More .20 Cal Fun with Oregon Rock Chucks
Posted: Wed May 04, 2011 12:39 pm
Today dawned clear and sunny. Got an early morning call again from my horse rancher lady to please come out and thin a few more chucks. The place was still alive with them when I left last time, so expected her to call again (oh darn). I don't want to wipe the place out, as it's a nice place to shoot every spring, but I grabbed my Cooper M38 VR in 20 Vartarg and zipped over there for some "thinning duties".
As soon as I laid down in the shade of a juniper to glass the first rockpile, I could see chucks out grazing at about 225 yards, and more crawling about or basking in the morning sun on almost every rockpile I could see from the ranch house fenceline.
Anyway, in two hours of skulking about the ranch with camo and boonie hat (Natural Gear), and shooting from modified sticks, I was able to nail six chucks with six shots. One huge old grey back bore that probably weighed about 14-15 lbs easily.
Here's the morning fun:
There was one rockpile at the far end of the ranch that I could see through an opening in the junipers that had a chuck sitting atop the highest rock. I lined up on him, shot, and thought I saw him flip over the rock. When I got there, no chuck....but then I spotted the rock he had been sitting on:
I went around the rockpile, and there he was, wegged into the rocks, and oh boy, did he ever take a hit...right under the chin, and the .204" 32 grain Nosler BT came out the middle of his spine:
This big boy took one of the same slugs from 186 yards, right under the chin as he was peeking over a rock at me. It's amazing what terminal performance this little case delivers:
Typical setting. Most shooting is through openings in the junipers, so you have to 'thread' the bullet through branches, barbed wire fences, and rock openings. Perfect for a flat shooting, accurate caliber like the little 20VT. The photo does not show it, but there's a rockpile at the very far end of the field near the 'sky window' in the trees that has chucks perched on it:
If the ranch was larger and homes were farther apart, it would be "204 Ruger Territory", but it's not, so a smaller version of it seems about perfect. Here's another one of the larger boys from today:
As I was driving out the driveway, I spotted a huge old silverback bore scamper up his rockpile, and two more on the backside of another, so there's still plenty of seed for the future. All in all, another good day in Oregon. Time to clean my Cooper.....another EORFS rat shoot coming up next week. I'm really starting to like this retired thing.
As soon as I laid down in the shade of a juniper to glass the first rockpile, I could see chucks out grazing at about 225 yards, and more crawling about or basking in the morning sun on almost every rockpile I could see from the ranch house fenceline.
Anyway, in two hours of skulking about the ranch with camo and boonie hat (Natural Gear), and shooting from modified sticks, I was able to nail six chucks with six shots. One huge old grey back bore that probably weighed about 14-15 lbs easily.
Here's the morning fun:
There was one rockpile at the far end of the ranch that I could see through an opening in the junipers that had a chuck sitting atop the highest rock. I lined up on him, shot, and thought I saw him flip over the rock. When I got there, no chuck....but then I spotted the rock he had been sitting on:
I went around the rockpile, and there he was, wegged into the rocks, and oh boy, did he ever take a hit...right under the chin, and the .204" 32 grain Nosler BT came out the middle of his spine:
This big boy took one of the same slugs from 186 yards, right under the chin as he was peeking over a rock at me. It's amazing what terminal performance this little case delivers:
Typical setting. Most shooting is through openings in the junipers, so you have to 'thread' the bullet through branches, barbed wire fences, and rock openings. Perfect for a flat shooting, accurate caliber like the little 20VT. The photo does not show it, but there's a rockpile at the very far end of the field near the 'sky window' in the trees that has chucks perched on it:
If the ranch was larger and homes were farther apart, it would be "204 Ruger Territory", but it's not, so a smaller version of it seems about perfect. Here's another one of the larger boys from today:
As I was driving out the driveway, I spotted a huge old silverback bore scamper up his rockpile, and two more on the backside of another, so there's still plenty of seed for the future. All in all, another good day in Oregon. Time to clean my Cooper.....another EORFS rat shoot coming up next week. I'm really starting to like this retired thing.
Great shooting and write up as usual, Rick! Good luck next week. I hope we get some more of this nice weather for you.
We're off again in a few days for another 4-day shoot ourselves. I'm starting to think if a guy had a 20VT and a 204R, maybe a 6mm of some sort for the wind and long stuff, he'd have the Trifecta of varmint rifles calibers for 100% of all rat-shooting possibilities. Ain't life grand? Especially at this time of year! 
