We had a few more windy days up here in North DaColder, but the weathermen were predicting fairly decent prairie dog shooting weather for Thursday, so off I went to do my duty and help eliminate some of those ferocious prairie dogs. Winds were supposed to be fairly calm in the morning, but supposed to kick up to 12 to 15 mph in the afternoon. Once again, I had three rifles with me. They were the same three I had with on my hunt back on October 17. One was my Savage Target action in .204 Ruger. The other two rifles were ones I had the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment done on the barrels. One was in .204 Ruger and the other was a .17 Remington. I planned on checking the point of aim again on the .17 Remington and since I had cleaned the barrel and given it the Lock-Ease on the .204 Ruger with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel I wanted to get the scope adjusted a little better than it was adjusted on my last hunt.
I didn’t leave town until 8:00 a.m. The temperature was 33 degrees when I left the house. Traffic was EXTREMELY slow. It took me 10 minutes to go 4 miles after I left the house. Once again there was lots of road construction going on and there was an electric sign notifying drivers that the Lewis & Clark Bridge across the Missouri River was going to be close on Friday, October 24, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.!!!! If you look at a map of the roads and try to find bridges to get across the Missouri River you won’t find very many bridges. The folks who use that bridge are going to have to drive maybe hundreds of extra miles to get to their destinations.
Anyway, I finally got down to the dog town at 9:35 a.m. The Savage Target action in .204 Ruger was going to be my weapon of choice today. This is a right-bolt, left port single-shot rifle and is usually the most accurate rifle I have. It proved to be just that today as well. I use Nosler brass that I neck turned for the .230" neck in the chamber and the bullets I use are hBN coated 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKings and I have them seated so they are approximately .005" off the lands. The load I use is 27.2 gr. of IMR 8208 and I use Remington 7½ primers. The muzzle velocity of these loads was 3,894 fps back in 2011, and then it was up to 3,932 fps in September of 2012. I ran these loads over my chronograph on September 15, 2014, when the temperature was 45º. The muzzle velocity was at 3,955 fps!!!! I don’t know why the velocity is increasing when I’m using the same load of powder from the same lot, the same primers, and the same seating depth—just nothing at all different except a few more bullets down the tube. However, that was my experience with my old Savage 12VLP—as I shot more shots down the barrel the velocity, with the same powder charges, primers, bullets, etc. kept increasing. I may need to cut down on the powder charge because while this load is super-accurate, I’m thinking 3,955 fps is a bit too HOT!!!
There was nowhere to hide my pickup so I was out in plain sight of most of the prairie dogs in the town. There were bunches of them scrambling around. It looked to be a good day for me and a BAD day for the prairie dogs!!!
I was parked in the northwest end of the dog town and the wind was blowing out of the southwest so I planned to stay on the west side of the dog town and try, when possible, to shoot with the wind. My plan was to walk south and shoot from prairie dog mounds as I went along.
It was about 10:00 a.m. when I walked into the dog town and found a nice mound to shoot from. By 10:07 I had shot 5 shots and nailed 5 PDs on shots from 119 to 160 yards. However, I was forced to look into the sun and even though I have a 4" sunshade on my scope it was still tough to see. I shot one more PD and then walked southeast to try to get set up so I wasn’t shooting directly into the sun. I found a good mound to shoot from and managed to shoot 12 prairie dogs from that position so I had shot 18 shots and killed 18 vermin. I filled my ammo holder and walked further south. By 10:40 a.m. I had shot 10 more shots and hit on 10 out of 10 for a body count of 28 prairie dogs with 28 shots. I decided to get a few photos of some of the victims with the Savage Target action rifle.
