Cooper 20VT Meets Skippy
Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:17 am
Our "spring" weather has been more like what we get in winter, but it appears Skippy and his gopher pals are out anyway. We fought blizzards, rain, wind, and more blowing snow this trip than any other in recent memory. For the first day and a half of this shoot, we used our 10-22's and my Browning 1885 Low Wall in 22 K-Hornet for "drive-by" shooting, as it was snowing and blowing fiercely, but the squirrels were still out.
My Cooper 20 Vartarg "needed" to fireform 450 freshly formed cases with 32gr V-Max's loaded over RL-7, and what better way to do that than on our most cooperative rodent: "Skippy the Flying Squirrel". Once the snow stopped we got out the CF's and benches. My Cooper M38 VR in 20 Vartarg ready for her first rat-combat:
With the fields and roads very muddy from all the snow-melt, we just parked our pickup and a fire truck that the rancher offered at the edge of one of the fields and engaged the enemy from elevated positions.
The alfalfa has not come up yet, but this shows only a very small portion of the area we were shooting....note the squirrel mounds all the way out to as far as you can shoot (1,200 yards if you wanted). Dan up top of the firetruck got a confirmed kill at 509 yards using his M700 VLS in 223. Both of us were using Lupy 6.5-20X LR scopes. This pic only shows just one corner of the squirrel infested fields:
Even with the little 20VT case (formed from 221FB) and a 32gr fireform load at 3,500 fps, I was able to nail rats to 400 yards, even in the 10-15 mph wind we had all day. I'm interested to see how field loads in formed cases at 3,700 fps will do next time out. My setup in the back of the truck overlooking rodent heaven:
One of the victims that had great "hang-time" from the 32gr V-Max fireform load at around 260 yards......ideal medicine for Skippy:
CRT's (Brad) bench tray worked very well for feeding cases into the single shot Cooper M38:
The next snow storm lurking on the SW horizon:
Getting ready for dinner, we looked out the back window and saw these two mulies doing their "deer stuff" (we had a herd of about 40 milling about for four days....some even went into the barn to stay warm and dry):
The next morning on the way to the shooting positions, we had a bunch of bald eagles sitting on the pivot pipes and munching on the carcases from the previous days shooting:
There are always golden eagles and hawks, but it's always cool to see the big boys enjoying the fooder provided by the Eastern Oregon Raptor Feeding Society.
This pile of 20VT brass represents how much fun I had with my new Cooper M38 VR on Skippy and his pals....to the tune of 270 cases:
It was a good way to kick off our 2011 Rat Season....next adventure coming up very soon. I'll have to pack a couple of 204's also for the next trip.....Skippy will be hanging out way out there next time me thinks.....
My Cooper 20 Vartarg "needed" to fireform 450 freshly formed cases with 32gr V-Max's loaded over RL-7, and what better way to do that than on our most cooperative rodent: "Skippy the Flying Squirrel". Once the snow stopped we got out the CF's and benches. My Cooper M38 VR in 20 Vartarg ready for her first rat-combat:
With the fields and roads very muddy from all the snow-melt, we just parked our pickup and a fire truck that the rancher offered at the edge of one of the fields and engaged the enemy from elevated positions.
The alfalfa has not come up yet, but this shows only a very small portion of the area we were shooting....note the squirrel mounds all the way out to as far as you can shoot (1,200 yards if you wanted). Dan up top of the firetruck got a confirmed kill at 509 yards using his M700 VLS in 223. Both of us were using Lupy 6.5-20X LR scopes. This pic only shows just one corner of the squirrel infested fields:
Even with the little 20VT case (formed from 221FB) and a 32gr fireform load at 3,500 fps, I was able to nail rats to 400 yards, even in the 10-15 mph wind we had all day. I'm interested to see how field loads in formed cases at 3,700 fps will do next time out. My setup in the back of the truck overlooking rodent heaven:
One of the victims that had great "hang-time" from the 32gr V-Max fireform load at around 260 yards......ideal medicine for Skippy:
CRT's (Brad) bench tray worked very well for feeding cases into the single shot Cooper M38:
The next snow storm lurking on the SW horizon:
Getting ready for dinner, we looked out the back window and saw these two mulies doing their "deer stuff" (we had a herd of about 40 milling about for four days....some even went into the barn to stay warm and dry):
The next morning on the way to the shooting positions, we had a bunch of bald eagles sitting on the pivot pipes and munching on the carcases from the previous days shooting:
There are always golden eagles and hawks, but it's always cool to see the big boys enjoying the fooder provided by the Eastern Oregon Raptor Feeding Society.
This pile of 20VT brass represents how much fun I had with my new Cooper M38 VR on Skippy and his pals....to the tune of 270 cases:It was a good way to kick off our 2011 Rat Season....next adventure coming up very soon. I'll have to pack a couple of 204's also for the next trip.....Skippy will be hanging out way out there next time me thinks.....
Dang Rick I just drooled all over my keyboard! I'm sure sorry I missed that trip, can't wait for next weekend!!!! See ya soon. Gary
I took my 17 Fireball out a couple weeks ago with those Nosler bullets and had a good time. The bullets didn't give any splat factor, but they are fun to shoot. The 25gr. Hornady HP does much better for launching them. Then my dad let me shoot the Cooper .204 and boy it was fun to launch squirrels at 250-300 on just about every shot 
This Cooper seems to be working out just as planned......accurate, not hard to look at, and quite hard on Skippy. 
