I didn’t leave town until 7:50 a.m. and when I was still about 25 miles from my destination the doggone fog had settled in where I was driving. I noticed a herd of about 7 antelope off to the west side of the road. Antelope were all but wiped out in ND many years ago when we had terrible snow storms that caused snow cover to be so deep the antelope couldn’t find food. Many of them had big gobs of dirt/mud in their digestive tract from eating dirt and weeds where the snow wasn’t very deep on summer fallow. They are starting to make a comeback. I finally got down to the dog town at 9:13 a.m. I parked my pickup and set up my target 100 yards from the tailgate of the pickup and got out the two rifles I needed to check point of impact on for my loads. I got the .204 Ruger out first and installed the suppressor. The barrel had just been cleaned and given the Lock-Ease treatment. The first 3 shots were low and left, but I figured that before I go cranking up and right on the knobs I’d shoot 3 more shots. Those three shots were high and right??? Now I was getting agitated because it usually only takes one or two shots to get the barrel fouled and shooting on target. I adjusted the elevation down and windage left. I took 3 more shots and they were low!!! What the heck is going on??? I cranked the elevation knob up and now the 10th shot is too high. I shot 6 more shots and it was still shooting high in spite of having cranked the elevation knob down enough clicks so it should have been right on the money. So, sixteen shots and I still didn’t have the point of impact hitting where I wanted it. This is the rifle I used on my September 26 hunt and it was shooting right on the money?!?!?!? I took the suppressor off and cased up the rifle and stowed it in the pickup. Here’s my setup for field testing rifle point of impact.
I got out the .17 Remington with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel, screwed on the suppressor, and loaded the magazine with some shells. My load for this rifle is one I worked up to use on coyote hunts this season. I’m using C.E. Nagel’s 30 gr. FBHP T-000 bullets and coated them with hBN. This rifle has a tight neck chamber and the ID of the chamber neck measures .1945". I am using Remington factory brass and the casing neck walls have been turned down to a thickness of approximately .00985" so the OD of my loaded rounds is real close to .192" which means I have a nice close fit around the neck of the loaded rounds. I’m using Tula Non-Corrosive Small Rifle Magnum primers and 24.1 gr. of N-540 and getting a muzzle velocity of 3,855 fps. Once again, this barrel had been thoroughly cleaned and then had two patches with Lock-Ease on them run through the bore.
I squeezed off the first shot and couldn’t see the bullet hole on the target which was 100 yards away. I walked up to the target to see where the bullet hit. It hit on the line and 1/8-inch right. The next two were slightly left and a tad bit higher. I did 4 clicks up, shot two more shots, which as you can see were 1 1/4-inch and 1 1/8-inch high and I like it at 1 inch high.
Since the scope on this rifle has 1/4-inch clicks, I decided to leave the elevation setting alone and try to remember the POI is a tiny bit higher than 1-inch at 100 yards. I got my stuff put away and drove my pickup out onto the two-track so anyone thinking about coming into the dog town would know someone was already taking care of prairie dog control issues.
It was about 10:50 a.m. and only 38º above when I got my pickup out where folks could see it and all my “stuff” ready for the hunt. I could see a couple prairie dogs off to the north of my pickup and got out my Leica 1200 Rangefinder and got some yardages on the two prairie dogs I could still see out. The closest one was 218 yards away and the way this rifle was shooting I figured it was up to the task. I had only been shooting paper with this .17 Remington until today, so I needed to get it blooded. I got the crosshairs on him and squeezed off the shot. WHAP!!! I could see the prairie dog stop in its tracks. I decided to go ahead and get photos of my first kill with the .17 Remington with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel.
The prairie dogs were very wary and since the temperatures were cold, I guess they were in their dens under their electric blankets keeping warm. I shot one PD at 210 yards, another at 144 yards and another one at 185 yards. I got up and started walking east again. I spotted three more PDs at 127 yards, 136 yards, and 107 yards. They all sat patiently and waited while I picked off each one. The suppressor must be working. In the collage below, the top left photo is of the 107 yard PD, the next photo is the 127 yard PD, and the top right photo shows the 136 yard PD entrance wound. The first photo in the second row shows the exit wound on the 136 yard PD—MASS DESTRUCTION!!! and the bottom right photo show the digging tools of that same PD. The fur color on this PD was very nice!!!
So far, I has taken 7 shots and killed 7 prairie dogs. I kept walking to the east and by 12:10 p.m. I had taken 7 more shots at the following yardages: 140, 144, 165, 209, 233, 239, and 230 and luckily I had hit on all 14 of the shots I had taken so far. I stopped for a break to reload my magazine and my shell holder. I spotted some PDs way out yonder and hit the first one at 230 yards, but missed on one at 255 yards and missed another one at 236 yards. I must have been shooting high on those two??? The wind was not a factor and the rifle was doing its part so it had to be the shooter. I began heading to the northeast and would stop and shoot a PD or two and then continue walking. By 12:40 p.m. I had shot 6 more PDs and had hit on 20 of the 22 shots taken so far. I loaded the magazine and shell holder and planned to walk to the NE where there is a big wide open space full of PD mounds—shoot a bunch of PDs and then walk back to the pickup for lunch.
At 12:46 p.m. I found a real nice vantage point and settled in at that spot.
I took 8 shots from that spot, all of them from 200 to 225 yards and hit on 7 of the 8 shots. I stopped and filled my magazine and shell holder and took photos of my spot. Then I took three more 200+ yard shots and hit on all three of them. Shot count was 33 with 30 of those ending the lives of prairie dogs. The sun was out and I started back to the pickup. I shot 2 more PDs on my trip back to the pickup. The temperature was up to 47 above and the wind was still quite calm for North Dakota. It was a joy to be out pottin’ prairie poodles.
