After I parked my pickup and got out to get my .17 Tactical from behind the passenger side seat, I noticed a little brush rabbit sitting alongside a fallen dead tree. I got out the old digital camera and snapped a couple photos, but I did not shoot the rabbit.
There were still some .17 Tactical fire forming loads I wanted to shoot, so I uncased my .17 TAC and got out the ammo for that rifle. I only had 12 rounds of 25 gr. V-Max to fire form and was hoping I could find 12 prairie dogs who would volunteer to be test subjects for these fire forming loads. I had all my gear ready to go and had locked the doors on my pickup when I heard a prairie dog barking to the east of my pickup. I could see him up on the hillside and decided to use the hood of my pickup to shoot from. I extended my bipod leg and lowered my rifle onto the hood and began to move the bipod around to get line up on the prairie dog when my burglar alarm was activated by my movement on the hood of the pickup. My horn started honking and the prairie dog disappeared down his hole!!! I fumbled in my pockets to find the keys to my pickup so I could turn off the burglar alarm. EMBARRASING MOMENT #1.
After getting the horn to quit honking, I could hear another prairie dog barking very close to where the earlier one had been. This time, I planned on resting on the hood again, but I DID NOT lock the pickup doors!!! I got into position, got the crosshairs on the prairie dog and squeezed off the shot. I could see the hit in the scope and saw the PD go flying off the mound.
I started my little walkabout and found a few prairie dogs to shoot at, but they were very wary. I spent over an hour getting off 11 shots. I concluded that these prairie dogs had been shot at quite a few times already this spring. I had one more round to shoot, but no prairie dogs were popping up to shoot at. Finally, I decided to take a shot at an old dead tree to see where the bullet would hit. The tree was 125 yards away and my bullet hit right on the mark for windage and approximately 1.25 inches high, which is about where it should have hit for the velocity of the load and having it sighted in for a 230 yard zero. I had hit 7 prairie dogs and missed on the other four shots. I was happy with how the fire forming loads shot. I’m still trying to find a good load for the .17 TAC because I had the barrel set back 1 inch and rechambered about a month ago.
I headed back to the pickup to get my new/old .204 Ruger. This is a rifle I bought from a member of one of the hunting boards. It is a Savage 12VLP with a 26 inch stainless steel super match grade Pac-Nor barrel with a 1 in 11 twist and three grooves. I have a Leupold VX-III 6.5-20x40mm long range side focus scope on this rifle. The former owner said he had shot about 325 rounds through the barrel. All of the bullets I have shot out of this rifle have been coated with hBN. The white hBN fills the tiny void between the poly tip and the copper body of the bullet. It looks kind of neatâ€â€like a racing stripe!!
I got out my mirage shield and laid it in the driver’s seat. I loaded up my sandwich and some water in my backpack, put my box of reloads in my backpack, and double-checked to make sure I had all the necessities along. I put my set of pickup keys in the top compartment of my backpack, locked the doors and started my walkabout for the afternoon. Up until today, I had shot nothing but paper targets with the rifle. Today was the day I was going to make sure this rifle got first blood. I didn’t have to walk very far before I found a prairie dog daring me to shoot at it. I took out my Leica 1200 range finder and got a reading of 183 yards. I was shooting almost straight into the wind. I squeezed off the shot and could see the prairie dog explode and fly backwards off his mound! The .204 Ruger had scored first blood.
Here’s the Hero Photo for the day.
The brass I was using on Saturday was new, fully prepped WW brass. Remington 7½ primers were used and my bullets were 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKings coated with hBN, and powered by 27.4 grains of IMR 8208 XBR powder (If you plan on trying IMR 8208 XBR, please DO NOT start out with my powder charge weightâ€â€start lower and work your way upâ€â€27.3 grains is the listed maximum for bare bullets!!!). The muzzle velocity with new brass being fire formed averages about 3,836 fps and I sight the rifle in so it is 1 inch high at 100 yards and that gives me a 240 yard zero. However, as I was shooting during the day, I discovered that on the long shots past 185 yards, on a prone prairie dog, my bullets were hitting a little low. I made the correction for that by holding a wee bit higher on the distant prairie dogs and had a very good hit percentage after that.