The wind was blowing out of the southwest at 3 to 6 mph with gusts to 8 mph so the wind wasn’t much of a factor yet. I filled the shell holder again and headed further south. By 11:25 I had shot 10 more shells and connected on all 10 shots for a body count of 38 PDs for 38 shots. Most of the shots were from about 135 yards out to 181 yards. The shell holder got filled again and I had a snack of trail mix and couple swigs of ice cold water and before I started walking south again I shot one more PD from that position. At 11:47 I set up on a mound and by 11:54 I had shot 9 more shots and nailed 9 more prairie dogs for a body count of 48 dead PDs for 48 shots. During this 9 shot stint, on about the 6th shot, I lay on my left side with all my weight in the wrong position and I could feel one of my lower left side ribs crack—PAIN!!!! ensued in a big way!!!! However, I wasn’t going to let a little pain get in the way of my important mission of controlling the prairie dog population on this day. I just had to be real careful how and when I shifted my weight as I lay prone and try to keep weight off those lower ribs which is not real easy. I shot 2 more PDs from that mound so I had shot 50 PDs with 50 shots.
By 12:07 p.m. I found another nice mound to shoot from. Now the wind was blowing from 4 to 8 mph out of the SW with gusts up to about 12 mph. I shot 8 more shots from this mound and hit on 6 of them and missed on 2 shots. The 2 shots I missed were taken in a SE direction with the wind blowing at about a 90 degree angle to the line of my shots. The distance of the shots was about 180 yards and I shouldn’t have missed, but I did. The ribs hurt like crazy, maybe that’s a good excuse for missing those two shots?!?!?!
Here’s a photo of a prairie dog I shot at 185 yards. The bullet hit him center mass and twisted his rear end around so his rear legs were 180º from where they should have been.
I filled the shell holder again and started walking south at about 12:20 p.m. I was at the south end of this section of land and there used to be a colony of PDs just south of the fence line from this PD town I had been shooting in. By this time I had shot 58 rounds of the 71 rounds I had taken with me so I only had 13 rounds left. It was clouding up and getting cooler and the wind was blowing a pretty steady 10 to 12 mph with faster gusts. I did see a couple prairie dogs on the south side of the fence and managed to nail one of them but his companion made it into the den before I got another round ready to shoot. Such are the problems when you have a single-shot rifle that you load from the left side. The one thing I like about the right bolt/left port is that is slows me down so I don’t get the barrel too terribly hot. Body count was up to 57 dead PDs with 59 shots.
I began walking back to the northeast at 12:55 p.m., hoping to find some volunteers to help me expend my last 12 rounds. I did find a nice flower blooming and stopped to take some photos.
The sun was behind the clouds and the wind was whipping pretty fast. There weren’t many prairie dogs out now. About 5 minutes later the sun came out and prairie dogs started coming out of their dens. I stopped and got in the prone position and took 4 shots and nailed 4 prairie dogs. I loaded the last of my shells into the shell holder and walked north along the north/south fence line. I shot one prairie dog before crossing the fence and heading east where there is a fairly large colony of prairie dog mounds. I set up on one mound and shot 3 shots and hit on all 3. I moved east to another mound and shot my last 4 shots and nailed 4 more prairie dogs. It was 1:24 p.m. and I was out of ammo. I had to hope and pray that the prairie dogs didn’t decide to attack me because all I had to defend myself was my little pocket knife. I had shot all 71 shells and nailed 69 prairie dogs and missed on only two shots. Here’s a photo looking to the east northeast where you can see some beautiful badlands-type country in the distance.
It had been a very good day so far and I was getting hungry so I headed back to the pickup. After lunch I wanted to set up my target box and check the point of impact on my tight neck .17 Remington and also see if I could get that doggone scope on the .204 Ruger with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel adjusted to my satisfaction. Like I mentioned earlier, I had cleaned the barrel and treated it with Lock-Ease so I was anxious to get it shooting where I would like it to shoot.
