Prarie Dog Hunting 22LR and then Centerfire ??

[dusterdave173]

Wow what bench is that and Where can I get one Nice!

 

[CSLR grandpa]

Dusterdave it appears to be a BR-Pivot bench, now owned by Caldwell.
MidwayUSA, I’m sure elsewhere also.

 

[DogBuster]

I shoot a lot of p dogs

22LR with 36 gr HP's is old school compared with a 17 M2 at the same distance

They die 'right now'

Very few crawl offs

 

[moorepower]

Wow. No love for the 22LR for grass rats?

I've been shooting GS and PD's for a very long time from OR to MT, WY, & SD and would not even think about leaving my 22LR rifle and handguns at home. I'll admit to now shooting more squirrels than PD's, as the GS shooting is better, the targets more stupid and plentiful, but the joy of having a nice 22LR belt gun for the close ones cannot be overstated. With the price of fuel now, staying closer to home shooting squirrels is also a new reality.

My Clark Custom 10-22 with the results of the 40gr WW Power Point HP from 40 yards:



My Smith M317 10-shot 22LR works well too. I've killed over 200 PD's with this one:



Kimber 22LR conversion on my Kimber .45 CDP frame works quite well also:



Even a Compact conversion on one of my EDC's gets used, and is accurate enough for 40-50 yard work:



The same pistol wacked this jackwabbit at a paced 52 yards when it blew through our rat camp and stopped for that fatal 'look-back'. Rested off the front fender of my truck:



And almost lastly, to illustrate why I never leave my rimfires at home, this snarly badger was taken at 25 yards while I was at my bench shooting squirrels, sort of sneaked up on me from behind. I had my Kimber Target conversion with me that day:



So I'll strongly disagree with the negative 22LR comments when out for PD's or squirrels. To me, having one handy is a fact of life, but then I spend over three months a year in the field having my way with the rats, and have learned I get much more shooting (and fun) when a rimfire is with me.

Parting shot. A great day on squirrels with my Sako Vixen 17M4 and my Kimber Target conversion close at hand for those rat-sappers that get inside the wire:



These guns are sort of like desert whilst shooting my 17M4, 17HMR, 20VT, 223, 221FB or even my K-Hornet, and cost a lot less to do so, especially when the "fun-factor" is considered. Maybe the naysayers just need to get out more and shoot more to fully appreciate what the rimfire is capable of. Rant over.

If you have the right dogtown, a .22lr gives you a ton of good shooting! In my youth in the 70's, I lived 1/4 mile from probably 40 acres of PDogs. Every sunny day on the drive home from school, I would walk in 2-300 yds with my 10/22 and 3 10 round mags and shoot 15-20 PDogs. I shot dozens of boxes of Stingers and WW PP. When the WW PP came out they were a fantastic bullet, hit hard. A silenced .25 Marauder works fantastic, also.

 

[moorepower]

I ask this question upon occasion. If you shoot a PDog though the heart and it crawls off a few foot, is it any less dead than a deer, shot through the heart that runs 100yds before it dies from shock? I have seen PDogs with 1/2 of a body crawl 5-10 feet, that does not mean that it's not a zombie. We all want them dead instantly, but sometimes I don't understand why it bothers nobody shooting a Deer or Elk, or any bowhunter that an animal dies from shock and blood loss, but if a rat that is destroying a pasture dies the same way, it's a horrible thing.

 

[Ken]

Like sw282, we are in it for the splat. We use silenced 223 mostly.

 

[JSH]

If I was just going to exterminate them I would probably opt for a shotgun with 2’s or 4’s with a turkey choke.
I am like most it’s about “air time” and “pop”. If dogs are sunning on the mounds I scan for one looking at me. Then wait for him to lift his head a little, a low hold even if it skips off the mound in front a bit will give a pretty good aerial show.
If I was concerned highly with my budget on a varmint hunt, I would probably have a different hobby.

 

[sw282]

My centerfire cartridges are .223 with Hornaday 53 vmax and 6br with 105 Amax. I shot and killed many Pdogs from my property in the morning and back to my property in the afternoon for months with my bull barrel. 22lr rf. Oh what fun.

DG.... You live in HEAVEN. l shoot prairie dogs maybe 3-5 days a year after traveling 1500miles one way and paying an outfitter. l'm not going to spend those precious days banging away with a 22rf.

282

 

[Twdmar]

When I used to have time to hunt prairie dogs, we used either 17hmr or 22lr exclusively. We would throw some tuff in a backpack, use a bipod or shooting sticks and walk the dog towns. Making 250yd shots with a 22lr is tough but fun.
With some towns, a rimfire won't cut because the dogs are educated bit for others if you don't mind walking you can shoot plenty. Keep in mind that our rattlesnake population is less than some places and it does require getting up out of a chair.

 

[CJ6]

When I used to have time to hunt prairie dogs, we used either 17hmr or 22lr exclusively. We would throw some tuff in a backpack, use a bipod or shooting sticks and walk the dog towns. Making 250yd shots with a 22lr is tough but fun.
With some towns, a rimfire won't cut because the dogs are educated bit for others if you don't mind walking you can shoot plenty. Keep in mind that our rattlesnake population is less than some places and it does require getting up out of a chair.

Well not really. 1 of the guys that I went out with converted 2 wheelchairs as "walking" shooting benches. He put a "platform" where the handles would be and a seat across where the end of the chair was, then eliminated the old seat. Works pretty good.

 

[Rick in Oregon]

Wow what bench is that and Where can I get one Nice!

Dave, the rotating bench in that photo is a BR Pivot Lite, no longer available. That particular model was 100% 6061 T6 alloy, with the exception of the SS hardware. When I sold the patent to Battenfield Technologies, they sent the manufacturing offshore (to the ChiComs). Unfortunately, they were unable to make non-porous aluminum castings, so what Caldwell sells now is almost all steel; no alloy. Their version has all the attributes of the original, just heavier. To get the degree of quality and precision required, we had a Boeing Aircraft castings vendor produce our castings, hence the cost of producing these benches was significant.

The Lite benches were also made with CNC machined 'girder' legs and seat bracket to further reduce weight, and as such, it was a full 30 lbs lighter than the all-steel model.



With inflation raging at this point in time, I hazard to guess what this puppy would cost to manufacture now under Bidenflation. A friend here recently found a standard model on Craigslist for a pittance, so they can be found out there at reasonable prices if one pokes about enough.

(My Cooper M38 Varmint in 20VT on the bench, cooling her barrel after a hot round of shooting "Skippy the Flying Squirrel" locally here.)

 

[sscoyote]

Here’s a couple of mine—a ruger mk III has sling swivel studs in it to attach a bipod. Works great as a walking prairie dogger with a stadium seat. Now using a Nikon 2X scope target turrets and plex reticle

And a Kidd-barrelled Charger with an LER 6x Tasco with 1/8 min dot that’s really fun to shoot.

I rarely shoot with centerfires anymore. Just love this walking system so much. But i do have a 17 HH in a Savage Striker that may change my mind again.