Had a good PD trip to South Dakota
Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:40 pm
We had a good trip to South Dakota, although the detour around Iowa added some time to the trip, the route thru Wisconsin and Minnesota turned out pretty good, as I'd never been through there before (I-90). Frankly, that's pretty country, too, but no PDs, so on we go.
We stayed at Shur Shot Lodge, outside Vivian, SD, a sorta new place, only been in the doggin' business a couple of years, they do mostly pheasants, deer and antelope, which are abundant around there. They made arrangements for us to shoot on the Rosebud Rez, where I'd been before, but it's so vast, I've always been in different towns, this was no exception.
Due to the rains breaking a seven year drought, the grass was higher and greener than usual for the 'Bud, but it had the usual high number of PDs running around. I shot my .204, mostly, this trip, as it was running right. I stuck with what the rifle liked, 32 VMs and BTs, with some 34 Dogtowns thrown in for giggles, and to see how they'd do up there. They aren't as explosive as the plastic tipped bullets, but definitely killed dogs real dead.
While eating lunch on the first day, I noticed something coming up thru the high grass, and got out the little CZ .221 Fireball. I don't like critters interrupting my meals, so I raised the rifle and popped a young jackrabbit. This was the first jackrabbit I'd seen up in SD, but this year seems to be a bumper year for jacks.
I hope the danged hosting site is working....
We stayed at Shur Shot Lodge, outside Vivian, SD, a sorta new place, only been in the doggin' business a couple of years, they do mostly pheasants, deer and antelope, which are abundant around there. They made arrangements for us to shoot on the Rosebud Rez, where I'd been before, but it's so vast, I've always been in different towns, this was no exception.
Due to the rains breaking a seven year drought, the grass was higher and greener than usual for the 'Bud, but it had the usual high number of PDs running around. I shot my .204, mostly, this trip, as it was running right. I stuck with what the rifle liked, 32 VMs and BTs, with some 34 Dogtowns thrown in for giggles, and to see how they'd do up there. They aren't as explosive as the plastic tipped bullets, but definitely killed dogs real dead.
While eating lunch on the first day, I noticed something coming up thru the high grass, and got out the little CZ .221 Fireball. I don't like critters interrupting my meals, so I raised the rifle and popped a young jackrabbit. This was the first jackrabbit I'd seen up in SD, but this year seems to be a bumper year for jacks.
I hope the danged hosting site is working....
I had a few BTs left over from trying them out, and put some together for a field test. I also used the same charge of Benchmark for some 34 Dogtowns, which worked well enough, and shot to the same POI all the way past 300 yards (+2" at 100 yards). In fact, that zero/POI worked with the 32 VMs and 27.5 AA2230-C, too. I didn't mess with nuttin', just held on and killed dogs. I kinda like that, cuz I'm lazy.
These are NOT from the pond dam, though, just a couple of rats that liked the sunlight too much.
but I can't say enough about Shur Shot Lodge, and Kenny and Stacy Booth, both younger kids who are doing it just right. They fed us extremely well (look at that first picture again, I LIKE food! 
As dumb luck would have it, all three loads/bullets chronoed within about 30fps of each other, and hit at the same place all that way, too. I got lucky there! I could swap out ammo/loads/bullets and whack rats without dinking around learning new drops. I wish it was always that easy!
