SmallCaliberCentral

While I was visiting with a friend from Bismarck when we met at Sather Dam back on July 22, a gentleman parked his pickup near us and came over and asked about camping possibilities at Sather Dam. We talked for awhile about fees for camping, etc. He told us he had grandkids and thought Sather Dam might be a nice place to take them for a camping trip. He said he had a camping trailer and might stay at one of the camp sites at the dam. He wondered what we were doing in the area. I told him I my fried was working in the area and I was down in the area to shoot prairie dogs!!! His eyes lit up and he asked, “What caliber rifle do you shoot?” I told him I shoot .17 Tactical, .17 Remington, .204 Ruger, .22-250, and .243. He said “WOW!!!” “If you are interested in shooting prairie dogs, I have a bunch of them on my farm and they are eating the plants in my wheat field and you’d be welcome to come and shoot some of them.” He proceeded to tell me how to get to his place and wondered if I would be able to stop at his place on that same day. I told him I would try to stop by if I had time, but couldn’t promise I’d be there. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to his place that day. However, I DID make it to his HUGE prairie dog town this past Friday, July 31. He wasn’t kidding when he said the PDs were eating his wheat fields. There should be wheat right up to the fence line in the left photo. The PDs have pretty much wiped it out there. Here are a couple photos of that damage.



I used my Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger for my weapon of choice this morning. It is the one that has a 1 in 11 twist BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel. I’m shooting 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKing bullets coated with hBN. I switched from WW casings to Norma casings and use the Remington 7½ primers. My powder load is 27.0 gr. of H4895 and the muzzle velocity from my 24" barrel is 3,885 fps. I have a 6 20x40mm long range Leupold scope with the fine duplex reticle and side focus. I was using my brand new GEMTECH TREK-Ti suppressor and here’s a photo of the PD that volunteered to be first blood for the TREK-Ti. This suppressor only weighs in at 10.3 ounces and is works just great!!!

I took out my rifle, placed my ammo and two 20 ounce bottles of iced water into my backpack, put my mirage shield and suppressor on the barrel of my rifle and locked up the pickup. I had put up my sun shield in the front window and put up the white bed sheet over the driver’s side windows to keep the sun and heat out.

I sneaked eastward along the fence line to the SE corner of the fence and then crept over a little rise where I could see the PDs to the north and west of me. There was a golden eagle up on a rock pile NW of where I was at. You can see the rock pile at the top of the photo below that shows my rifle and the GEMTECH TREK-Ti’s first victim.



Even with the eagle around, the PDs were out in force. When the eagle took flight, the prairie dogs would run towards their dens, but stayed out until the eagle flew out of sight. I settled in and set up on a prairie dog mound and took my first shot at about 8:53 a.m. By 8:58 a.m. I had taken 7 shots and had 7 hits. I walked up to where I shot the first PD of the day and snapped the photo of the rifle and victim and one blossom with the blossom photo right below here.



The shots varied in distance from 43 yards to 124 yards. The PDs seemed oblivious to the sound of my shots.

At 9:17 a.m. I was done taking photos and walked to the north to a little rise. As I was walking the PDs up there were barking at me and I saw a burrowing owl fly away to the SW. I crawled up to the top of the rise and lined up on what I thought was a PD until I got it in the scope. It was another burrowing owl and I don’t shoot owls!!! Here’s what the little owl looked like as it sat on a PD mound about 75 yards north of my position.



I took some time to zoom in on the little burrowing owl and here’s one of the close-up photographs below.



I put the camera away and eliminated 6 of the wheat-eating prairie dogs on the west side of the wheat field before stopping to let my barrel cool off and getting a drink of water. I have a self-adhering McMaster-Carr temperature sensing strip on all of the barrels of my varmint rifles. As you can see by the photo, below, there are seven different temperature indicators on the strip. The article I read about these strips said that they recommended that when the 122º F strip changes color, it is time to let your barrel cool down. I usually stop shooting when the 113º F strip changes color.



