By about 9:15 a.m. I had my target boxes set up at 100 yards and also set my chronograph up for this test session too. I tested four loads for the .17 Remington using hBN coated 29 gr. FBHP VLD Genco bullets and three loads using hBN coated 39 gr. Sierra Blitz King bullets for the Savage target action. I was somewhat sure of which load would be best for each rifle after the testing I did on July 14, and those are the loads that proved to be the best today. I used powder from the new lot of IMR 8208 XBR for both of those rifles.
I also had my Tikka Master Sporter in .22-250 along and wanted to get the scope adjusted for the 40 gr. Nosler Ballistic Tip bullets that so that now shoots where I’m aiming. I use a load of 38.4 gr. of Varget, CCI 200 primers and WW casings. That load gives me a muzzle velocity that is just a shade under 4,000 fps.
Since I was going to shoot my new/used Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger on prairie dogs today and I had cleaned the barrel and used the Tannel Graphoil treatment in it, I shot a few shots with my 40 gr. V-Max loads down the barrel to check the point of impact on that one too. With the fouling shots, test loads shots, and POI checking shots I had fired about 50 rounds before I was done.
I finished shooting the test loads and POI shots and gathered up my target boxes and put the chronograph away and stopped for lunch at 1:15 p.m. That load testing takes a lot of time. I usually wait between two to three minutes between shots so the barrels don’t heat up. Also, there were several times that the bullets hit the black lines on my targets and that prevented me from seeing where the bullet hit. I record, on special target report sheets, the velocity and where each bullet hits the target. When I couldn’t see the bullet hole, I walked down to the target, located the hole and recorded the position and walked back to my makeshift shooting bench on the tailgate of my pickup.
At 1:56 p.m., I finally got started after prairie dogs with my new/used Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger. I use the 40 gr. V-Max bullets coated with hBN and a load of 27.2 gr. of H4895 which is fired up with Remington 7½ primers out of WW casings. (REMEMBER: This load is safe in my rifle, BUT you need to work up to this load in small charge weight increments!) This load gives me an average muzzle velocity of 3,840 fps.
There were not many prairie dogs to shoot at in this town. I stopped for a drink of water and some trail mix at 3:06 p.m. and had only taken 8 shots. I managed to get one double and all the rest of the shots were single prairie dogs. I decided to go back to my pickup and head out to a different prairie dog town. I spotted one more prairie dog to shoot on my walk back to the pickup and blasted that one. By 3:30 I was headed out of there for a dog town a rancher had told me about a few weeks ago.
Looking at the PD town from the road didn’t leave me with any tingling excitement. There appeared to be yellow clover growing up to about my chest and crested wheatgrass almost the same height. You could see isolated areas where the PDs had been keeping the grass fairly low, but it didn’t appear like there would be lots of wide-open areas that would give me decent shooting lanes. Since this dog town is on federal land, I parked my pickup on the established trail on the north end of the dog town and walked south toward the mounds I had viewed from the road. I managed to find a spot where I could see good enough to shoot one prairie dog. Before I took that shot I discovered that I had left my elbow pads back at the pickup. I spotted another prairie dog to shoot and bagged that one. After grinding my elbows into the dirt on those two shots, I decided to walk back to the pickup and get my elbow pads.
The shooting was real slow. I spotted another prairie dog and found a mound to shoot from and bagged that one too. Then I looked to the left side of the mound and found some bugs dining on fresh PD poop and I am going to share that delicious sight with you here:
Some of you may know where this dog town is located when you see this next photo. The windmill in the picture is the Dodge Windmill. Now all of you should be able to figure out where this dog town is located. It is only about 1 mile east of the Montana border. If you look carefully you can see two PDs in the photo. One is just left of the windmill just beyond the tall grass and the other is off to the left side of the photo--both are standing at attention and when I lay down on the tallest PD mound to try to shoot them, they were well below the grass line so there was no chance for a shot. Even shooting sticks wouldn't have been much help.
I spotted a prairie dog out to the south of me and used my Leica 1200 range finder to discover it was 148 yards away. I took careful aim and sent a 40 gr. V-Max its way and watched it explode as the bullet sent it about 6 feet in the air. Here’s what and Inside-out PD looks like after colliding with a 40 gr. V-Max bullet from a .204 Ruger:
As most of you know, my stories are usually not complete without the old Hero Photo, so here’s the obligatory picture:
While I didn’t get to shoot very many prairie dogs, I was able to pinpoint the loads I will use for my Savage target action .204 Ruger and my Predator action .17 Remington, plus I got to travel through some new country. Like they say, “A day of hunting beats a day of work anytime of the year.”
