SmallCaliberCentral

I finally got out for a full day of pottin’ prairie poodles on Wednesday, July 21. I didn’t get a real early start—I left home at 6:45 a.m.—and was hoping the sun would dry the dew off the grass by the time I got ready to do some shooting. There was still dew on the grass in the trees where I parked, but it was pretty well dried off out in the PD town.

It was an absolutely perfect day for shooting. There were some high, white fluffy clouds and the wind was only about 2 to 4 mph for most of the day, with maybe some 5+ mph winds later on in the afternoon. The winds were welcome in the afternoon because it got up to 88 degrees. I had four rifles along—my tight-necked .17 Remington, the brand new Savage target action .204 Ruger I had built this spring, the new/used Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger I bought this past winter from a fellow who lives in Wisconsin. This rifle was advertised on the classifieds over at the Go Go Varmint Go Board. The fourth rifle was my new Predator action .17 Remington I had built this spring.

Since it was so calm in the morning, I started off with the Predator action .17 Remington and my 25 gr. V-Max handloads. I am using 22.8 gr. of IMR 8208 XBR and getting a muzzle velocity of 3,996 fps. (If you plan to use my load, make sure you use the Load Recipe Report from Hodgdon and work your way up.) The starting load listed by Hodgdon is 22.7 grains of IMR 8208 XBR with the 25 gr. Hornady HP bullets. They list the velocity for that starting load at 3,882 fps. As I mentioned above, I am getting 3,996 fps from only 22.8 gr. of 8208. The main reason I am getting more velocity is because I am using WW .204 Ruger casings that I formed down to .17 Remington and these WW .204 Ruger casings don’t have quite the volume that factory .17 Remington brass has so I am getting quite a bit more velocity out of fewer grains of powder. I also then I annealed the casings and turned the necks, so it was a labor of love to get these casings ready for this rifle.

Man those 25 gr. V-Max bullets tear the prairie dogs apart—little holes going in and HUGE HOLES out the exit side!!! The distances for my shots with the .17 Remington ranged from about 25 yards on out to a tad over 150 yards. Most shots were in the 100 to 150 yard range. I haven’t measured the pull weight on the Jewell trigger in this rifle, but it must be set for a tad less than 1 pound of pull because it seems to only take “thinking about squeezing the trigger” and it goes off. I love that rifle.

I looked at my watch and it was about 10:30 when a hunger attack struck me. I had taken a couple bottles of ice water along when I started out on my walkabout, but I forgot to take a snack along. I was only about 400 yards from my pickup and my rifle barrel was quite warm, so I decided to leave my rifle in the shade and walk back to the pickup to get some food and got back to my rifle around 10:50 a.m. I rested in the shade of a tree and had my snack. I noticed that there weren’t a lot of PDs up, so I walked along the edge of the creek, out of sight of the prairie dogs, and went to the NE end of the dog town to see if there were more PDs up over there. The hike was worth it because there were a lot more prairie dogs out there.

The shots on this end of the dog town were mostly 75 to 150 yards and I actually had to stop shooting many times because the barrel was getting very warm. I shot that rifle until had five or six rounds left and started walking back to my pickup to have lunch. I figured I should be able to find enough prairie dogs to shoot at on the way back to use up those shells. I ran out of ammo at about 12:45 p.m. I only had 50 rounds loaded for it. Here’s a little look at the rifle and some of the damage it did. That’s the hole this prairie dog was peeking up out of. I had only the area from just below his chin on up to shoot at and the distance was 125 yards.



Here’s what I saw when I peered down into his den—a “headless prairie dog” was plugging up the entrance to the den.



I pulled him up out of the hole and here’s what he looked like all stretched out on top of the den.



Here’s part of his jaw that was lying about 3 feet behind where my rifle is sitting. Two nice teeth!!!



I did take a few photos of some of the flowering plants while I was in the NE end of this dog town, so here are some photos for those of you who like the blossoming plant photos.