I had only loaded 44 rounds in the new brass and since there weren’t many prairie dogs out, I figured I could spend the rest of the afternoon shooting and still have ammo left over. I continued my walkabout and around 4:30 I spotted a patch of prairie dogs south east of some trees and began to sneak up to get a little closer to them before shooting. I had to sneak through the trees and finally got into position to shoot and noticed that my mirage shield WAS NOT firmly attached to the barrelâ€â€IT WAS MISSING!!!! I thought back to where I could have lost it and thought it may have got snagged on a tree limb as I sneaked up to the spot I was at right then. I decided to wait with shooting prairie dogs, leave my rifle and backpack at this spot and walk back to find the mirage shield. I must have walked 500 to 600 yards, backtracking my path. I could not find the mirage shield. I did not want to leave the PD town without that shield, but I didn’t want to backtrack all the way to the pickup since I had left my backpack and rifle where I discovered the mirage shield was missing. I walked back to my rifle, still worried whether I’d find the shield. I settled down and got in some pretty good action on the prairie dogs SE of the trees.
My stomach was growling and when I looked at my watch, I discovered it was almost 5:30. I had eaten a late breakfast at 10:15 a.m. and hadn’t eaten anything since then so I found a shady spot by a tree and ate my PBJ sandwich and had some water to drink. The wind had died down to only a whisper now and I could hear lots of prairie dogs barking to the east and southeast of where I was sitting. They must have come out to have supper too. The next two hours were the best shooting time of that day. These prairie dogs seemed extremely wary for so early in the year so there were not many short shots. I saw plenty evidence that other prairie dog shooters had been in this town already this yearâ€â€lots of tire tracks and dead prairie dogs. Even though there weren’t many short shots, there were plenty of customers in the 185 to 220 yard range. I wondered if any of the prairie dogs I had shot were females, so I examined many of the carcasses and none of the ones I looked at were females. There were no pups out at all and I didn’t expect to see any since they usually don’t come out until the last week of May or first week of June.
I only had 8 round left to shoot and was about 3/4 mile from the pickup, so I began my walk back to the vehicle. There were plenty of prairie dogs to shoot on my walk back to the pickup and I ran out of cartridges about 10 minutes before I got back to the pickup at 8:00 p.m. The longest shot I hit on with the .204 Ruger was 283 lasered yards. The closest shot was 75 yards and when the bullet hit that prairie dog there was red mist and body parts flying all over. I was lamenting the fact that my son wasn’t along to take multiple photos of the action with his fancy digital SLR camera. Oh well, there will be time for those photos later this summer.
I had hit on 36 of 44 shots and with the 7 prairie dogs I hit with the .17 Tactical; I had decreased the PD population by 43 with the 55 shots I took. This wasn’t a tremendous day for numbers, but it was a heck of a good start to the prairie dog season for me. Hopefully the pups will be out on my next outing near the end of May.
The new/used Pac-Nor barreled Savage 12VLP in .204 had seen 76 shots down the barrel before I did my walkabout shooting prairie dogs on Saturday, so with the 44 shots I took today, there had been a total of 120 hBN coated bullets down the barrel since it was last cleaned. The last two shots I took with this rifle were hits on prairie dogs at 187 yards and 220 yards, so the accuracy hadn’t dropped off much for having that many bullets down the barrel. I think the hBN coating definitely helps me shoot more shots before barrel cleaning is required.
Here’s a photo of the second to last PD of the day and the shot was lasered 187 yards.
Here’s the view of the blood splatter on the entrance to the mound:
And next is a photo of the entrance and exit wounds. The entrance wound is on the side and the exit was out the belly area.
Here’s a photo of the last PD of the day shot at 220 yards. I was somewhat surprised at how big the exit wound was for this 220 yard shot. I don't think the patient will survive.
When I got back to the pickup, I had EMBARRASSING MOMENT #2. There, lying in the driver’s seat, was my mirage shield. That was good, but the reason it was embarrassing was that I had taken several photos of the .204 Ruger alongside the first prairie dog I shot with it and I could plainly see that THERE WAS NO MIRAGE SHIELD ON THE BARREL!!! Why hadn’t I thought to preview the photos on the camera to see if the shield was on the barrel before I took a 500 to 600 yard walk to look for it and then another 500 to 600 yards back to where I left my rifle and backpack???? The mind is a terrible thing to lose and my mind was not all there when I failed to look at the photos on the camera before taking that long hike!!! It is tough to get old, but I have to admit it beats the alternative.
Forget 
Forget what 
. I just may have to slip out for a few hours tomorrow or Thursday. I have over 1000 rounds and three 204's just itchin to do some "red misting". 
