First time to go doggin this year

xphunter

Active member
First doggin trip of the year. I primarily spotted for Glenn and Dennis. Denny was using his new 6.5 Creed XP. Concerned about making kills at any distance, a little alone further distance, were soon allayed. Glenn was using a 243 Win rifle. It had been approximately 20 years since he had gone prairie dog shooting. Both Glenn and Denny ended up shooting my 22 creed XP at ranges from 200-350 yards or so. Denny with a couple of dogs, just shy of 500 yards. Pretty good for a newbie!
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Denny hit a dog in the back leg somewhere around 958 to 980 yards with his 6.5 Creed, but the little critter wandered off and went into a hole. And another dog at about the same distance one of the shots was so close to the top of his back, you have to wonder if the bullet didn’t make a reverse mohawk. It was fun to see him have such good success. His first shot with my 22 Creed, he got a double at 333 yards. I shot my 22 Creed too at the very end of the day (love this XP) a little bit and cleaned up on quite a few dogs. A good first outing. Denny wanted me to shoot his 6.5 Creed, and after a few shots I killed a dog in the 580 yard range. Nice shooting XP! After Denny left it was just Glenn and I, and one of his shots was at 17 yards. I said, “Well that will be the shortest shot of the day,” only to be proved wrong about 20 minutes or so later. I also had what I believe is my shortest pd kill ever...14 yards! 22 Creed vaporized it.

Below are Denny’s thoughts about the day. This was his true first time to do any kind of field shooting with a XP-100.
“It continues to amaze me how much of a head game distance shooting or even just hand gun shooting (new to me) is.
Right out of the gate I nailed my first dog, exploded the second one, then remembered scoping myself. After this occurred, I went what seemed like an endless eternity of flinching and bad shooting. After a while longer I started to relax and enjoy it more and found my rhythm. I then hit my 2 distance dogs not quite 2/2 though.
When we went to the second stand, I felt like I was on fire getting several dogs (200-250yards) in a short period of time. At this time, I started looking at a few dogs in the 940-980 range. Which I always thought was impossible for me as a shooter. After a little bit of wind and elevation adjustment I got dialed in and was told the dog I shot at was limping away, a hit but not a kill. This was so exciting. A few shots later Glen and Ernie started to do a hoop and holler saying I just gave a dog a 147gr haircut, and this was the last shot out of my creed.
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But before leaving for a wedding rehearsal I needed to attend I asked Ernie to shoot his 22creed. First shot I pulled my first ever double (333 yards) then in peer excitement I called out another dog and Glenn was ready on the spot. And man did that “rock dog” explode to pieces (Around 340 yards).
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It was very exciting to see what you're capable of doing when you get out of your own head, and trust what a mentor is teaching. As excited as I was about my own shooting, I still have to give props to Glenn for shot of the day. With his 243 he flipped a dog approximately 5 feet in the air and landed about 8 feet from where he stood.

All in all, a fantastic day spent with great people.”
 
Very nice, weather looks great too.

I just had to adjust for June, adding some 22-250 loads. I have room to bring my custom rifle I had made about 8 years back. Midway had(has?) some primed brass on clearance, speeds things up. I’m loading the common 50 grain V-Max with CFE223 & Varget powder.

The most unique part of this rifle is the very heavily ‘eyed’ Birdseye maple stock, cut by a relative many years back in the U.P. of MI. The Shilen trigger and Signature select to 24 pwr scope make it a winner, 24” Shilen barrel. I call it my fair weather dogging rifle.
 
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