It was 9:43 a.m. when I started walking north again. I stopped for about 10 minutes to take photos of blossoms, an ant mound, and dead prairie dogs. I then ate some trail mix and at 9:58 I began walking north again. It was 84º in the sun. By 10:10 a.m. I had shot 18 shots and nailed 18 prairie dogs. I spotted another herd of prairie dogs and crept up to a rise overlooking the herd and commenced firing at 10:16 a.m. By 10:20 a.m. I had shot 7 shots and nailed 7 more prairie dogs. The 104º strip was lit up so I stopped to let the barrel cool down. I had a drink of water and also refilled the ammo holder on my gun butt. I started shooting again and by 10:27 I had shot 5 more shots and the 113º strip was lit up so I stopped shooting again. The wind was blowing out of the WNW at 5 to 8 mph, just enough to help keep me somewhat cool. I was using my range finder to spot PDs and get distances when I spotted a dead prairie dog lying on top of a rock. It must have flipped up there when I was shooting PDs from a bit further south. I walked over there and snapped a couple of photos of this unusual happenstance. I still wonder how a hit to the head flipped the PD up on top of the rock unless it had been standing right in front of the rock when I shot and was lifted up and back and wound up on the rock??? Strange things happen, but I thought it was rather unique.



The temperature strip on my barrel showed it was back to 95º so I went back to eliminating prairie dogs. I had 22 rounds of ammo left and wanted to try to finish shooting all of those before I walked back to the pickup and had lunch. By 10:44 a.m. I had shot 6 more prairie dogs and there were still lots of PDs standing around as you can see by the photo below.



One of those PDs was behind me and about 40 yards away so I slowly got my rifle around that direction and dispatched the noisy little prairie poodle and two others that were a bit north of that one. I stopped and let the barrel cool down. By 11:00 a.m. I had shot 39 shots and nailed 39 prairie dogs. By 11:08 I had shot 7 more shots and the 113º barrel temp indicator was lit up. I had 6 shells left. The wind was now blowing out of the NW at 5 to 10 mph. I shot 4 more rounds by 11:18 a.m. and my shot count was 50 and prairie dogs dispatched was 50.

I had 2 rounds left and wanted to save those in case a herd of vicious prairie dogs tried to attack me on my way back to the pickup. The temperature was now at 87º as I started walking back to the pickup at 11:21 a.m. I shot one more PD north of the fence line. I started walking south towards the pickup and spotted four prairie dogs together near a big mound. I sneaked up to the rock pile the golden eagle had been sitting on and three of the PDs scampered down the hole. The one left on the mound had very dark fur and was standing up real nice as I centered the crosshairs on her heart/lung area and squeezed off the shot. She went flying off the mound as I heard that old familiar WHAP sound as the bullet hit her.

I walked down to where she was lying and noticed turkey buzzards were circling overhead!!! I hope they weren’t after this old man!!! I snapped a photo showing the dead PD and the rock pile I shot from on the horizon and also took a close-up photo of the dark fur on her back.



I got back to the pickup at 11:50 a.m., stowed my gear, and was on my way to find a couple new PD towns by 12:10 a.m. I would eat lunch if and when I found the new PD towns. The one I found didn’t look great so I drove to another dog town to eat lunch and then shoot a few more PDs before heading home.

I arrived at my next dog town at 2:35 p.m., parked in the shade of some trees. I took out my Remington 700 BDL in .17 Remington caliber. It has a 1 in 9 twist Lilja Remington varmint contour barrel. This one has a tight-neck chamber. This barrel was given the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment. The ammo I am using is loaded in neck-turned Remington brass, with 23.6 gr. of IMR 8208 XBR powder fired off with Tula small rifle magnum primers and pushing 25 gr. BTHP Kindler Gold bullets coated with hBN at a muzzle velocity of 3,991 fps. There were a couple of prairie dogs out to the west of me and I hadn’t shot any PDs with my new GEMTECH TREK-Ti on this rifle so I got first blood on the TREK-Ti on the little .17 Remington rifle. I put the rifle in the shade and had lunch. I tried to take a little nap but a couple of noisy prairie dogs kept me awake. I must have caught a few minutes of rest, but the PDs were annoying me. When I got up to shoot them, they disappeared into their dens. I decided to go shoot some prairie dogs instead of nap. The temperature in the shade of the trees was 90.6º.