I got back to the pickup around 2:10 and spent some time storing my gear and I drove the pickup forward on the two-track trail to a spot where the prairie dogs had the grass trimmed down nice and short so I could lay prone on a prairie dog mound and see the target box when shot the .17 Remington and .204 Ruger with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrels. I started eating lunch at about 2:30 and decided I could use a 40 minute nap. I woke up around 3:15 and found a spot to set up my target box and moved my two rifles, ammo, rabbit ear rear sand bag rest, and range finder over to a nice prairie dog mound. I managed to get both rifles shooting where I wanted them to shoot. I had 7 old loads with 27.6 gr. BTHP Hammett bullets for the .17 Remington and I wanted to see where they would hit on the target once I got the rifle adjusted for the 30 gr. FBHP T-000 Nagel bullets. The Hammett bullets hit 1/8" higher and 1/10" right of where the 30 gr. Nagels hit, so I’ll use up the Hammett bullets on my next prairie dog hunt. I decided I had better take the “Hero Photo” so I could share it with you. The wind was almost blowing my boonie hat off my head so I had to hold it on with one hand.
I left the PD town at 5:07 and intended to stop along the way home and see if I could entice a coyote or two to come into my plaintive howling and dying rabbit calls. I found a spot to park my pickup and walked about 3/4 of a mile to the west of that spot. I set up where I could see a 180º panorama all the way from the south of where I was lying on up to the north of my spot. I started out with some female coyote invitation howls and waited about 2 minutes. No answering howls. I did a couple more female howls and then did some wounded coyote pup sounds. I waited about 3 minutes and got no response. I worked the coyote howls and pup squeals for another 15 minutes without any response. It took out my closed reed rabbit call and worked that for a few series with no response. After 30 minutes on stand I called it quits and walked back to the pickup.
I stored my rifle, started the pickup and shifted into drive and pulled out onto the highway. A warning light on the dash told me that my right rear tire had low air pressure and that the tire had about 25 pounds of air in it. I didn’t want the tire to go completely flat and ruin the tire so I pulled over, stopped the pickup and got out my little portable air compressor. It’s one of those you plug into the cigarette lighter and air up your tires. I got it plugged in and got it hooked to the valve stem of the tire. It ran like crazy but didn’t put even so much as one ounce of air into my tire. I decided that if I didn’t drive real fast I could keep the tire from getting too hot and make it to a truck stop that was about 30 miles away and along the road I was using to get home. I got to the truck stop and they said their air hose was broken, but that if I drove across the road there was a truck oil change business over there that had air available. So that’s what I did and got the tire aired up to 44 pounds. I made it home safely and the next day I discovered there was a hex-head screw embedded in the face of the tire. That is now fixed.
I hope you enjoyed the hunt.
I didn’t leave town until 8:00 a.m. The temperature was 33 degrees when I left the house. Traffic was EXTREMELY slow. It took me 10 minutes to go 4 miles after I left the house. Once again there was lots of road construction going on and there was an electric sign notifying drivers that the Lewis & Clark Bridge across the Missouri River was going to be close on Friday, October 24, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.!!!! If you look at a map of the roads and try to find bridges to get across the Missouri River you won’t find very many bridges. The folks who use that bridge are going to have to drive maybe hundreds of extra miles to get to their destinations.
Anyway, I finally got down to the dog town at 9:35 a.m. The Savage Target action in .204 Ruger was going to be my weapon of choice today. This is a right-bolt, left port single-shot rifle and is usually the most accurate rifle I have. It proved to be just that today as well. I use Nosler brass that I neck turned for the .230" neck in the chamber and the bullets I use are hBN coated 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKings and I have them seated so they are approximately .005" off the lands. The load I use is 27.2 gr. of IMR 8208 and I use Remington 7½ primers. The muzzle velocity of these loads was 3,894 fps back in 2011, and then it was up to 3,932 fps in September of 2012. I ran these loads over my chronograph on September 15, 2014, when the temperature was 45º. The muzzle velocity was at 3,955 fps!!!! I don’t know why the velocity is increasing when I’m using the same load of powder from the same lot, the same primers, and the same seating depth—just nothing at all different except a few more bullets down the tube. However, that was my experience with my old Savage 12VLP—as I shot more shots down the barrel the velocity, with the same powder charges, primers, bullets, etc. kept increasing. I may need to cut down on the powder charge because while this load is super-accurate, I’m thinking 3,955 fps is a bit too HOT!!!
