Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles What calibers and loads do you shoot ground squirrels..?

Lots of talk about coyote rifles, but for sheer delight and lots of shooting, ground squirrels seem to be in a class by themselves..have used the 22LR on thousands..but am looking at centerfires..what do you use for your ground squirrel shooting??

Everything, I use ground squirrels and rabbits for my practice to keep me honed for hunting bigger game...

.17 HMR...



.22 long...



44-40...



1903 A-3, 30-06...



30 carbine...



45-60...



220 Swift...

[img]http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/scan0006.jpg[/img]

I agree with him. I've been on an area where I shot 2 bricks of 22lr in three days. All shots within 100 yards. Haven't been able to get that close to them now though for the past few years. Now it's any centerfire that is relatively cheap to shoot/reload. And rabbits deserve a CF. But it's great trigger time.

Really enjoy the .17 Rem and .221 fire ball as recoil is so light with these calibers impact can be seen through the scope. For lift off the .220 Swift is tough to beat.

Nelson

I like those old Winny levers

high volume shooting...

CZ 452 and 94/22, and 10/22 in 22 LR..

Marlin and Ruger in 17 HMR..occasionally in 22 Mag.. same brands..

for centerfire and high volume, since most are taken within 200 yds.. the cartridge of choice... 223..

bulk bullets from Mid South usually,

Loads, with 2 powders predominantly...SR 4759, since some guys were complaining I was going to kill someone with the other powder I shoot pounds and pounds of, just because their is NO factory data for it...... Blue Dot..

I only have one real issue with shooting sage rats.... even tho I probably pull the trigger on 5 to 8000 of them every season, I just don't ever seem to get enough trigger time, in ratio the level of enjoying shooting them I seem to have...

and bang flop just isn't the fun that exploding varmints are...

when I do the 22 LRs and the 17 HMRs, I love to go for head shots...that way they entertain you instead with their 'fish out of water dance' before they expire....

when you explode them also, it attracts the rest of their little cannibal buddies back to chow out on their recently departed friend..... so you take a few more and recycle the food chain again...

I normally have to quit, either running out of day light, they are down for the night, or I have the headache from hell due to 6 or 7 hours of scope squint...

oh and why Blue Dot and SR 4759 in the 223...of because I get from 400 to 700 rounds out of a pound of powder, and still have a 250 yd capable load all day long...

plus it is easier on the barrel, triples its barrel life, and doesn't heat up as much at all because you are burning less powder.. and they cool down quicker...

and with a 223, you don't lose sight picture in the scope with 10 to 15 grains of powder, compared to 25 to 27 grains of powder on the other types used...because there is less recoil...less enough that it won't cycle an AR, mini14 or any other semi auto in 223...

and why not have this:



instead of old boring, bang flop...

bang flop is for deer hunting, not sage rat or prairie dog shooting...

OK...guess I gotta play here..

.22 LR rifle and handgun
.17 HMR Rifle and handgubn
.204
.222
.223
For the bulk of it...like Shrapnel though, everything else gets a fling at it occasionally...

30-06.

It must work GREAT!

I never saw too many ground squirrels in NC.......

If they are not fly'en 10'-15' in the air, I am not having fun.

223-50 Sierra Blitz-long range
223-40g with 14.2g of Blue dot at 3200 fps, clean every 600-900 rounds

17 AH with 20g @3550 out to 250 yards

There are just too many of the little bastids to shoot anything very big - at least for very many shots.

There was a field where a buddy and I used to shoot them; we called it the "two-brick" field. It was 300-yards long by about 100 yards wide, and we'd walk it, taking one long step and firing ten shots of .22LR, then one more step and ten more shots...

We'd each shoot a brick EACH WAY.

I've shot them from three feet to 150 yards out. No need to shoot over dozens of them to tag one farther away. My Hornet is the biggest gun I usually use, but have taken a 221 Fireball, a 218 Bee Contender, a 223 rifle in addition to my usual .22LR rifle and .22 Mag Single-Six. Used them all, too.

Yep, ground squirrels are about volume!

That said, I've used a pretty wide range of rifle cartridges on 'em:

.17 Mach 2
.17 HMR
.17 Fireball
.204 Ruger
.22 LR
.22 Magnum
.22 Hornet
.221 Fireball
.222 Rem.
.223 Rem.
.22-250
.220 Swift
.25-20
.257 Roberts
.257 Roberts Ackley Improved
.270 Winchester
.375 H&H
.45-70

Probably my two favorites, though, are the .17 HMR and .22 Hornet.

I mostly use my Ruger 10/22 but I have other .22's and use my .218 Bee quite a bit, also .204 & .222. Haven't used my .22/.250 yet but thinking about it.

.17 hmr
.17 fireball
.204
.22lr
.223
22-250

.22LR CCI Stingers for the close ones.

.222 Rem 40gr Nosler BT for the medium ones.

.22-250 55gr Blitzking...red mist from here to???!

I made the mistake of bringing my wife with me last time. She got sick of watching exploding pdogs in the spotting scope after the first 50 or so...

22 out to ~75+ yards


223 for more red mist and distance

My current battery for p/dogs consist of Savage s/shot actions

with Pac Nor tubes screwed into them...all except the 17 M2...

but is a Savage bolt w/heavy ss tube..

20 Vartarg 12 twist
20 Practical 12 twist
20 BR 9 twist (new build this year)
223 AI 12 twist
6BR 12 twist
6XC 8 twist
260 AI 8 twist
6.5x55 8 twist

The 22 LR never interested me with the 40 gr solid bullets...show no terminal effect that the 2115 fps V max M2 has...the 17 M2 is half the cost of the 17 HMR ammo with a real range of 150 yds on a calm morning..past 150 the HMR & M2 both have serious wind drift...also the last thing I'll ever do is pick up a flea bitten p/dog carcass....here's a mound I cleaned off with my 20 VT at 520 yds..don't underestimate the Fireball case down to 20 cal...

At the moment, .204.

For little fuzzies, 32 grain VMAX over 28 grains of H335 is pretty good. When I switch to 40 grain bullets the load is 27.5 grains of Varget.

Truth is, though, I used to change centerfire varmint rifles about every 2 years. Shot out. Worn out. Since I broke down and bought a .17 HMR I don't shoot the centerfires near as much.

Easiest way to be versatile and CHEAP is a .223 with both a full-house and Blue Dot load. Just enough overkill.

So if you want a first gopher centerfire, do that. From there you can go up and down in caliber and power depending on what you like most.