Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Sage Rats for easterners...

have a cousin who is interested in coming to Oregon while he will be out on the West Coast on Business
from Virginia, later on this spring...he's been prairie dog shooting in Wyoming...and wants to try his hand at Sage Rats...

He's motivated by how many of them there are, where one can get over a 1,000 rounds down range in a good day...

from 22LR 's to 223s are the most common around here, along with the 17 HMR and less popular the 22 Win mag..

My cousin is motivated with his 17 HMR.....

He was asking about the size... and I had to really think about it at first, to someone that has never really seen one...
after a little thought.... I told him an adult is about as tall as a dollar bill is long... and about the girth of a 12 oz water bottle..at most.

Questioning about how accurate should he be aiming for... had to think about that one also...
at the range, I zero my scope to be able to hit or be real near a circle between the size of a nickle to a quarter.. at 100 yrds...
from a rest of course....

He got kind of quiet..... and then a breathe and a non nonchalant "WoW" from him...

Most varmint shooters don't think much about it.. but I guess if you are not use to hitting a quarter at 100 yds.. that can seem a little overwhelming...even with the use of a rest...

he seemed to get a little discouraged, but we'll see if he wants to follow thru...

and scope... I use something will some sort of mildot reticle, and usually set on 10 power.. and pretty much all of my shooting is 200 yds and under....which I usually walk off and mark it with a surveyor stick, sprayed Orange or neon green glow for easy visibility posted at 100, 150 and 200 yds...

I've gotten to the point, I don't like to take shooters out for their first time anymore... as I spend most of my time waiting on them..
but family is family.. and growing up, Lord knows did we always had fun on the farm, that Jim inherited from his dad...

hopefully he'll be out after the first cut of the alfalfa....

I'll be spending the first week of May in Crane. Hope there's some left by the time I get there. I'll be using a Caldwell Field Pod for the first time this year. I've found I can get just as good groups with it as I can get using a table.

Got five different rifles all loaded for and sighted in.

John, you are right. What we take for granted seems daunting to most. I am frequently asked on guided hunts " would you feel comfortable shooting a pig/deer/unicorn/whatever at 200 yards?" Hell, Im used to shooting at gophers at that range, a target as large as a Unicorn is a slam-dunk!

On a recent night calling hunt in Texas the guy in charge asked if I brought a shotgun....No...what for? Apparently most folks get rattled when a predator comes in to 35 yards and cant hit them with a rifle.......seriously?

Tom, that is pretty funny.. guess we spend a lot of trigger time that most folks don't get the same opportunity...

My usual response to guys from back east... where I am from.... to statements like you guys out west, saying you shoot a deer at 300 yds, is a bunch of bull schitt... I explain to them, when during the summer you've sent 5,000 plus rounds down range at something the size of a sage rat....the size of a dollar bill and practice hitting something the size of a quarter at 200 yds off a rest...
come deer season....at deer at 300 yds, with your scope on 4 power... looks like the size of a dump truck out there...

guess we have an opportunity to have a different perspective on target size than the average guy back east...

during sage rat season, when I've gone to your fair state to shoot prairie dogs with a buddy who lives outside of Billings, those prairie dogs seem awfully big compared to an Oregon Sage Rat....and they don't seem to run at 90 mph, and then stop on a dime like these like gopher wannabes... its like these little suckers are hopped up on meth or something...

we should count our blessings I guess...

Yeah that is true for sure. Trigger time on small targets makes the big ones seem pretty easy.

I have family down in the Redmond/Bend OR area, where I've seen plenty of sage rats, but they aren't gun people and don't really have any contacts with ranchers so it's been hard to find good places to shoot them. I've put in a lot of miles looking and did find a few small spots though. It really is satisfying to pop them at the outer limits of whatever cartridge I'm using.

I had an opportunity a couple years ago to visit a ranch in Montana near Kalispell for a week, and they were happy to have me reduce their ground squirrel population. Those were different than Oregon sage rats, a little bigger but still not nearly as big as a prairie dog. Not sure what they were exactly, but they were making a lot of holes on that cattle ranch so there was a lot of shooting to do. Good times.

Incidentally, while shooting on that ranch, a neighbor across the fence got pretty heated and yelled at me for "scaring his dog" and "I needed to stop", despite it not being his property, I was shooting in a safe direction (away from his place), and a few hundred yards away with a suppressor on my 223. Turns out he's a liberal California immigrant, and that area is getting an influx (we might say infestation) of them escaping Cali and wanting to ruin Montana as well, same thing that's been happening here in WA and OR for a while.