There was nowhere to hide my pickup so I was out in plain sight of most of the prairie dogs in the town. There were bunches of them scrambling around. It looked to be a good day for me and a BAD day for the prairie dogs!!!
I was parked in the northwest end of the dog town and the wind was blowing out of the southwest so I planned to stay on the west side of the dog town and try, when possible, to shoot with the wind. My plan was to walk south and shoot from prairie dog mounds as I went along.
It was about 10:00 a.m. when I walked into the dog town and found a nice mound to shoot from. By 10:07 I had shot 5 shots and nailed 5 PDs on shots from 119 to 160 yards. However, I was forced to look into the sun and even though I have a 4" sunshade on my scope it was still tough to see. I shot one more PD and then walked southeast to try to get set up so I wasn’t shooting directly into the sun. I found a good mound to shoot from and managed to shoot 12 prairie dogs from that position so I had shot 18 shots and killed 18 vermin. I filled my ammo holder and walked further south. By 10:40 a.m. I had shot 10 more shots and hit on 10 out of 10 for a body count of 28 prairie dogs with 28 shots. I decided to get a few photos of some of the victims with the Savage Target action rifle.
The wind was blowing out of the southwest at 3 to 6 mph with gusts to 8 mph so the wind wasn’t much of a factor yet. I filled the shell holder again and headed further south. By 11:25 I had shot 10 more shells and connected on all 10 shots for a body count of 38 PDs for 38 shots. Most of the shots were from about 135 yards out to 181 yards. The shell holder got filled again and I had a snack of trail mix and couple swigs of ice cold water and before I started walking south again I shot one more PD from that position. At 11:47 I set up on a mound and by 11:54 I had shot 9 more shots and nailed 9 more prairie dogs for a body count of 48 dead PDs for 48 shots. During this 9 shot stint, on about the 6th shot, I lay on my left side with all my weight in the wrong position and I could feel one of my lower left side ribs crack—PAIN!!!! ensued in a big way!!!! However, I wasn’t going to let a little pain get in the way of my important mission of controlling the prairie dog population on this day. I just had to be real careful how and when I shifted my weight as I lay prone and try to keep weight off those lower ribs which is not real easy. I shot 2 more PDs from that mound so I had shot 50 PDs with 50 shots.
By 12:07 p.m. I found another nice mound to shoot from. Now the wind was blowing from 4 to 8 mph out of the SW with gusts up to about 12 mph. I shot 8 more shots from this mound and hit on 6 of them and missed on 2 shots. The 2 shots I missed were taken in a SE direction with the wind blowing at about a 90 degree angle to the line of my shots. The distance of the shots was about 180 yards and I shouldn’t have missed, but I did. The ribs hurt like crazy, maybe that’s a good excuse for missing those two shots?!?!?!
Here’s a photo of a prairie dog I shot at 185 yards. The bullet hit him center mass and twisted his rear end around so his rear legs were 180º from where they should have been.
I filled the shell holder again and started walking south at about 12:20 p.m. I was at the south end of this section of land and there used to be a colony of PDs just south of the fence line from this PD town I had been shooting in. By this time I had shot 58 rounds of the 71 rounds I had taken with me so I only had 13 rounds left. It was clouding up and getting cooler and the wind was blowing a pretty steady 10 to 12 mph with faster gusts. I did see a couple prairie dogs on the south side of the fence and managed to nail one of them but his companion made it into the den before I got another round ready to shoot. Such are the problems when you have a single-shot rifle that you load from the left side. The one thing I like about the right bolt/left port is that is slows me down so I don’t get the barrel too terribly hot. Body count was up to 57 dead PDs with 59 shots.
I began walking back to the northeast at 12:55 p.m., hoping to find some volunteers to help me expend my last 12 rounds. I did find a nice flower blooming and stopped to take some photos.
