I have a Tikka Master Sporter in .22-250. (Yes, I know it IS NOT a .204 Ruger!!!) I had a 1 in 12 Brux barrel given the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment in the fall of 2013 and had my gunsmith install that on my Tikka. I had two other rifle barrels chambered and installed and they both had the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment. One is a .17 Remington and the other is a .204 Ruger and I spent the majority of my time working up loads for those two rifles. Anyway, I started working to find a load for the Tikka late last fall and I am currently shooting the 50 gr. Hornady Z-Max bullets and liking them a bunch. However, a friend of mine suggested that I try the 53 gr. Hornady V-Max bullets. They have a BC of .290 compared to a BC of about .230 for the 50 gr. Z-Max bullets. He sent 25 of the bullets to me and I cleaned them and coated them with hBN. I didn’t have any empty Lapua brass so yesterday I went PD shooting in the afternoon so I would have some empty .22-250 Lapua brass for the 53 gr. V-Max bullet test loads!!!
It was a long day on Wednesday, July 22. My wife and I played 18 holes of golf early in the morning. Then we went to the Dakota Farms Family Restaurant and had breakfast. Next, we drove 15 miles SW of Williston to a little recreation area and recreated for about 20 minutes. We drove back home and I got my hunting duds on and drove about 50 miles SW of Williston and met a friend of mine at 1:45 p.m. He was working close to the area I was going hunt PDs in. We talked coyote hunting and PD shooting. He has a couple of tolling dogs that work really nice. We parted ways and he went back to work and I went PD shooting. It was 97º in the dog town!!!! I got back home around 9:30 p.m. Did I mention, “It was a long day on Wednesday, July 22?!?!?!?”
I had a couple of areas in this dog town where the PDs don’t get shot at much. Those two areas were about 1.5 miles away from where I had to leave my pickup. So I walked and shot targets of opportunity on the way to my hot spot. I shot 15 shots and killed 15 PDs on my walk to the area I wanted to shoot at. Here’s one of the victims. The 50 gr. Z-Max really demolishes them!!
Below you can see my Tikka Master Sporter .22 250 with a BLACKNITRIDE™ treated Brux barrel with a 1 in 12 twist. I have a Nikon Monarch 3 scope with a Nikoplex reticle and the power range is 6-24x50mm. I like this scope a lot!!!
It took me almost two hours to walk to that plateau where the PDs don’t get shot at very often. I took my time and stopped to shoot a number of times and also rested in the shade I could find and drank some water. When I got up on the plateau where the PDs seemed somewhat tame, I shot 21 more shots up there. I missed on one shot at a PD with very dark fur. On the one I missed the wind was coming from left to right at about 10 mph and I’m sure I missed him to the right. He didn’t run, but did duck down and then stood up again. I allowed a little more for the wind and DID NOT miss on this shot!!! Here’s a photo of that PD with the really dark fur below.
On another shot I thought I might have nailed a double (but couldn’t find the second one).
I didn’t have my digital camera with me so I had to use my Smartphone camera. My arm wasn’t long enough to get the normal “Hero Photo” so I apologize for the poor quality photo, but I did the best I could with what I had. No, I didn’t touch that gut pile just below my right arm and below the rifle!!!
I managed to find a few blossoms that were still alive and snapped a few photos of them.
As I was walking back to the pickup, the wind died down so when it is 97º and there isn’t a whisper of wind it was mighty uncomfortable. I had taken 48 ounces of water with me and ran out. I shot two more PDs on my walk back to the pickup so I had taken 38 shots and had 37 confirmed kills and one of them was possibly a double. I had weighed myself on the bathroom scale Wednesday morning and then weighed again before I took my shower and I had lost 5 pounds during the day. I’m sure it was mostly water, even though I did try to stay hydrated. Anyway, now I have some brass I can use to shoot some test loads with the 53 gr. Hornady V-Max bullets. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!!
