round flip-top box with 25 gr. HP and started shooting those. I managed to get 17 singles, one double and missed on 2 of those 20 shots for 19 prairie dogs with 20 shots.
It was about 11:25 a.m. and most of the close prairie dogs were either dead or down in their dens. I ranged three prairie dogs to the west of my shooting spot and squeezed off the first shot at the prairie dog that ranged at 203 yards away. He just keeled overâ€â€no red mist!!! The next dog was just south of that first one and I ranged that one at 229 yards. When I took the shot, this dog was blown back off his mound, but not much red mist. The third dog ranged in at 230 yards. I could see the red mist when the 25 gr. HP bullet hit the dog.
Here are photos of the entrance wound of the 203 yard prairie dog:
Here's the exit wound--not much damage:
The entrance and exit wounds on the 229 yard PD were toward the rear end of the PD and up near the top of the backbone. The bullet must have really mixed up his innards because there was lots of greenish-brown digested food matter both on the entrance hole and the exit hole. The entrance and exit wounds looked the same.
The entrance wound side of the 230 yard prairie dog is pictured in the photo below. You can see a little blood just below the entrance holeâ€â€not much excitement.
The exit wound photo is below and is a totally different look than the entrance hole!! Please note the peaceful smile on his lips!!! I don't think he suffered at all!
Noon arrived and I opened up another 20-round flip-top box that had only 14 rounds in it. In the next 20 minutes I hit on 11 singles and had 3 missed shots with that box of 14 reloads. Now, it was already 12:20 p.m. and I had run out of reloads that had been fire formed, but I had some reloads in casings I had not shot in this rifle before. I hadn’t tested these for point of impact, but decided to go ahead and shoot them anyway. I started my walk back to the pickup and fired 5 of the non-fire formed loads hitting on only 3 of those 5 shots. I arrived back at my pickup at 12:55 and decided to drive my pickup about 400 yards west where I left it for the afternoon walkabout.
I had fired 59 shots at prairie dogs and counted 50 dead prairie dogs for those shots. Not too bad for a barrel that is about shot out!!
After lunch, I uncased my Pac-Nor barreled .17 Remington. It is built on a Remington 700 BDL action and the reamer I used has a .1945" tight neck and .010" of freebore. The action and barrel sit in an H-S Precision aluminum pillar bedded tactical thumbhole stock. The bipod is a Harris 9-13" swivel model with leg notches and the Pod Loc accessory. I have a Leupold VX-III 6.5-20x40mm long range scope on this rifle. It has the fine duplex reticule with the side focus feature (love that side focus) It has a twenty-six inch, 1 in 9" twist, 3-groove, stainless steel match grade barrel on it and only had 388 rounds down the tube before today. I also use LockEase in this barrel and every time I have done that, the POI is right where it is supposed to beâ€â€no fouling shots necessary so far (knock on wood).
Here’s photo of that rig and some of the carnage wrought by the 27.8 gr. BTHP Hammett bullets fired at 3,851 fps at the muzzle.
I got started on my afternoon hunt around 2:05 p.m. I was shooting my 27.8 gr. BTHP Hammett reloads with Danzac coating on the bullets. The first box of ammo only had 25 reloads left in it. Before I started my walkabout, I had two fair sized pups all lined up at about 100 yards. I squeezed off the shot and BANG! I got a double with shot #1 of the day out of the Pac-Nor. Another young pup was barking at me from about 40 yards away with just his head out of the hole. He got a 27.8 gr. pill right through his head for his efforts. I managed to shoot 23 singles, 1 double, and had 1 miss with that box of 25 reloads.
Around 4:15 p.m., I was lying on top of a PD mound lining up a shot when I heard a vehicle coming behind me. I turned to look and two men were parked alongside the fence and it appeared they were working on mending the fence. I got up and walked over there and recognized the older gentleman as the owner of a ranch around there. He runs cattle on about 10 sections around there and a lot of the land is government pasture. A bull of his had broken out of the fence and did considerable damage to some of the posts and wires. I introduced myself and we talked for a while. I asked him if he knew why there weren’t any prairie dogs in the west end of the prairie dog town I checked out first thing in the morning on July 2, 2009. I had surmised the plague had hit, but he said the federal boys were out there and poisoned that end of the dog town. His hired man whistled at him and told him they’d better get going to do more fence repairs.
I spotted some colorful blossoms and decided to take a few photos. These yellow blossoms are weed blossoms, but pretty nonetheless.
There were some white flowers that were rather nice too. Some of the blossoms in this bunch were beginning to dry up, turn brown and go to seed, but they were still very nice.
The blossoms in this next bunch were pristine and still going strong:
 
The next box of shells I opened had the full 50 reloads in it. Around 5:00 p.m. some yahoo came driving over the hill from the west, parked his pickup about 350 yards from where I was doing my walkabout, and four people got out and started shooting at prairie dogs. I get EXTREMELY nervous when people are shooting at prairie dogs in the same dog town I am in, especially when they are only 350 yards away from me!! I know they could see my pickup because it was only another 200 yards east of where I was walking and parked in plain sight!
The neat thing I noticed about hunting near big buttes like the one above my pickup is the echo that reverberates when you take a shot. I could hear it plainly even through my Peltor Tac 7 electronic ear muffs. Many times the echo repeated several times.
I didn’t get back to my pickup in time to drive over where this unsafe bunch of hunter to check for a license plate before they left the area. Perhaps it was a good thing I didn't get there before they left because I was one very angry Norwegian and angry Norwegians sometimes say and do things that get them into deep trouble!! What could you say to idiots like those fellows that they would understand?
Anyway, out of the last 30 shots I took, I got 25 singles, 1 double and had 4 missed shots. Total body count on prairie dogs with the Pac-Nor barreled .17 Remington was 52 bodies for 55 shots. Total shots at prairie dogs today was 114 and prairie dogs lying dead on the prairie totaled 102.
I got back to my pickup at 5:35, stowed my gear, got out a cool can of Caffeine Free Diet Coke out of my ice chest and was on my way home at 5:42 p.m. Sorry, but there’s no Hero Photo from last Friday.
. I guess they deemed them too graphic. Our ground squirrels are still running up and about, so hoping to get out for a couple of more "prairie poodle" sessions before they all head underground.
