Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Most rounds fired at PD's or ground squirrels in a day ?

I've shot 500 shots with a single shot pellet rifle at grey diggers as the locals called them, about 80% kill ratio . About the end of June north of Boise up by Firebird Raceway - as fast as I could reload - there were squirrels offering me an easy shot .
Rimfire ? not sure if I ever shot 500 rounds but 300-350 I likely have .

Tell us about your high volume day/days even if it's 12 starlings 3 sparrows pellet or rimfire .

300 prairie dogs a day for three days straight. 10' to 380 yards. Great fun.

Ol mike: Back when I lived on the west coast I worked a 6 day work week with 2 days off thus being able to take a ten day vacation using just 6 earned vacation days. And on my job I was prohibited from using much time at all between June 1st and September 31st.
So every year for over 2 1/2 decades I would treat myself to a ten day Varmint Safari to Montana/Wyoming/Dakotas in mid-May.
I would spend 3 days Hunting Ground Squirrels at my first locale before moving on to Prairie Dog country.
And I mean three days HUNTING Ground Squirrels!
I woke up in a Ground Squirrel Colony at sunrise and went to sleep in a Ground Squirrel Colony at sundown!
No trips to town to restaurants or bars just Huntin and shootin all day!
I had MANY dozens of days where I went through in excess of 1,000 rounds of rimfire ammo (22 L.r. & 22 magnum back then) a day!
I would guesstimate I had a 1,500 round day or two back then as well - I really didn't keep to close a count on total rounds other than keeping track of the cartons I went through a day. I always brought along at least 4,000 rounds of 22 L.R. and 500 rounds of 22 Magnum.
Once I moved to Montana 21 years ago I toned down my daily Gopher shooting to a normal day now of 400 - 500 rounds of all kinds of rimfire including 17 Mach2, 17 HMR, 22 L.R. and 22 Magnum.
In fact anymore once 200 - 300 rounds are squeezed off I start looking to help others and spot for them.
But during the long Gopher season I usually Hunt 20 days per month - so I get in my trigger time - indeed!
I traveled a ways (100 miles) a couple years ago and set up in a Ground Squirrel Colony I had never shot before - firing from my truck canopy roof, over sand bags, and standing on the tailgate I fired 400 rounds of 17 HMR ammo from that ONE stand! I stopped only to clean my main 17 HMR Varminter and to count the empty 50 round boxes I'd shot.
I did turn the truck around once that day and fired in the opposite 180 as I recall.
Once I have fired my normal 200+ rimfire rounds in a day at Ground Squirrels I often put my Rifles away and get my Browning heavy barrel BuckMark pistols and heavy barrel Ruger MK-I, MK-II, MK-III, and MK-IV pistols out and put them to use "stalking" the Gophers.
I don't Hunt "country" Gophers anymore only the ones that are infesting cultivated fields.
Great sport and it sharpens my marksmanship skills to boot.
Prairie Dogs is another story these days!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

An early June day in a well stocked Beldings ground squirrel field where youngsters had emerged. About 750 rds loading and shooting a 22 LR in single shot mode. Ran out of ammo with about 45 minutes of shooting light left. Went through about 12,000 rounds that season. A typical relaxing day is about a brick, with one maybe having to get up and move 2 or 3 times after those in range have been cleaned out.

I think about the best day I've had shooting sage rats is around 500-600 rounds a day for about 3 days. A few weeks later had about the same result. Since I live a ways from the killing fields, these days are few and far between so I try to get the most out of them but I don't get the volume of shooting I would like to get...

BTW, are the sage rats starting to come up over there yet? Hoping to get a few .22's warm next weekend during the Cougar/coyote/target of opportunity hunt......

Bob

That's a lot of shooting , living near them sure was fun when I lived in Boise .

Two friends and I went GS shooting north of boise - Eagle then went to the Firebird racetrack midday . We walked up rifles in hand paid went in walked around carrying our rifles and nobody batted an eye , that's the way is should be .

VarmintGuy ,

''Country'' ground squirrels - that's a good one !

Paisley OR Jack Rabbits around the feed lots early 80,s 10-22,s with the mags glued back to back. Walked and shot, went through several thousand rounds in 3 day,s of shooting had to bandage thumbs
from feeding mags as we walked. Unreal amount of shooting at running Jacks!

My rear peep sight vibrated off and was shooting off front sight. I showed up with about 2k in 22,s and cousin said that aint going to be enough he was right. He had plenty!

When I was a kid I used to work for a professional rabbit shooter
Our best was 440 headshot, gutted and racked in one night.

p/dogs...........60-65 rds per hour.........a good poodle patch w/pups early/mid May

I'm a puzzy & only shoot 4 hrs of the morning..7-11 or so....unless there are clouds

Clouds can be scarce in Utah............ranges......150-700+......calibers ?

17M2......20 Vartarg.....20-222.....20 Practical......223 AI

A second hand rumor is some ground squirrels were out around Fields a few days ago. Not heard anything about the Crane area, and my back 40 ones are probably still a couple months out yet. Temps have dropped though, and mid to late March is a more typical emergence. Even then, foul weather can put them down for several days at a time.

Given their size, they are excellent practice for developing good technique. Even with the lowly 22LR, trigger control, good optics, and parallax attention make a world of difference. Also, over the years I've developed an almost innate consciousness for wind doping with my 22 LR's. I sit exposed in a low boy lawn chair with a bipod and pay rapt attention to mirage and any breeze on my face. Hold offs may be as much as a foot, and they lob right in there. Wish I could afford the ammo to develop the same skills with my center fires. Life would be good too if they available into Sept of so. Sadly, they head under around the last of June to early July.