Here’s a ripe weed seed head that I thought looked fascinating. It is a common North Dakota week and I cannot, for the life of me, remember what the name of it is. Can anyone help me out?



I got back to my pickup at about 1:00 p.m. I had a pretty good hit percentage and it should be good when the longest shots were around 150 yards. Out of 50 shots taken I missed on one shot and I think a blade or two of grass might have caused that miss. I hit 48 single prairie dogs and got one double for 50 dead prairie dogs with the 50 shots. I had cleaned the barrel on this rifle

and then shot 14 shots with it getting the scope adjusted and trying loads in new, unfired brass and in once-fired brass to see where they hit. So, I shot 64 shots through the barrel without doing any cleaning in between and it was shooting very accurately at the end. Next time, I’ll have more shells loaded and may just keep shooting until the accuracy craps out on me.

I was getting hungry, but decided to drive to another prairie dog town and eat lunch when I got to my parking spot. I drove to that other prairie dog town and discovered that the little creek I have to cross to get to the dog town was running way higher than usual so I didn’t even bother to try to get across it. I headed back to the town I was in during the morning shoot. I had only shot on the east half of the dog town and there were plenty of targets in the west half.

I pulled out my lawn chair and sat in the shade of the trees and had my lunch. It was nice to sit and listen to the birds singing and the prairie dogs barking—real peaceful!!! Normally, I take at least a half-hour nap after lunch, but I was anxious to try out the Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger. I thought the wind might start blowing a little harder and wanted to give the 40 gr. Hornady V-Max loads a chance to shine in any wind that might be blowing. I used 27.3 gr. of H4895 (this is .4 of a grain below the maximum load listed by Hodgdon, but you should still start with a lower charge weight and work up). All my bullets were coated with hBN and I get a muzzle velocity of 3,836 fps which is 95 fps faster than Hodgdon’s maximum listed load.

I have the scope adjusted so the bullets hit 1 inch high at 100 yards. That puts me dead on at 240 yards and the bullets don’t rise more than about 1.5" at their highest point. I am EXTREMELY HAPPY with the way this used rifle shoots!!! I was getting superb acrobatics out of the prairie dogs. Pure DEVASTATION is the only words that explain what happens when the 40 gr. V-Max hit the prairie dogs. There was no surface splatter, but it pretty much exploded after it punctured the skin and blew everything out on the exit side!!! I had 71 rounds loaded (that’s all the 40 gr. V-Max bullets I had left after doing my test loads) and only shot 54 of them. I had shot 6 of those 71 loads to get the scope lined up, so I only had 65 loaded rounds for that rifle with me. I came back with 11 rounds unfired for that rifle. I am thoroughly impressed with this purchase I made online. The 1 in 11 twist three groove SS barrel handles the 40 gr. V-Max bullets just great. I had shots ranging from 25 yards on out to 243 yards. The last 5 shots I took were ranged at 240 yds., 89 yds., 243 yds., 224 yds., and 135 yds. Those last 5 shots were shots 56 through 60 through the barrel after it was last cleaned and it had to be shooting accurately to make those 224 yard plus shots.

Here’s the “Hero Photo” of me with the first blood for the new/used Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger and a closer look at the rifle and the first kill. This wasn’t a real tough shot, only about 135 yards.



This is a photo of the rifle and the “First Blood Victim”,



The photo below shows the exit wound side of a nice adult prairie dog shot at about 125 yards away. The 40 gr. V-Max bullets just make hamburger out of them.



Here’s the tiny entrance wound on one I shot at 153 yards away.



Here’s a photo showing the nice BIG HOLE going out!!!