On my way back to the pickup I spotted something I have never seen before at this time of year. Remember, it was Friday, October 17, 2014, and I found a Prairie Crocus blooming!!! It must have been a totally confused because they usually bloom the third week of April and on into May and the blooming goes on for about two or three weeks. This furry little perennial is actually not a crocus, which is in the Lily family; it’s really an anemone, in the Buttercup family, but most of us up here either call it a crocus or a May flower.
I was real close to a little butte where I had often had excellent shooting down into the little valley below so I crept up the side of that butte and dropped my backpack by a small bush. I crept over to the edge and was disgusted to see that 2/3 of this little colony was no longer occupied, but grown over with grass and weeds. However there were four prairie dogs out that received one of Chan Nagel’s 30 gr. T 000 bullets as a booby prize for staying up out of their dens. I picked up my backpack and started the walk back to the pickup. I spotted a prairie dog way off to the west on another hillside and my rangefinder told me it was 350 yards away. I figured if I could get another 100 to 125 yards closer I’d take a shot at it. I found a nice mound to shoot off of that was 232 yards from the prairie dog. I took careful aim and after I squeezed off the shot I heard the sound of that familiar WHAP as the bullet struck home and dispatched the PD. That was my last shot of the day with the .17 Remington with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel. I had taken 40 shots at prairie dogs and hit on 37 of them.
I decided I was going to take that ornery .204 Ruger with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel out to shoot prairie dogs after I ate lunch. So before I ate lunch I took that rifle out again, installed the suppressor on it, and found a dead tree to shoot at to check the point of impact again. I shot two shots and the bullets hit 2 inches high at 100 yards, but dead on for windage. I adjusted the elevation knob down 4 clicks, (this a 6.5 - 24x50mm Nikon Monarch scope that supposedly has 1/8" clicks). That should have brought the next shot down to 1 1/2" high. I didn’t want to turn it down the full 8 clicks just in case it didn’t like to be adjusted by huge amounts!!! I fired another shot and the point of impact was still 2" high!! What the heck is going on???? Maybe the spring or whatever inside the scope wasn't allowing the innards of the scope to take the adjustment. I tapped on the sides and top of the scope to try to jar it so it would take the previous adjustment. I turned the elevation knob down 4 more clicks and the next shot was 1 1/2" high. I turned the elevation knob down 3 more clicks and decided that would have to be good enough. I didn’t take another shot; I was tired of wasting ammo on target boxes and dead trees. I put the rifle in the cab of the pickup and drove about a half mile east on the two-track and stopped to have lunch at about 3:50. After lunch I took a 20 minute nap and at 4:35 I was walking east along some trees that grow in the area where water comes running down out of the hills. By 5:10 p.m. I had taken 11 shots and hit on 10 of them. Then I noticed I didn’t have my little camo bean bag I use under the butt of the rifle so I spent some time retracing my steps and found it about 200 yards back—a mind is a terrible thing to lose, but for some of us that’s the price of old age.
I found another high spot on the west side of a fairly big PD colony. It was back off the PD town a ways so most of the shots were in the 200 to 250 yard range. However, there were a few prairie dogs in the 140 to 175 yard range, but very few. I shot 9 shots from this little rise and missed 2 shots. I crept to the SE to another little rise and shot 12 shots from there and hit on 9 of those shots. All of those shots were 200 to 250 yards. My last shot of the day was a 250 yard shot that topped off an excellent day for me.
I had made 26 hits with 32 shots with the .204 Ruger with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel. I think on the shots that I missed I was shooting over the top of the critters. So, with the 37 hits on 40 shots with the .17 Remington the total for the day was 63 dead prairie dogs for 72 shots. I walked over to the body of the PD I shot at 250 yards and snapped a photo or two. Here's a photo of the .204 Ruger and the 250-yard PD.
There was a HUGE cottonwood tree to the northeast of where I had been shooting at the end of the day. Here’s a photo of the monarch of a tree. There are seven separate trunks coming out of the ground for this big boy. You should be able to see a white dot way out in the distance with a red arrow pointing to it over on the right side of the tree. There was a herd of about 12 antelope about 700 yards to the east of where I was shooting prairie dogs and they did not stampede and run away, but this one sure was zoned in on me and my activities.
There’s a black arrow pointing to that antelope in the following photo:
I used the powerful zoom on my camera and zoomed up to about 120x and in the left photo on the next page you can see the antelope more clearly and there’s even a bonus fat prairie dog in the foreground. The right photo shows the standing antelope and two more lying in the grass.
I got back to the pickup at around 6:53 p.m., loaded up my “stuff” and I was headed out of the dog town by 7:00 p.m. Traffic was very heavy on Highway 85 and real slow. They are working on getting this road open to 4 lanes of traffic. However, there’s still a lot of work going on and many stretches have 25 mph or 45 mph speed limits and there are traffic cones sitting on the road separating the lanes of traffic where it is only two-way traffic. It is a MAJOR pain but it will be a nice road when they get done.
I was in the garage at home by 8:18 p.m. The next photo shows me wearing my pink elbow pads to show support for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month!!! The prairie dogs didn’t seem to mind at all.
I hope you all enjoyed the little hunt. I know I sure had a fun day.
Bet they would enjoy your stories and photo's. And the members would also, I know I sure would read and enjoy them there also.