One can still get in some late summer shooting if he goes to high elevations (like 8,000 ft+) where spring comes late, but he will not find near the numbers out in the sage brush at those elevations.



Adults can be about 10-11 inches tall and about 1 3/4 " wide when erect. Youngsters can be house mouse size when they first emerge and thus quite challenging targets. Given I have more issues with wind than range, I typically like to light rounds off when they're horizontal on the ground. They can endure a pretty good wallop and still make it down, so hollow points and head shots facilitate ones above ground count. They are cannibalistic, and will drag their dead relatives below ground for more leisurely consumption. That being, keep and eye on the dead ones, as there are opportunities to score on those taking advantage of someone's demise. Hawks, eagles, ravens, gulls, crows, and even the spring time sandhill cranes are quite appreciative too.

You guys all $uck😀

Ol mike: Yeah "Country Gophers" I prefer to leave them "as seed" for rejuvenation!
Couple more months hereabouts - it's 6.8 degrees below zero here right now at 10:15 A.M.!
Yeah they will be underground for some time in these parts.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Castle Rock: Without being to specific what part of the world did you accomplish those amazing numbers in?
Australia?
I think my best Jack Rabbit night was around 25 Jacks for three shooters (SW Montana)!
Good for you, that was a heap of work/fun.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

No idea on the count, but when I took my 12 year old boy sage rat (Belding’s ground squirrels) shooting we really got into them. After 4 or 5 hours of two a minute he turned to me and said “Dad, I’m tired of killing. Can we go swimming?”

So the short answer is, enough to wear out a 12 year old.






P

Many years back (like 25) we experienced a jack rabbit outbreak that lasted about a year in the SE Oregon desert. One could exit our local theater in the middle of town at night and see at least a dozen running main street. Out in the county, it was almost a swarm with rabbits undercutting and toppling hay stacks. They were consuming sage and rabbit brush like there was no tomorrow, and those are two items common in very few diets.

Quite the road hazard too. My white drift boat looked like it had been through a slaughter plant when I made it home from a fall fishing trip, and I stopped at two rest areas on the way to hose it off. That was another of those instances where ones ability to load was the limiting factor. Jacks would be passing through at about the same rate one could acquire targets, and we had more overwintering hawks and eagles around than I'd ever seen before.

When the die off occurred, we went through about 5 years though without seeing a single jack rabbit. A amazing event that I had read of previously but fell short of believing until actually seen.

I think we may have gotten in on that jack rabbit bonanza. My 3 brothers and I went down around Thompson Reservoir to harass rabbits and got more shooting in a couple days than we had accumulated in many years time before. We literally shot hundreds of jacks in the space of a couple days without even trying hard. Threw the sleeping bags out on ground in the evening and woke up to jackrabbits running over the top of us, around us, and everywhere else. It was quite the scene.

As far as sage rats, several times I have been looking through my scope at rats I had shot to make sure they were down for the count and found Golden eagles and other large hawks and birds feasting on critters I had just killed. Also, multiple rats on a single mound isn't unusual at the right time of year. I think the most I've shot on a single mound was 6. Looked a few minutes later and they were all gone- drug down for their buddies' dinner later....

Can't wait for this season to start....

Bob

You guys STILL $uck😀

The first time I went to South Dakota to shoot Richard Gophers, me and a friend were using. 17 mach 2s and the first day we went through 2300 rounds on the first day, and just over 7000 over 6 days.

I had a lot of 1000 plus round weekends in the South Dakota PD towns in the early/mid 90s. Had to rotate several rifles to not have a hot barrel.
Sadly, the round count is about half that these days.
We shot from just after sun up till near dark most days

Two times of note...

1. in Lakeview, OR....CZ 452... had two boxes of 550 count Federals, and one box of 330 rounds...

Shot them all on one day, after a 3 hour drive over there.... contact about 80 to 85 %....

drove home with a scope head ache from squinting all day down a 4 x 16 scope....

2. Near Bonanza OR, had multiple 223s with me, and the day was kind of a slow afternoon, probably 200 shots or so....moved to another spot, and had put up the 223s, and pulled out a 10/22.. had 6 magazines with 25 round capacity... overlooked a spot, with a light slope going down hill. right at 5 PM, the sage rats started coming out in mass... I had two boxes of 550 count 22 Long Rifle cartrides ( Walmart Federal).

Shot all 6 magazines and then let the barrel cool, while I reloaded the 6 magazines....
repeated that until the ammo was gone... 1100 rounds...then found another box in the ammo box.

judging by the loading of the 25 round magazines, I loaded those a total of 8 times.. so another 200 rounds.

the 10/22 had a 6 power Weaver on top... so I limited shots within 50 to 75 yds.... there were sage rats all over the place in that distance and then further...

At 6:30 or so, I was out of 10/22 ammo and had the scope squint head ache to drive 2 hours home with.

The squirrels were going down about that time....

in both situations, I left with a ton of seagulls down eating dead ground squirrels all over the place...

what they left, I am sure the coyotes at real good that night.

Those two scenarios have never repeated themselves for me... but then once again, I most often take people out with me, so I am sharing the field with. and then, at other times, there are other shooters out there.

We are shooting over alfalfa fields, that are 100 to 500 acres or more...

200 or so are a slow day.... 500 to 600 is a usual good day... but those are days I am using 223, mixed with 17 HMR.. and am usually taking three 223s, and rotating them every 15 shots or so... Blue Dot loads, I can shoot one rifle all day long.. many times I've done one rifle for 600 rounds in a day with that.

doesn't take a lot of 500 rounds days, to put 5K to 10K on a barrel.