I left the pickup at 4:03 and had shot 6 PDs by 4:25. The PDs weren’t quite as tame as the ones I had been shooting at in the morning. I stopped to have a drink of water at 4:29 p.m. and left my CEN-TEC thermometer out in the sun. In the direct sunlight I got a reading of 106.4º. I wanted to get back home so I could mow my lawn before dark. By 4:58 p.m. I had shot 11 shots and nailed 11 PDs. Here’s a photo of my little .17 Remington and the last PD of the day.



Here’s a close-up photo showing the damage those little 25 gr. BTHP Golds do to an adult PD.



I started driving back to Williston around 5:15 p.m. and was in my garage and started unloading my gear by 6:22 p.m. My wife asked me to come in and eat supper before mowing the lawn so that’s what I did!!! When the boss speaks—I listen and obey!!!

It was a good day, albeit rather hot in the afternoon. I had taken 63 shots and killed 63 prairie dogs. I’ll be heading back to the dog town I hunted in during the morning shoot. It has been a long time since I had shooting as great as it was in the first dog town I was in. Even this last dog town was decent. Here’s the obligatory “Hero Photo” with the first prairie dog shot while using the new GEMTECH TREK-Ti suppressor early in the morning.

Love the shot of the PD-rich hillside there, SF!

Good job, thanks for sharing the adventure.

Thank you for sharing Silverfox. Wow - I saw PDs rarely on the farm and never that much crop damage. They must really be spreading in ND. From a former farmboy, thanks for helping that local farmer.

Also - I always liked those ground owls!! Fun to watch them through binoculars. I suppose the PDs are a little large for that owl to drag away but the parts you left behind might be tasty for them - LOL!!

Rick in Oregon--I haven't seen that many prairie dogs standing and posing for many, many, many years. It was almost so pretty I didn't want to shoot!!! But, I shot them anyway!!! I'm glad you enjoyed the photo and the story.

cosh--I wish I could really cut down on the PD population enough to make a difference in the damage those PDs are doing to his crops. I'd probably have to live out there and shoot every day to make an appreciable difference. I guess the people who own the land north of this dog town also have whole herds of PDs on their land. The owner of the land said they had been fighting a war with these PDs trying to get rid of them for 30 years. I think that over the years they have used the poisoned oats method and I think they have even tried putting anhydrous ammonia down into the dens to try to eliminate the rascals and the PDs are winning the war.

I agree that the little burrowing owls would have a tough time dragging an adult prairie dog around, but I'm sure they munch on the remains right where they lie after I blow them up. The Golden Eagles will eat carrion and the turkey vultures dine on dead prairie dogs too. There was a banquet feast lying out on the prairie and the predators, raptors, bugs, etc. will eat well for a period of time.

What a great story and good fortune to find another target rich environment to play with big boy toys in!
So how do you like the suppressor? Do you feel that it gives you an advantage for the shorter shots and over all effectiveness on prairie dogs?

Sidewinderwa--I like both of my suppresors. The TREK-Ti is my favorite mainly because it is lighter in weight than my Ranger II, but they both do a decent job on everything from my .17 Remingtons on up through my .22-250.

Do you feel that it gives you an advantage for the shorter shots and over all effectiveness on prairie dogs?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the quote above, but if you mean "do prairie dogs at close ranges stay up even after the shots," then "YES" the suppressors have been effective in that regard. As you probably know, early on in the season the young of the year seem to be pretty dumb when they see/hear their siblings get shot right next to them and stay up out of the dens sniffing at their dead relatives. That is a phenomenon that I have seen over the years even with unsurpressed rifles. However, as the season goes on, even the young of the year seem to get a bit smarter when they see mayhem alongside them and hear the sonic boom and quickly disappear down into their den. I still think the suppressors help keep some of the PDs up and available for shooting a lot longer than unsurpressed rifles, but that is JMHO and it is worth what you paid for it!

Yes that is exactly what I wanted to know.

I have found that if you shoot prairie dogs at 300 yards or more, they usually just move or run to another mound after the shots, without a suppressor. You get more shooting in without all the wait time for them to come back up. I hope to get a trust in the next month or two to purchase suppressors. Customers tell me the wait time is at about 4 months for a regular suppressor purchase so that is much better than is was a year ago. Thanks for your information and please continue to take us along on your trips. It is a 12 hour drive one way for me to go after them!