Rustydust
Active member
Spent Friday and the better part of Saturday down in the whereabouts of Paradise Valley Nevada. My new protégé Matthew (Matlock) and I went down there in his cushy driving F-150 truck. Nice change from my 22 year old Nissan. We set up in a spot that look promising but shortly after setting up our benches we began to wonder if we picked such a great spot or not as the squirrel pickings were a bit slim. We decided to wait for the monstrous and lumbering center pivot irrigation rig to make its oh so slow pass and...man! What a good decision that turned out to be. After it went by those Beldings came out in force! I shot my .17 Rem until the barrel was too hot to hold and swapped to the .204 until it got too hot to hold and then back to the .17 again. Matthew was plugging away with his new Savage .223 and using his .22 rimfire on the closer ones. After a couple of hours we went out to survey the carnage and being the morbid soul that I am I took a plastic shopping bag with me and filled it up with desert rat remnants. Carrying it back towards the shooting benches later I had to swap hands on occasion as the plastic handles were cutting into my fingers a bit. After getting back to the bench vicinity I dumped the contents on the ground in a mound and after setting my M700 .17 Rem next to it for scale took some pictures of it. Then, we went back to shooting. We took few breaks.
Later in the day a couple of crows came down to feast on some of the fresh meat. They made a mistake doing that while we were still out there. Not one that they will make again I assure you.
We hit Winnemucca a few hours later and had a barbecue dinner that could not be beat (Matt picked up the check to make it even more unbeatable) had a good nights sleep at an ancient mom and pop motel and after waffles, eggs, bacon and coffee the next morning we headed back out again. This time Matt and I separated a bit as I found some rats that were 500+ yards away that I wanted to shoot at with my .243 AI. Belding ground squirrels are bigger than the squirrels in my area but not quite a big as most prairie dogs are. But with my Sightron SIII 8-32X I as able to see them well out past 500 yards. Hitting them was a different story. I only had 55 grain Nosler Varmageddons loaded in this trip and they took a bit of holdover at the "outchonder" ranges but after a few shots I was able to connect on one guy at 580 yards. I was pleased as that was my longest kill with that gun since I put it together. Sure was nice having a muzzle brake on it so that I could see my hits and (ahem!) misses. I later got another one at around 515 with my .204 using those excellent 39 grain Blitzkings.
Matthew came over to try some long ones but was having a bit of trouble spotting them in his 15X scope at that distance. I (wisely!) brought along my 20-60X Sightron spotting scope and tried in vain to tell him where some were but he just had too much trouble seeing them. He did finally did manage to see one right at 500 yards and after a couple of shots to get the range (factory Federal 50 grain HP ammo) he missed one by that much.Tossed dirt all over the rodent and he decided not to make himself available for another attempt and took off. Saved his life no doubt.
Anyway after a while the wind started to pick up and we had a good 4 hour drive back home so we decided to pack the truck up (a bit forlornly to be sure) and head back. Was a fine two days. Young Matthew was a fine companion and enjoyed having him along. He seemed to enjoy himself quite a bit.
I am feeling my age today and my feet still hurt from wearing new boots for two days and a fair amount of tromping around. But in a day or two I think that I will be thinking about those wonderful and colorful tosses and my long shots and starting to wonder when I can go back and do it all over again.
Anyone want to come along? Anyone out there?
Later in the day a couple of crows came down to feast on some of the fresh meat. They made a mistake doing that while we were still out there. Not one that they will make again I assure you.
We hit Winnemucca a few hours later and had a barbecue dinner that could not be beat (Matt picked up the check to make it even more unbeatable) had a good nights sleep at an ancient mom and pop motel and after waffles, eggs, bacon and coffee the next morning we headed back out again. This time Matt and I separated a bit as I found some rats that were 500+ yards away that I wanted to shoot at with my .243 AI. Belding ground squirrels are bigger than the squirrels in my area but not quite a big as most prairie dogs are. But with my Sightron SIII 8-32X I as able to see them well out past 500 yards. Hitting them was a different story. I only had 55 grain Nosler Varmageddons loaded in this trip and they took a bit of holdover at the "outchonder" ranges but after a few shots I was able to connect on one guy at 580 yards. I was pleased as that was my longest kill with that gun since I put it together. Sure was nice having a muzzle brake on it so that I could see my hits and (ahem!) misses. I later got another one at around 515 with my .204 using those excellent 39 grain Blitzkings.
Matthew came over to try some long ones but was having a bit of trouble spotting them in his 15X scope at that distance. I (wisely!) brought along my 20-60X Sightron spotting scope and tried in vain to tell him where some were but he just had too much trouble seeing them. He did finally did manage to see one right at 500 yards and after a couple of shots to get the range (factory Federal 50 grain HP ammo) he missed one by that much.Tossed dirt all over the rodent and he decided not to make himself available for another attempt and took off. Saved his life no doubt.
Anyway after a while the wind started to pick up and we had a good 4 hour drive back home so we decided to pack the truck up (a bit forlornly to be sure) and head back. Was a fine two days. Young Matthew was a fine companion and enjoyed having him along. He seemed to enjoy himself quite a bit.
I am feeling my age today and my feet still hurt from wearing new boots for two days and a fair amount of tromping around. But in a day or two I think that I will be thinking about those wonderful and colorful tosses and my long shots and starting to wonder when I can go back and do it all over again.
Anyone want to come along? Anyone out there?