I didn’t get back out into this prairie dog town for the afternoon shooting until 2:25 p.m. I was taking my time with the shots because I didn’t want the barrel to get hot. I was working my way along the south edge and moving toward the middle of the town when I heard shooting to the NE of my position. I turned to look where the shots were coming from and saw a red ranch work truck with two shooters riding on the bed of the truck. They both had rifles and were shooting prairie dogs whenever the truck stopped. I get real nervous when I have other people shooting in the same dog town I am in, especially when they don’t seem to know I am in the dog town!!! I kept my head low and watched what was going on. The truck kept working its way to the south and west towards my position. I found some prairie dogs to shoot at to the west of my position and hoped these fellows would hear my shots and realize they weren’t alone. After about 20 minutes they drove to within about 100 yards of where I was at and stopped the truck. I stood up and they got off the truck and headed my way. They were three young men and all three were cousins. The one young man was the son of a rancher who lives east of this dog town. I introduced myself and told them with all the shooting they were doing, I thought there was a war going on over the hill from my spot. They laughed and introduced themselves. They were fascinated by my rifle and had lots of questions which I answered as best I could. They wondered if it would be OK if they shot PDs on the east side of the dog town and I shot PDs on the west side. I agreed that this would work for me, but asked them to be real careful so they didn’t shoot any holes in my pickup. They went back to their truck and continued to shoot for another 45 minutes or so before parking at the base of a butte and it looked like they were hunting rattle snakes. Not my idea of a lot of fun, but they kept at it for about 45 minutes before driving away.

In the photo below you are looking to the east northeast. The dog town continues east along the face of the butte and behind the trees for maybe another 400 yards. There is a creek to the right of the trees that usually has water in it all summer.



The picture below has you looking east southeast. The creek bottom is in the trees on the right-hand side of the photo.



I began walking back to my pickup at 6:00 p.m. I made my longest shots of the day on the trip back. Here’s one of the PDs that was 224 yards away. I hit him a bit far back, but it did him in.



Here’s a photo of the one I shot at 243 yards. The 243 yard PD was lying on his belly on his mound and looking right at me. It appears that the bullet hit right under his chin and kept going all the way to his back end. It pretty well gutted him.



I arrived at my pickup at 6:50. I was tired and had run out of water by that time so I was glad to get at my stash of water. Out of the 54 shots I had taken with the .204 Ruger, I had missed 3 shots and hit 51 single prairie dogs. I normally use my Leica 1200 Rangefinder when I’m not sure of the distances, but on one of those misses I had estimated the distance to be about 175 yards so I was holding the horizontal crosshairs right at the bottom of his body. I could see the bullet hit low and the prairie dog stayed right there as if nothing had happened. I aimed about 2 inches higher and smacked the prairie dog right off his mound. I decided to range the distance and found it was 240 yards!!! No wonder I had hit a bit low!!!

Totals for the day were 101 dead prairie dogs for 104 shots. I left the prairie dog town at 7:10 p.m. and on my way back, I did some scouting in a dog town that had been poisoned a number of years ago and discovered that there was a fairly decent population of prairie dogs there again. I’ll be hitting that dog town on my next trip out that way.

I began cleaning both rifles when I got back home. The Predator action .17 Remington cleaned up in about two hours of soaking the barrel for 10 or 15 minutes, using a nylon brush, then patching it out and soaking it again for 30 minutes. I had the .204 Ruger set up in my other gun vice and was cleaning that at the same time as the .17 Remington. The .204 Ruger barrel received my attention Wednesday evening, and on and off all day Thursday. I finally got all the carbon and copper out of it around 8:00 p.m. Thursday evening. My wife and I did go golfing that afternoon, so I wasn’t spending every waking minute cleaning the barrel. Sometimes I put Bore Tech Eliminator in the barrel and let it soak for several hours. I do the same thing with the Bore Tech C4 Carbon Cleaner. I also use one of Bore Tech’s new nylon brushes and vigorously work it up and down the barrel with lots of short strokes in the first 6 to 8 inches ahead of the chamber. I used Graphoil to treat both barrels when I get done cleaning them so they are ready to shoot. I am coating 202 more 40 gr. V-Max bullets and 400 more 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKing bullets with hBN as I’m typing this and then I need to do some more reloading for that .204 Ruger and for the Predator action .17 Remington.

