Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints The great Harlowton prairie dog shoot

Dad, Nash and I met up with Shrapnel, Mule Deer, Deflave, HawkI and his buddy Steve in Harlowton on Friday afternoon around 3 and headed right out to the dog town.. It was a blast. Sakos were the predominate rifle choice(.222 Mags in particular), with Remingtons, Winchesters, Howas, Marlins, and Mausers thrown in also. It was great to finally get to meet everyone. I hope we can do this again sometime soon.. Thank you Shrapnel for putting this all together.

Shrapnel getting this started with a bang..

IMG_6402 by mtcurman

Travis and Nash

IMG_6399 by mtcurman

JB and Shrap

IMG_6403 by mtcurman

A rare hatless photo of Nash, busy absorbing knowledge and information about all things firearm..

IMG_6414 by mtcurman

JB, Nash, and Nate(HawkI)..

IMG_6445 by mtcurman

Nash liked the biggest, baddest, UBERest .17 Remington.. Travis, I hope between him and me we didn't roast it's throat!

Nash .17 by mtcurman, on Flickr

Thank you Nate (HawkI) for letting me and Nash burn up all that .204 and .38 Special ammo.. We had a ton of fun with both of them.

[img]https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5198/14480658971_989114efcf_c.jpg[/img]IMG_6472 by mtcurman

[img]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3910/14297606367_08315e1433_c.jpg[/img]IMG_6475 by mtcurman

[img]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3907/14297452658_bff09b1191_c.jpg[/img]IMG_6493 by mtcurman

[img]https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2934/14297455518_902a61e029_c.jpg[/img]IMG_6490 by mtcurman

Thank you again Shrapnel for getting this put together.. It couldn't have been more fun.


Ben

It was great to see your enthusiasm for shooting. Good thing it got dark every night or we would have run out of ammo...

Looks like a blast( so to speak�. ) Ben. I hope you and Nash taught those old farts how to shoot!

They did.

You young men were an awesome addition to the trip. I had fun watching you guys have fun.

Is your Dad getting you some steel yet?

Very enjoyable.. Photos are excellent!!!

I want to put a #1 or #2 on it anyway.

Put another box through it just after you guys left. It was UBER warm.

Sweet pics.


Travis

That was all shot at one prairie dog...

Why would I shoot the same prairie dog over and over?



Travis

Great pics Ben!

And I heard and I saw and behold, a black shooting bench, and he who sat upon it had a Sako, and hell followed with him.....

I just wish it would have been possible for me to stay longer. I'd been on the road a LOT in the past three weeks, so had to head home on Saturday afternoon, instead of staying until Sunday. Heard the wind died on Sunday morning, which usually means some PD's died as well. It was a lot of fun getting to know everybody, and hopefully we'll get together again!

I also learned another reason why Shrapnel is called Shrapnel: He likes to throw chunks of sandstone into the air, and shoot them into smaller chunks of sandstone shrapnel!

Nothing to it, you just need a good throw...

And a good photographer.....

Told you I was working!

I didn't realize until I looked at the pics back home that you had your .223 WSSM. I've always wanted to play with one of those.

Sunday morning was UBER calm. Great .17 weather.


Travis

The Colt rifle was the epic OOOBER cool point in time for me.

I could have brought a 243WSSM, but it may have broken the ear muffs and turned plugs to putty.....and shrapnel may have backhanded me at the mere sight of it.

Yep, the Colt Lightning was awesome, as was the rock shooting... The whole shoot really was the epic OOOBER point for me...

We noticed the lack of wind when we drove through the windmills by Judith Gap and none of them were turning. How long did you guys shoot on Sunday? Nate, nope on the steel. Well, we have several steel plates, we just haven't made gongs out of them yet..

I had never seen anyone shoot a 340 savage that well

I saw those windmills at a standstill and started laughing.

I left around 1100. Not sure how long the others stayed.



Travis

Shrap loves those Savages.



Travis

Travis,

I didn't shoot the .223 WSSM much, since I mostly wanted to see how the Cutting Edge bullets worked on prairie dogs. They're designed more for larger varmints or big game, and hence didn't do much damage to PD's at 300 yards, even when started at well over 4000 fps. After finding that out I put the rifle away.

I used my .17 Fireball some on Saturday when the wind was calmest, with its standard rodent load of enough Ramshot TAC to give a 20-grain plastic-tip 4000 fps. Which of course worked well--but when the wind picked up I used the .204, some with 32's but mostly with 40's. I was "breaking in" the new barrel and found, as with the other .204's I've owned, it shot 32's and 40's so close to the same place at 100 yards that they could be used interchangeably, though the trajectory varied slightly out at 300+. (If I can make it next year might bring my .22/6mm with 80-grain bullets and a Burris Eliminator III scope.)

How fast are you pushing bullets in your .223 AI?