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Best target medium to simulate effect on prairie dogs (video update)

effendude said:
Wow,
I've shot probably 100,000 prairie dogs and really never noticed much difference in the performance of different weight V-Max or Nosler Varmagedden bullets in .223 Rem/5.56mm from both bolt and AR-15 rifles. I use 40-55 grain V-Max bullets for the most part. Point of impact has much more to do with the acrobatics than a few grains of bullet IMHO, at least within a caliber.

As far as testing, I guess I would try squash or gourds? Tougher outer skin than most fruit, not as much liquid. I think water bottle will simply explode with whatever is shot at them. Keep us posted!
Scott
Click to expand...
Also shot thousnads of Prairie Dogs. Try water bottles with jello .
 
Ok I got in my new .223 1-9 varmint barrel and just installed it so perfect time to test all these ideas out and whip up a video. Last year I brought my 28" .243 Win slinging 115 DTACs as my long range option. Its a 1/4 moa rifle on good days and figured I wanted a wind bucking load for the long shots. However when I would connect at 500-600 yards on the dogs, it would pencil them and they would end up wounded and drag themselves off to their hole. Learned a lesson there and switching to 87vmax's for the long range stuff this time around. I knew going in that the effect on target for this video would be pretty tame with the DTACs.

With my new 1-9 223 Wylde barrel, its pushing the 40 VMAXs at 3762fps. That equates to 300,960 rpm which technically is over the 290,000 limit Hornady claims for the VMAXs. Luckily they seem to be holding up. I'm thinking this is my most explosive load at this time, or at least until I get my 6 Creedmoor up and running with 58 VMAXs.

So without further ado, here is the test video based on suggestions from this thread. Few notes: Filling balloons with jello was a pain in the ass, and they turned out to be a bust. The squash and red handsoap were pretty cool. My favorite turned out to be a Gatorade bottle filled with jello. That's what I'll be using once I get my PD arsenal all set. Thanks to all who chimed in!


 
Last edited:
Mike402 said:
Ok I got in my new .223 1-9 varmint barrel and just installed it so perfect time to test all these ideas out and whip up a video. Last year I brought my 28" .243 Win slinging 115 DTACs as my long range option. Its a 1/4 moa rifle on good days and figured I wanted a wind bucking load for the long shots. However when I would connect at 500-600 yards on the dogs, it would pencil them and they would end up wounded and drag themselves off to their hole. Learned a lesson there and switching to 87vmax's for the long range stuff this time around. I knew going in that the effect on target for this video would be pretty tame with the DTACs.

With my new 1-9 223 Wylde barrel, its pushing the 40 VMAXs at 3762fps. That equates to 300,960 rpm which technically is over the 290,000 limit Hornady claims for the VMAXs. Luckily they seem to be holding up. I'm thinking this is my most explosive load at this time, or at least until I get my 6 Creedmoor up and running with 58 VMAXs.

So without further ado, here is the test video based on suggestions from this thread. Few notes: Filling balloons with jello was a pain in the ass, and they turned out to be a bust. The squash and red handsoap were pretty cool. My favorite turned out to be a Gatorade bottle filled with jello. That's what I'll be using once I get my PD arsenal all set. Thanks to all who chimed in!


Click to expand...

That is the coolest test ever.

75 ELDM please. :)
 
Outstanding test and thanks for sharing. I was one to suggest the heavier “skinned” bottles like Body Armor, Gatorade, Powerade, etc. but have never done the jello trick. That pretty much duplicates the real deal IMO.
I posted a pic of the Body Armor bottle, and if someone can tell me how to post a video I’d be happy to show results from a 25-06 and 75 V Max.
Can’t imagine the prairie dog even knows what hits him!
 
Awesome video!

I've not had the V-max's come apart when shot out of our 1-8" AR's. 40, 50, 53, 55 grains all seem to shoot well enough. I load all our PD ammo on a Dillon 1050 with 24.5 gr of H335, regardless of bullet weight. I don't have a velocity on any weight bullet, but they all perform very well. I use the 87 and 75 grain V-max's out of my 6XC and you'll really like them too.
Scott
 
20 TAC said:
Outstanding test and thanks for sharing. I was one to suggest the heavier “skinned” bottles like Body Armor, Gatorade, Powerade, etc. but have never done the jello trick. That pretty much duplicates the real deal IMO.
I posted a pic of the Body Armor bottle, and if someone can tell me how to post a video I’d be happy to show results from a 25-06 and 75 V Max.
Can’t imagine the prairie dog even knows what hits him!
Click to expand...

25-06 w/ 75s sounds devastating. Would love to see that. I have a Youtube account and posted it there. If you don't have any way of posting it, I'll post it on my account and put it on here. I'll pm you my email address so you can send it to me if you like.
 
effendude said:
Awesome video!

I've not had the V-max's come apart when shot out of our 1-8" AR's. 40, 50, 53, 55 grains all seem to shoot well enough. I load all our PD ammo on a Dillon 1050 with 24.5 gr of H335, regardless of bullet weight. I don't have a velocity on any weight bullet, but they all perform very well. I use the 87 and 75 grain V-max's out of my 6XC and you'll really like them too.
Scott
Click to expand...

That's definitely the way to go for high volume loads. I do the same thing for my .223 Benchmark loads on my Hornady LnL, but I single stage all my other calibers just b/c the stick powders don't meter well. The good thing is I have six months to get them all done before the trip gets here
 
urbanrifleman said:
I have those reamers hahaha

I have the 22xc too. :)
Click to expand...
Haha ok good to know. I have 4 RPRs (one being the 5.56 version rebarreled to 204 Ruger). That way everything is the same when I switch between guns, and also similar to my AR
I get my barrels from Long Rifles Inc
 
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