Seafire: Many of my "long-time" friends are so elderly and "inept" (poor sight, poor hearing, poor situational awareness etc etc etc!) anymore that I literally have to align their Rifle barrels with the "Sage Rats" so they can attain sight picture of the "non-moving" little Colony Varmints!
This indeed does get old quick but I just hearken back to "earlier times" when they were as spry as (thank God!) I still am.
I have gotten so's I can look over my friends shoulder and down the length of the barrel and move the Rifle butt and get an even distant Gopher in the scopes field of view quickly and reliably.
Its that or listen to them whine and moan.
I still enjoy being around them and assisting/hosting them.
I hope your hosting of your cousin goes better than you are worried about.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

As a Montana rancher friend is fond of saying .."just wait for the next 'cleansing winter' to show up to help those recent transplants make up their minds about living here..."

Yondering: Indeed there are MANY types (and sizes!) of Ground Squirrels around the west.
NW Montana has some "huge" Ground Squirrels - I looked them up in my wonderful 1917 vintage "Mammals of North America" reference book and there so many and so many varied names I won't try to relay them all here.
I have Hunted Ground Squirrels "up NW Montana way" and according to the "book" they can get to 15" (fifteen inches!) long, including tail.
Where many of the other varieties of Ground Squirrel are listed/described as 10.5" long to others being 11" and 12" long.
There was one type of Ground Squirrel listed at up to 20" long!
They must be extinct now as I have never seen one so LONG - info = named Bushy-Tailed Ground Squirrel (Citellus Grammurus) range central Colorado to Mexico?
That is a whopper of a Ground Squirrel!
I might have to "step-up"to a Magnum for one of them?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Puddle: I have been "keeping track" of the "low-landers" who move here (Montana) from the mild climates (including Puget Sound country where I am from) and the rate of "returns" (folks who move here from said mild climes and then pack-up, sell out and head out!) is at least 20% (twenty percent).
I get some good buys on equipment, gear and clothing when they "sell out"!
I have been here for going on 23 full years now and watching that phenomenon (returns) for many years prior to that as well.
Oh well.
To tell the truth I had my doubts whether or not the VarmintWife would take to Montana permanently as she was born, raised, worked in and enjoyed the Seattle area for the first 47 years of her life and never ventured anywhere else.
She absolutely loves the changing of the 4 (four!) seasons here in Montana and not just the 1 1/2 seasons in Seattle!
She would not return to the stress, taxes and traffic of Seattle "city life" for anything!
Nor would I.
Just put another log on the fire I say.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Belding’s ground squirrels. I fold the top 25% of a dollar bill along the long axis, that’s really close to the average rat. The rats that stand up to look around we call “volunteers.”

150 yards and in, 17HMR. Beyond that, .223 Rem.

The rats that run around in front at 10 yards or less we leave alone until we’re almost done for the day. Then we shoot them in the eye.





P

I normally set up with 3 rifles... for those that pop up at 25 yds or so...one rifle is zeroed for real close, with a low powered scope on top...while an HMR is effective, it doesn't have a red mist factor... a 223 loaded to say 22 Mag speeds with a 40 grain V Max or 50 TNT Speer or one of their 52 gr HPs does....

especially a trick I learned along the way...Instead of hitting the sage rat, bounce one right in front of him at his feet...
it bounces up as Shrapnel...it'll send one 8 feet in the air...or the other fun one... it will send his left half 20 yds to the left
and his right half 20 yds or more to the right....guess more goes to the right due to the rifle twist it gives the bullet?
just speculation on my part....but who cares.....that is why I prefer the red mist factor vs, the bang flop of the HMR...

My dad shot one at about 100 yards, .223, 50 gr NBT Varmint, 3400 fps mv. It went about five feet in the air, spinning, but in three pieces. I still can’t figure that out. I was dad’s spotter, as he was 76 at the time. I had 10x Swarovskis so I had a pretty good look.




P

Hey John, Bill here,
Are you staying down south this year?

It would be fun to meet up with you again. Unfortunately, my grandson, Tanner is now finding where that money really comes from so I won't have my regular shooting buddy this year.

W. Bill

VarmintGuy: I've always wanted to eventually end up somewheres around Dillon, but more likely in about 3 years we'll be living along the Snake 'bout around where the 3 states collide.

Puddle: Good luck on the "3 year plan" - I have done a fair amount down of outdooring down around the three state intersection. I am sure you will like it there.
Remember Montana has no sales tax!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Yeah, Bill I'll be down this way....

If I get time, I'd like to make a trip over to Montana to shoot P.Dogs, probably out side of Billings with my buddy Dana...

if we do meet up.. and you have some more of your wife's cookies... don't tell me so I don't eat half of them this time..

she sure made good cookies...