SmallCaliberCentral

I went down to my buddy's ranch today to help him with his tractor. I took my .204 along in case we saw a coyote. Didn't see any yotes but we did see that he has a serious ground squirrel infestation. So, I put my new rifle to work. Most of the shots were at about 220 yards. The splatter factor with the 39 BKs was impressive. This is the first time I had actually ever shot a ground squirrel. While I managed to hit a good number of them, I want to get better at it, now that I know where to go to hunt them.

I was shooting in a relatively flat alfalfa field. It was about 4 pm. I noticed at about 5 pm, they all stopped coming out. So, when is the best time of day to hunt them? My rifle is sighted in for 200 yards. I was shooting prone from some grain drills. Since I'm shooting slightly down on them, do I need to adjust for my downward angle? For most of them, I basically just put the crosshairs on em and watched em fly. I'm new to the .204, so I haven't really had a chance to see the ballistics in real action before. How far out does a target have to be before I start to compensate for the distance? I ask because most of my misses were over the top of the squirrels. I wonder if I'm compensating for bullet drop too much? I know the best thing would be to go to the range and shoot it at different distances, but with new found squirrels, why would I want to shoot at paper?

Any other tips, like useful equipment and such would be really helpful.

First off early morning is great it slows around noonish and picks back up again around 3 and yes about 6-7 the go beddy bye time. Do you reload? if not start. I zero my 204 for 200 yards and it is around 3/4 " high @ a 100yrds. Then 300 it is only a few inchs low. Just depend on your velocity but 0 300 only differs about 4-5". Invest or build a rotating shooting bench it will make a world of difference, like the br pivot is the best one u can buy.
Heres mine its Home made

Yup, I reload. I was shooting 39gr BKs at em yesterday, sort of seemed like an overkill though . I have some 32gr V-Maximuses that I'm gonna load up for em tonight. I love the bench that I see you and a couple of others on here using. I was looking for that model online only so I can copy the design, sort of. I can weld, so I can fabricate my own. Would you happen to have any plans for yours?

Anyone wanting to buy a new BR Pivot is in for a wait. Battenfeld guy says they are having problems with getting parts of acceptable quality. Per Battenfeld on 4/21/2011, I’m on the list but it would be another 30 to 60 days (now soon to late June) before they would be ready to ship.

RoadKill wrote:Anyone wanting to buy a new BR Pivot is in for a wait. Battenfeld guy says they are having problems with getting parts of acceptable quality. Per Battenfeld on 4/21/2011, I’m on the list but it would be another 30 to 60 days (now soon to late June) before they would be ready to ship.

Me too!!!

Dave