What's the "typical" range for...

B

Big Caliber

New member
shooting prarie dogs? I would have used the search function but can't spell praerie. Are we looking at 100yds, 300, 500+?
 
Our prairie dog shoots range from about 200yds to about 500yds....we try for the 1000yds shots when we get bored.
 
Whoa...so you really do need a sub moa rifle/shooter. Is the typical prairie ( thanks for the spelling correction) dog as big or tall as a bowling pin?
 
Think of them as a short-tail ground squirrel, maybe 3/4 the size of your usual tree squirrel.

If a colony hasn't been shot over a lot, it's not hard to drive slowly, stop, shoot at ranges from maybe 50 to 300 yards and move on and repeat.

Some folks get elaborate, with shooting tables in the backs of pickups and custom tack drivers for games way out in Ma Bell country.

Flat to gently-rolling country means many available shots in the 300- to 400-yard range.

A .17 Mach II works to 100 yards, but it takes some figuring for wind and holdover to hit at 200. Doable, and effective.

I was doing fine with a .223 to 300, with maybe five or so inches of holdover from a 200-yard zero; allowing about five and six inches for wind, that day. 200 yards? Piece of cake.

Half-MOA is quite desirable.
 
I am limited to 50 yards or so, I have only gone after critters like that with a bow. The first time I hit a ground squirrel at 50 it was like the first time I took a deer or elk.
 
Back when I was a kid, I didn't have a .223 or .243, I only had a .22 LR.

If I was very patient I could sit in the middle of a prairie dog town and have lots of shots between 25 and 50 yards, but it meant a whole lot of waiting.
 
I consider a good dog town one where the shots aren't over 300 yards. Once its shot up they'll be 400-500 yards.
 
Typical range? 100 yds to 400 yds? I shoot 22LR out to 150 yds, then switch to 223 for ranges out to 300, and when the dogs get spooky from all the noise and go underground I break out the 22-250 or move to the other side of the colony. And I shoot a lot more 22LR than 22-250 or 223,
 
A 'virgin' colony, where we go in Wyoming, will probably give 75-125 yard shots... for the first 30-45 minutes. After that, we have to back off to 250-350+ yards (or move on, altogether).

For previously spooked 'dogs, it's usually a 250-400 yard proposition.

Big p-dogs will give you a frontal area larger than a bowling pin, but most of it is skin. The actual vital (reactive) zones are closer to the previously described sizes - squirrels.

High velocity, good accuracy, and explosive expansion are your friends.
My family's favorite 'doggin' cartridges include: .270 Win - 100gr HP. .220 Swift - anything. .223 Rem - 40gr and 52gr HPs. 8x57JS Mauser - anything (it's cheap). And, .243 Win - 75gr HPs.
 
The hot loads from such as a .204, .22-250 and the Swift, along with 55-grain loads from a .243, oguta be called "RMS": "Red Mist Specials". :D
 
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