Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Scope magnification for PDs

What scope “magnification” do you use on prairie dogs with 22 centerfire and smaller calibers.
Am asking about ranges under 400 yards only.
Thanks

I have 6x18 Crossfire Vortex, cheap scope does well out to 400 anything closer I keep it set on 10X on my 22-250 Savage

Mostly 3.5-18. I have never seen where this wasn't a good choice...

The 3.5-18 Z5 also happens to fit in original Sako high rings on heavy barreled Vixens.

3 of those are Vixens...

Dale06: I find that I prefer MORE scope power than the average Prairie Dogger - of course I shoot more Prairie Dogs than the average Prairie Dogger!
ESPECIALLY when shooting the Hunter wary Prairie Dogs who are more likely to just show the top half of their heads above the lip of their burrows later in the season!
If Leupold still made their wonderful 8.5x25x40m/m variable scopes (with 1" tubes!) that is all I would use for Prairie Doggin.
I have several of these and greatly admire the performance I get from them - I own way more Leupold 6.5x20 variables and I would highly recommend these to you.
The more scope power you have the more likely you will be to take the top off of the Prairie Dogs head when they are on alert and chirping at you behind the rim of their burrows with just the top of their heads showing.
Best of luck to you with whichever scope you choose.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Thanks for the responses guys!

No prairie dogs here, but we have "digger squirrels" which seem to be a little bit shorter and not nearly so "girthy". Fun as [bleep] to splatter across the landscape.

I think ideal is a 6.5-20X Leupold on a rifle approximating the 700 varminter in weight and barrel contour. I will sometimes drop down to a 4.5-14X on a rifle of factory sporter weight .. in fact, that's what my main varmint gun is now because I'm doing a little more walk-in and a little less driving right to the shooting spot. It's also a bit nicer if I decide to call predators in cover with the same rifle.

The only way you'll truly have "too much" scope is if the minimum magnification is still affected seriously by mirage where you shoot. I've seen a few days when I needed to back the 6.5-20X down to 16X or so but I don't recall ever having to turn the 4.5-14X below 14X because of mirage.

Tom

What VG said!!!

I really like the Leupold 6.5-20x40mm but I rarely go above 16-18 power when using it. I like to have the higher magnification if I want to use it but I am not obligated to use it. Also use 6-18x40 and 4.5-14x40 Leupolds and don't feel handicapped.

I ended up buying the Zeiss 3-15x
Figure lol run it at 15 power most all of the time.

I use Bushnell mil-dot scopes 7-21x on my 22-250 and 204. I keep the power set on 14x for all shots. Like Rocky said, the higher magnification sounds better, but the mirage and heat limit the higher power.

I'm in the 4.5 x 14 or 4 x 16 camp....

I have Weaver V16s, 4-16x42, on a RAR-Ps in 204 and 223. I've never had a problem with them, but if you're a turret turner they probably wouldn't be a good choice for you.

For me, pdog shooting is a warm, fair, weather event, so while higher grade scopes are nice, they are seldom necessary, optically speaking.

A decent and reasonably inexpensive scope for the turret turner is the Bushnell 3200 10x40. Its downside is that it doesn't have an AO.

I have a 4.5 X 16 X 40 on a 223 m700.

That should work, 14.5 power on up here.

This joker ^^^^^^^^^got exposed as a scammer in our classifieds 😎

As mentioned above.... mirage can be a problem as the sun gets high in the sky over a prairie dog town. There are days on the Eastern plains here in CO when my 12x binocular is absolutely worthless... it’s like looking through a swimming pool. So, there are many times shooting PDs, when your 6-20x is set at about 8-10x.

Also.... I like to see the dogs I hit... in the glass.... full-frontal nudity style. This also necessitates lower powered glass, even with lighter recoiling rounds like the .22-250.

I’ve put an awful big hurting on the PDs in my life, running 3-9’s and fixed 10x/12x. But... I have good eyes, I enjoy watching the stuff I shoot get nuked, and I’m not a body-count PD shooter.

I tend to sneak into known PD towns, shoot 5-10 rounds, then move on to the next town. It ain’t the Rosebud out here anymore, the days of setting up a table and shooting one town all day are looooong gone. Now a days... I practice Quality Prairie Dog Management.

I'll throw a monkey wrench into the question. I'll preface by stating I use a Zeiss Conquest 6.5-20x50 with the Rapid-Z Varmint reticle. I have tried both dialing as well as holdover for DOPE. I prefer holdover with the Rapid-Z varmint reticle. I use the Zeiss app and my rifle's ballistics to determine the magnification that matched the ballistics of my load. With that said, a magnification of 12.5 perfectly matches my load. I have found that I can get on target faster than dialing after I have ranged a prairie dog. Therefore, I don't mess with my magnification. It's a laser, shoot, repeat setup.