Hello Silverfox,
Outstanding narrative and photos, as usual! It sure was nice that the wind cooperated, for a change. I noticed it is still nice and green out around the hills there. The heat we've had lately in Central Oregon has certainling turned everything brown. And our sage rats are long gone until next spring.

Congrats on the rifle builds and purchases. Seems like everything is working out very nicely. Keep us posted on the next trip to PD land.

Rgds, Gerry

SF: Thanks once again for an excellent field report of what appears to have been a grand walkabout. Great looking country, nice accurate rifles, perfect weather and a target rich environment.....it doesn't get much better.

Thanks for sharing another sweet varmint adventure!

Very nice right up enjoyed the story and pics.

Wow Silverfox, those 40 grainers simply WRECK the pdogs! So what happened to the old Savage 12 vlp? Did you retire that one? Anyway, beautiful scenery, and good shooting. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you, one and all, for the compliments on the "little" story I presented. It was definitely a fun day for me, but not so much fun for the prairie dogs that got centered in my scopes.

DarkNight--The old Savage 12VLP is still in my posession and has a total of 2,702 shots down the barrel. It is still shooting pretty nice groups and will be the rifle my son uses when he gets the time to go prairie dog shooting with me. I'll be pretty busy trying to shoot all the other rifles I have in my arsenal, so I'll let my son use the old Savage.

Sliverfox, that was a great post! Thanks for sharing. Gary

Excellant pics and write-up SF!! Sounds like a great time was had. Your cheat sheets look like you have a pile of info on them...care to post a close-up? I used one this season and they made hold-over a thing of the past for me. I only printed the elevation, no windage...I guess I still hold-off but not over... if that makes sense??

I see you finally made it out. NO WIND for a change. Great write up.


I believe the flower/weed in question is called Goats Beard.

Thanks again to those of you who complimented my writeup on the recent PD shoot. I appreciate reading your comments.

windy--Wednesday was a very rare day in North Dakota because the wind is blowing at least 5 to 10 mph almost every day. I sure enjoy shooting a lot more when I don't have to worry about hold-off for wind.

I learned something from you today. I have to say a big THANK YOU for identifying that weed seed head for me. I have seen that weed for many, many, many, many, many, many decades and never knew what it was called--now I know what to call it. I looked "Goat's-beard weed" up on google.com and came up with a couple more names. One is "Western Salsify" and the scientific name is "Tragopogon dubius", but that's too hard to pronounce so Goat's-beard will be what I use from now on.

remy3424--I don't move my windage and elevation knobs, but rather use hold-over and hold-off. Here's a photo of the windage and elevation chart I used to have on my .204 Ruger for the 35 gr. FBHP Berger load I used. I create these charts in Excel and the little text box alongside "Drop" in the second row is the muzzle velocity for that load. I have since begun adding the bullet weight and zero yardage in that text box too. I also used to carry a duplicate of each chart in my hunting license holder because I often used to shoot a couple of different weight bullets out of the same rifle. I was lucky with several of my rifles because bullets of different weights would shoot to almost the same point of aim. Now, I usually use only one weight bullet in each rifle.




I use transparent Scotch tape to keep the charts on the side of the rifle stock and that works pretty good. They don't seem to loosen up or rub off. I used to spray Testor's clear coat lacquer over the tape to make sure there was no possibility of light reflecting off the tape, but now I don't do that. I think the transparent tape isn't very reflective and I don't think I have scared any coyotes away because of light glaring off the Scotch tape.

SF,

Thanks for sharing your shoot with us. Every time I see the country up there I picture what it would look like 200 years ago when the buffalo and Indians were roaming free. In country like that, I think I could just sit all day and take in the scenery.

SF...........WTG on very nice write up and pics. You realy know how to turn those PD inside out. Thanks for taking us along. I wish I could have been there with you.
Later
Ray P