SmallCaliberCentral

I have a question but I dont want to open up a can of worms! I think it will be fine so here we go. As im ever closer to getting my .204 I wonder what is your kill range on prairie dogs? For you guys that have your pet loads in the gun, know the state of your gun/scope, and personal shooting skills, what would you say is the max range you consistently kill prairie dogs? or also max distance for single kill. I am hoping that at least a few of you say you can hit p-dogs rather well at 400 yards. (im not saying im going to do that, or even try, just wonder what you guys do) On another question, do you guys like to dial turrents or have varmint reticles to range? I hear and see on ballistic tables that the .204 stays rather flat to 3-400 yards, so there may be no need for either, but having never shot a .204 thought I would ask, man I want one of these so bad!

THanks for help,
Jake

Depends on the gun. Some are capable of consistent kills at 700 yds, others less. But the gun is almost always more capable than the shooter.

Here the Beldings ground squirrel is the target, bout 1/3 the size of the prairie dog. With my 204's, the longest first shot kill on one of these rats was 476 yards....so far with my 204's. That was with a 39 SBK over a stiff charge of RL-10X.

I primarily dial-a-rat, but if the shooting is hot, I set the zero for 200 yards and then use the VHR, but find most first shot hit probabilty is gained from dialing. I use the Leupold M1 .25 MOA system for all dialing, and find with an accurate 'come-up' chart made for your rifle and load, it almost always guarantees that first shot hit at extended range.



One of my Cooper rat rifles; you can see the M1 turrets marked in .25 MOA, along with my 'come-up' chart, also in MOA attached to the inside of the rear scope flip cover. Some use other systems.....this is what works for me.

I love my Savage LRPV's in .204 but can't wait to save the bucks for a Cooper or a Dakota Arms. I'm not as experienced at this as many on this forum but Rick I love the Sierra Blitz King's and I'm using Varget right now. I recently had my longest pdog kill at 550 yards but with the .204 I feel very comfortable at 350 to 400 yards. So much depends on your rifle and your ammo. You won't be disappointed in the .204.

I forgot to mention that until recently I had been using reticle's and guessing at holdover etc. I told you I was new to this. I bought a Sightron Mil Dot scope and really like it. So far it's a great improvement.

Weather conditions make a huge difference in my effective range. On a calm day, I have knocked off prairie dogs at approximately 700 yards but those are rare success stories for me. Inside of 400 yards I am pretty consistent, but dial up the gusty wind and my effective range can drop to almost half of that.

I use Leupold's varmint hunter reticle for my shooting. At some point I will try dialing them in, but I haven't done it yet.

As a minimum I feel you need to chrono your loads and get a "good" velocity readings and go from there.

The max range I would go is the range where the bullet started going sub-sonic. Per my load data, for a 204 (39 SBK) thats some where in the 700-800 yard range. And in conjunction with that, you must also consider what you're shooting at (minimum recommended energy for the game/animal). My 204's (all three of them) are slower than those listed here for the same charge). Don't know why unless its because I'm at sea-level (440'), dinser air, higher humidity, cooler temps, chamber configuration or what-have-you. My other calibers don't exhibit this issue to the degree of the 204's.

Having said that, this spring I popped a few rats out around 500 yards with my 204's. I don't have a range finder for an accurate measurement but I came to that conclusion based on the hold over points of my scope for a 3" kill zone and using the range feature in Google Earth. Next year I'll have a range finder so I'll know for sure.

HTH,

My experience has been that out to 400 yards is bad news for skippy almost every time with the .204. I use a Cooper Phoenix topped with a Leupold 6.5-20x with the VHR as I haven't taken the time to learn "Dial-A-Rat" from Rick yet. The .204 is a laser as far as I'm concerned. Man I love this stuff! Gary