As I got within 15 miles of my destination the fog set in! OH GREAT!!! If there had been lots of rain where I was going I might get stuck in the good old sticky clay of the area and I wasn’t going to take a chance on that. I got off on the side road to head down to the PD town I wanted to hunt and the roads were not real wet, but it was still a bit foggy. When I finally got down into the dog town the fog had lifted a bit, but the grass was soaking wet. There’s no way I wanted to be lying on my belly on wet grass. So, I figured since I had driven all that way, I might as well set up my target boxes and start shooting my test loads. The tailgate of my pickup serves as my shooting bench. I have an old wooden chair along to sit on, several sand bags and a rabbit ear rear sand bag to make sure I’m holding steady when I fire test loads. I used my Harris swivel bipods for my front rest and have pieces of foam backed carpeting under the feet of the bipod.
It was a little after 9:00 a.m. when I started shooting test loads. By 2:00 p.m. I had shot 71 test loads out of three different rifles and cleaned the barrel on one of them one time and the barrel on another one had been cleaned two times. I was testing different powders in the one rifle where the barrel was cleaned twice. While I was shooting test loads I had prairie dogs squeaking and barking at me. They didn’t seem too afraid. If I would have had a .22 rimfire rifle or even a pistol with I could have shot lots and lots of PDs. I decided to stop and eat lunch at 2:05 p.m. I also decided that I would go shoot some prairie dogs eventually and one of the rifles I wanted to use needed to have the point of impact checked. Anyway, I finished eating lunch and was back shooting targets again by 2:40 p.m.
At 3:35 I was getting tired of this one prairie dog to the north of me that had been ragging on me all day. I decided to take out the rifle I needed to check the POI on and if that PD kept barking, it would get the first chance to see if the rifle was shooting where I pointed it. I got set up to take the shot while resting my rifle on the tailgate of my PU and when I pulled the trigger I could hear the SMACK of the 40 gr. V-Max bullet hitting the PD as I watched it do several flips in the air after the bullet hit it. Since that PD was only about 75 yards away, I decided I would still do some POI check shots and I did have to adjust the scope a wee bit. If I don’t shoot another shot I’ll have a 100% hit rate—1 for 1!!!
I went back to load testing and finished my last shot around 4:00 p.m. I ran some BoreTech Carbon Remover into the barrels of the last two rifles I tested, got the plugs in the ends of the barrels and cased them up and into the pickup. I had shell boxes all over the inside of the pickup box so I got them all gathered up and into their carrying case. I got my gun cleaning kit and gun vise loaded into the pickup and drove over to where I had my target boxes located. I got those loaded into the pickup box and decided to have a cookie or two and a drink of cold water. As I sat in my pickup I thought a bit about how weird it was that I had just shot a total of 106 shots in a prairie dog town that was rife with PDs and had only shot one prairie dog!!!! I also thought that I’ll change that statistic in just a few minutes.
I parked my pickup in the shade of a big American elm, put the sun shield in the front window and got my gear ready to go for a prairie dog shoot. It was 5:30 when I left the pickup and by now it had clouded up and the wind was blowing 5 to 10 mph. I only had 29 loaded rounds left for my Savage 12VLP .204 Ruger with a Pac-Nor 1 in 11 twist barrel. I have a Leupold VX-III 6-20x40mm long range scope on this rifle and a 9-13" Harris swivel bipod. I only had to walk about 50 yards to get to the top of a little rise that gave me a good vantage point to shoot from. I crawled up to the nearest PD mound and started shooting prairie dogs instead of pieces of paper. The sounds of the bullets hitting their target with a resounding WHOP was a whole lot better sound than when my bullets had been going through the paper targets and burying themselves into the dirt mound behind my targets. It didn’t take too long and before I knew it I had shot 24 shots from my vantage point and hit on two doubles, 21 singles and had one missed shot. Counting the single prairie dog I shot earlier in the afternoon, that gave me 26 prairie dogs for 25 shots. Here’s one of the victims.
There were still 5 loaded casings left to shoot but I decided to take some photos of the cactus blossoms and a photo of one of the PDs I had shot that had been only about 20 yards from the end of my barrel. If you look closely you can see his head lying on his chest and facing towards where his neck was. His two front legs are embracing his decapitated body. He’s a MESS!!! But then a 40 gr. V-Max .204 caliber bullet traveling at about 3,765 fps by the time it traveled the 20 yards to his body is bound to cause a tremendous amount of damage.
Here’s another photo of a poor little pup that was about 75 yards away when I popped him. Can you say “Totally Destroyed”.
Here are a few photos of some of the blossoms I saw. There’s a butterfly on the right top side of the flower in the top right-hand photo just below.
It was 6:30 p.m. when I finished photographing PD victims and flowers; I decided to look for some more PD targets to shoot up the remaining 5 rounds. There was definitely not a shortage of volunteer targets. I took my last of 5 shots at 6:36 p.m. I started walking back to the pickup, but wanted to see if one of the doubles I thought I had hit was still above ground. It was an adult and a pup and here’s the photo.
I apologize for the photo not being of very high quality, but then remember, “You get what you pay for!!!” I finished taking photos by 6:46 and headed back to the pickup. I took out the second half of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a can of caffeine free Diet Coke and popped the can open. I started the pickup and began the journey back to Williston around 7:15 p.m. as I was eating my sandwich. Yes, I know—distracted driving!!! I got into my driveway at 8:51 p.m.
Now I’m in the process of cleaning the barrels on the three test rifles. I have also kept a record of where every bullet hit the target paper and then I cut out that part of the target and tape it to the sheet where I recorded the hits. I measure the groups from center to center of the two holes furthest apart and try to determine which loads seem to be the most accurate. I’ll load up maybe 10 casings with each load that appeared to be accurate and this time I’ll test them over my chronograph. While I didn’t get to shoot prairie dogs all day long, I did get my load testing task further down the road.
I have a big bunch of fired casings I need to resize. I have another bunch of casings I need to remove the primers from, get the casings sparkling clean and then anneal them before using them again. Ahh, the work of the prairie dog shooter is never done, but that’s a good thing because it keeps me out of trouble.
I hope you enjoyed the little story about my day of target shooting and shooting prairie dogs. I also hope you like the photos. Here’s the “Hero” photo you have all been waiting for:
Thank you again, for sharing. Bill K 
(That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.)