The sun was behind the clouds and the wind was whipping pretty fast. There weren’t many prairie dogs out now. About 5 minutes later the sun came out and prairie dogs started coming out of their dens. I stopped and got in the prone position and took 4 shots and nailed 4 prairie dogs. I loaded the last of my shells into the shell holder and walked north along the north/south fence line. I shot one prairie dog before crossing the fence and heading east where there is a fairly large colony of prairie dog mounds. I set up on one mound and shot 3 shots and hit on all 3. I moved east to another mound and shot my last 4 shots and nailed 4 more prairie dogs. It was 1:24 p.m. and I was out of ammo. I had to hope and pray that the prairie dogs didn’t decide to attack me because all I had to defend myself was my little pocket knife. I had shot all 71 shells and nailed 69 prairie dogs and missed on only two shots. Here’s a photo looking to the east northeast where you can see some beautiful badlands-type country in the distance.
It had been a very good day so far and I was getting hungry so I headed back to the pickup. After lunch I wanted to set up my target box and check the point of impact on my tight neck .17 Remington and also see if I could get that doggone scope on the .204 Ruger with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel adjusted to my satisfaction. Like I mentioned earlier, I had cleaned the barrel and treated it with Lock-Ease so I was anxious to get it shooting where I would like it to shoot.
I got back to the pickup around 2:10 and spent some time storing my gear and I drove the pickup forward on the two-track trail to a spot where the prairie dogs had the grass trimmed down nice and short so I could lay prone on a prairie dog mound and see the target box when shot the .17 Remington and .204 Ruger with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrels. I started eating lunch at about 2:30 and decided I could use a 40 minute nap. I woke up around 3:15 and found a spot to set up my target box and moved my two rifles, ammo, rabbit ear rear sand bag rest, and range finder over to a nice prairie dog mound. I managed to get both rifles shooting where I wanted them to shoot. I had 7 old loads with 27.6 gr. BTHP Hammett bullets for the .17 Remington and I wanted to see where they would hit on the target once I got the rifle adjusted for the 30 gr. FBHP T-000 Nagel bullets. The Hammett bullets hit 1/8" higher and 1/10" right of where the 30 gr. Nagels hit, so I’ll use up the Hammett bullets on my next prairie dog hunt. I decided I had better take the “Hero Photo” so I could share it with you. The wind was almost blowing my boonie hat off my head so I had to hold it on with one hand.
I left the PD town at 5:07 and intended to stop along the way home and see if I could entice a coyote or two to come into my plaintive howling and dying rabbit calls. I found a spot to park my pickup and walked about 3/4 of a mile to the west of that spot. I set up where I could see a 180º panorama all the way from the south of where I was lying on up to the north of my spot. I started out with some female coyote invitation howls and waited about 2 minutes. No answering howls. I did a couple more female howls and then did some wounded coyote pup sounds. I waited about 3 minutes and got no response. I worked the coyote howls and pup squeals for another 15 minutes without any response. It took out my closed reed rabbit call and worked that for a few series with no response. After 30 minutes on stand I called it quits and walked back to the pickup.
I stored my rifle, started the pickup and shifted into drive and pulled out onto the highway. A warning light on the dash told me that my right rear tire had low air pressure and that the tire had about 25 pounds of air in it. I didn’t want the tire to go completely flat and ruin the tire so I pulled over, stopped the pickup and got out my little portable air compressor. It’s one of those you plug into the cigarette lighter and air up your tires. I got it plugged in and got it hooked to the valve stem of the tire. It ran like crazy but didn’t put even so much as one ounce of air into my tire. I decided that if I didn’t drive real fast I could keep the tire from getting too hot and make it to a truck stop that was about 30 miles away and along the road I was using to get home. I got to the truck stop and they said their air hose was broken, but that if I drove across the road there was a truck oil change business over there that had air available. So that’s what I did and got the tire aired up to 44 pounds. I made it home safely and the next day I discovered there was a hex-head screw embedded in the face of the tire. That is now fixed.
I hope you enjoyed the hunt.
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