Got some more chucks
Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 7:11 pm
My dad and I took a friend out shooting rockchucks on Saturday. Tanner had let me shoot his $4000 dollar rifle at an F-Class match last fall and has helped me out a lot on the long range stuff. We sighted in his rifle and headed off to a place that we know has 500+ shots for him. The first place we stopped there were a few out, so we set up the benches and our rifles. He took the first one off of a rock at 470 yards after a few sighter shots, and it looked to be a pretty large chuck. Next I connected after a few rounds on a smaller one with my .243 AI. Then my dad took one, and Tanner got two more. We were up to five when I took my turn again. I was prone on the ground and shooting my .243 AI with 87 Vmaxs when one popped up at 473 . I'm not even kidding, my first shot split that rockchuck in half and the top half landed on the top of the rim 6 feet up We killed another 4 there before leaving, although we probably won't have any chucks left for next year. Here you can see that we only killed 1 medium sized rockchuck at that range, the rest were only a little bit bigger than a large ground squirrel.
Me lining up on a 'chuck.
Looking over Tanner's 25-06 AI at our spot.
Me and my .243 Ackleyd chuck. Excuse the poor facial expression
Tanner and I with the whole family
Tanner with his momma chuck. Note the baby lying in the background
We moved on to a spot that we know has 2 HUGE rockchucks on it. We pull up and start glassing the rock pile from about 220 yards off, a sure distance to hit one of the chuckzillas. Well sure 'nough there was one sitting on top of the pile. My dad brings out his cooper, the one that is always on and makes a 220 yard shot look like nothing. His first shot misses He gets up, disgusted, so I flop down on it to show him how its done. The chuck pops up and I only have a head and a chest, but it's the cooper right? I miss too Now we are really bummed, cause we know that chucks not going to come back up for a long time. We start sighting in on this rock and it turns out that his scope didn't return to zero or something after the 470 yard chucks. I guess they will grow bigger for next year.
We stay at that spot and finally spot some over about 600 yards away. We all take our sighter shots to get an idea of where we are going to be hitting. Long story short, the only one that ended up getting dead was because of Tanner, the amazing F-Class shooter. Well, that's my excuse for why he only got one there. We were too lazy to go take pictures of that one, sorry guys.
Here I am dialing up the .243 AI.
Dad looking for chucks.
Now we had heard a tale about a resivour around here with rockchucks near it. On our way down we stopped to glass this rim. Yep there was another colony of rockchucks. We were almost cheating though, they were all under 350 yards. So we left the cooper, .243 AI, and Tanner's 25-06 AI in the truck. I pulled out Tanner's 22 PPC, dad got the White Oak AR, .204 and Tanner got his 22-250. Dad got the first blood on his AR with 2 chucks at 350 yards. Tanner tried the AR, but couldn't get the feel of it. So dad shot another one at 350. I kept trying to hit them with the 22 PPC at 250+, but the little bullets it was shooting were getting blown around quite abit in the 10 mph wind, so after 8 rounds I hopped on dad's AR. That did the trick. Sent a 39 SBK into a chuck at 220 yards. Tanner hit another one at 220 with his 22-250, that one got a little hang time.
We didn't see any chucks at the resivour, but it was about 6 o'clock. We headed back and I only had one shot left. We stopped at the 600 yard place to have a final look. Yep, there was one still out on the rim at 574 yards. I figured that I might get really lucky and drop it on my first shot. I dialed the .243 AI up, gave it a smidgeon of wind and sent the bullet on its way. The chuck didn't look hit at first and started running down the rim rock, it was almost to the bottom when it flipped down the last 6 feet of the rim. We had to go, so no pictures of that one either.
We had a good time, probably killed a few too many chucks for that area, but it was fun. We got 18 in all and Tanner was pretty pleased with the amount of shooting. He wasn't used to that many chucks, but frankly, we weren't either.
Me lining up on a 'chuck.
Looking over Tanner's 25-06 AI at our spot.
Me and my .243 Ackleyd chuck. Excuse the poor facial expression
Tanner and I with the whole family
Tanner with his momma chuck. Note the baby lying in the background
We moved on to a spot that we know has 2 HUGE rockchucks on it. We pull up and start glassing the rock pile from about 220 yards off, a sure distance to hit one of the chuckzillas. Well sure 'nough there was one sitting on top of the pile. My dad brings out his cooper, the one that is always on and makes a 220 yard shot look like nothing. His first shot misses He gets up, disgusted, so I flop down on it to show him how its done. The chuck pops up and I only have a head and a chest, but it's the cooper right? I miss too Now we are really bummed, cause we know that chucks not going to come back up for a long time. We start sighting in on this rock and it turns out that his scope didn't return to zero or something after the 470 yard chucks. I guess they will grow bigger for next year.
We stay at that spot and finally spot some over about 600 yards away. We all take our sighter shots to get an idea of where we are going to be hitting. Long story short, the only one that ended up getting dead was because of Tanner, the amazing F-Class shooter. Well, that's my excuse for why he only got one there. We were too lazy to go take pictures of that one, sorry guys.
Here I am dialing up the .243 AI.
Dad looking for chucks.
Now we had heard a tale about a resivour around here with rockchucks near it. On our way down we stopped to glass this rim. Yep there was another colony of rockchucks. We were almost cheating though, they were all under 350 yards. So we left the cooper, .243 AI, and Tanner's 25-06 AI in the truck. I pulled out Tanner's 22 PPC, dad got the White Oak AR, .204 and Tanner got his 22-250. Dad got the first blood on his AR with 2 chucks at 350 yards. Tanner tried the AR, but couldn't get the feel of it. So dad shot another one at 350. I kept trying to hit them with the 22 PPC at 250+, but the little bullets it was shooting were getting blown around quite abit in the 10 mph wind, so after 8 rounds I hopped on dad's AR. That did the trick. Sent a 39 SBK into a chuck at 220 yards. Tanner hit another one at 220 with his 22-250, that one got a little hang time.
We didn't see any chucks at the resivour, but it was about 6 o'clock. We headed back and I only had one shot left. We stopped at the 600 yard place to have a final look. Yep, there was one still out on the rim at 574 yards. I figured that I might get really lucky and drop it on my first shot. I dialed the .243 AI up, gave it a smidgeon of wind and sent the bullet on its way. The chuck didn't look hit at first and started running down the rim rock, it was almost to the bottom when it flipped down the last 6 feet of the rim. We had to go, so no pictures of that one either.
We had a good time, probably killed a few too many chucks for that area, but it was fun. We got 18 in all and Tanner was pretty pleased with the amount of shooting. He wasn't used to that many chucks, but frankly, we weren't either.