When nature wins

[hozz57]

I went up north in hopes of spending some quality time with praire poodles 2 fridays ago. It was me, my daughter and Dean. Dean is my 22-250 shooting buddy and since it had been raining we took his 4x4.

Well we get there and as usual it takes me twice as long to set up as Dean because I am setting up for my kid as well. Everything goes as planned and pretty soon I am sitting at my bench getting settled in. I shoot 2 dogs in my 1st 5 shots with some 32gr Vmaxs and then my daughter tells me that everything is out of range for her HMR so I reluctently hand my .204 over to her and start setting up my .220 Swift.

Well I had just missed my 2nd shot when my kid starts complaining about bugs. I went over to her bench and found that it was covered with flying ants. Pretty soon Dean's truck was covered and then they came after us. It was like some sort of horror flick. I would feel them on the back of my neck and when I would wipe them off my hand would be filled with up to a dozen or more of them.

Anyway it got to the point where we had to move to a different spot and then the rain came. I guess it wasn't our day.

P.S. I had a camera but I was to busy running in circles, flayling my arms and screaming like a little girl to take pictures.

[Hotshot]

hozz,

That's a sad story for sure. I'd be interested in your opinion of a isde by side comparison of 204 and 220 swift.

My experience with these two (my absolute favorite cartridges) is still incomplete, but the 204 seems to run step for step with the Swift out to 500 yards. I do think the Swift does more damage to the prairie dogs at 400 plus and there is some satisfaction as to how much red is produced with the hit.

The 55 grain bkings that I prefer in my Swift lose stability at 500 and groups open up to the point where hits become luck past that point.
My 204 with 40 gr btips are still stable at 500 but they don't seem to group well at 600. I just hate lobbing in 12 shots to get a hit, so I switch to 6mm when we shoot over 500.

[hozz57]

I just got my .220 swift so I haven't had much of a chance to test it yet. In fact I just got it back from a 'smith who put a Hollands muzzle brake on it and also tweeked the trigger. I'm going out to the range this friday to work on my postal shoot loads and will be giving that swift a good shake-out.