How much ammo to bring

[Viperdoc]

My son and I are going PD hunting in SD in a few weeks with a 17HMR, a 223, and a 6.5. We will probably be shooting six days. I was thinking of bringing 3000 rounds of HMR, 1300-1500 for the AR, and maybe 600 for the 6.5.

Is this enough, too much, or too little for two shooters? I know you can never have too much ammo, but it is heavy.

 

[radshooter]

My friend and I went P-dog hunting in Montana last summer. It was a "guided" shoot so we were put on dog towns all day....we hunted for 3 straight days (which seemed like plenty). We brought my .17 HMR, .22, a Rem 700 .223 and our AR-15's and let me tell you, it was hard to not use the AR! We went through less than 1000 rounds each (prob in 750-850 range) with our AR's and shot more P-dogs than you can shake a stick out (primarily at 150-300 yrds, with furtherst confirmed kill @500 with my AR ;D). We hardly used the .17 since far less explosive effect at 100 yrds and you had to hold more with the wind, etc. Sounds like you may be on the heavy side, but it does kind of depend on how good of a shot you all are...if you can hit 6" target at 100-300 yrds, usually should be able to nail a P-dog in 1-2 shots depending in wind conditions. Good luck and have fun! We had a great time!

 

[Klong]

If you have plenty of dogs, you will wish you had about twice as many 223's. I think the HMR will be fun for a while, but with typical SD winds it will get frustrating. Them praire dogs learn not to stay up under a certain distance and that will be the frustrating thing.

 

[Joel]

I hunt the Dakota’s for PD’s about 15 day a year. The last couple of years I have averaged about 500 HMR, 6,000 .223, 1,500 22-250AI 1,000 6mmXC or 243 and 500 6.5 x 284. Most days it’s too windy to use the 17 HMR much past 100 yards.

 

[Viperdoc]

If you used 3,000 rounds of 223, does this mean you got around 2890 prairie dogs? (sorry). Well, my son and I have been reloading like mad, but only have around 900 rounds done. They are all pretty high quality rounds, new Lapua brass, CCI BR primers, and SMK 69 bullets, and all have been FL resized with a collet die, and then trimmed and chamfered. In other words, they are pretty work intensive, since my original purpose was for target shooting. Probably overkill for PD's.

Sounds like we need to get cranking.

 

[Joel]

For hit percentages they are about 90% with the 17 HMR, 80% with the .223, 75% with the 22-250 AI, 50% with the 6mm and about 25% with the 6.5 x 284. The 17 HMR is used to 125 yards. The 223 is used out to 300 with 40 gr,( with 55’s out to 400). The 22-250AI is used 300 to 550. The 6mm is used for 400 to 800 yard shots. The 6.5 is used for the 700 to 1,000 yard shots.

In the .223 the 69 SMK will hold wind well but they don’t have the splat factor of the 40 – 55 gr varmint bullets. I do not recommend 69 gr SMK as a primary bullet because they ricochet more than a more explosive bullet. Most of the areas I shoot have heavy cattle populations so I mostly shoot 40 gr Ballistic tips in the 223. If the wind is really kicking up or if use the 223 in the 300 to 400 yard range I switch to 55 gr BT’s. I only use 55’s in my 22-225 AI.

In my primary caliber I always use the most explosive bullet possible. It kills the PD’s better and more importantly it doesn’t ricochet in the cow/horse/sheep a couple of hundred yards away.

 

[Rustystud]

I have been in good dog towns and shot 1200-1500 rounds in a day. I found that it required 4 rifles so three can be cooling down all the time. It also depends on the temperature. I have burned the finish off a nice stocks. I have lost the temper in an old style Sako extractors. I have melted the nylon cover on a Old style Dewey cleaning rod. I have had burns on my hands from contact with hot barrels or hot brass.

I found if I shot much over 750 rounds per day, for more than 3-4 days I got sore in my ribs, elbows and neck. Most of the places I have shot prarrie dogs had these little cactus growing in the grass. I highly recomend the elbo and knee pads with the plastic armor on them. I also recomend a good shooting mat. Those little cactus will ruin a shooting coats and or shoes. I will throw away a pair of Top Sider shoes after a prarie dog shoot because the little cactus spines will continue to fine you after you get home. I like the 10X10 pop-up tents. Be sure to bring some stakes to tie it down(wind). In the past I built several rifles with water jackets and carried a cooler of Ice water and IV tubing to keep my rifles cool. This was nice especially with larger calibers. But I found 223 with a 50grain SX bullet running 3300-3400 did a great job. I have hunted those little creatures wiith many rifles from rimfire to magnums and still think the 223 is the best bang for the buck.

Nat Lambeth

 

[Viperdoc]

Will have to start cranking on the ammo. Sounds like you could easily go through a barrel's entire life just on one trip. Hate to use up my new Krieger, but maybe this is the cost of going PD shooting? I figured the 17 was cheap to shoot, and good out to around 150 with little wind.

I have a good shooting mat, but also have a RCBS portable bench (very well made, but very heavy). We will be flying and then renting a full size SUV, and I was thinking of bringing both. Any recommendations on bench versus mat?

Was also going to bring a predator call- seems to me that if there are PD's, there should also be coyotes? Or, is this too much in the way of stuff to bring.

Already, it's looking like we need more logistical planning than the Normandy invasion.

 

[people]

I am in ND and go PD shooting a lot. I would say bring more 223. I have used all kinds of brass for my 223 including Gov. My current lot of 4,000 is RP brass(got it cheap). I normally plan on bringing about 1,000rds of 223 for each day I shoot. If you pack it right you can get 870 to 900 rds in a 30cal can and 1,500 in a 50 cal can. That is on top of my other rifles I bring with. I load all of my 223 PD ammo on my Dillon. I just use my match seater. I do not know if it helps over the standard seater but it makes me happy.

I also shoot bullets that are smaller. I used to shoot 50gr Speer TNT but the price got out of hand. They used to be $45.00 per 1,000. I now shoot Hornady 52 gr HPBT Match bullets as the cost of those are not much different than the Speer. I like to see the splat when I get good hits. I do like the 69gr bullets for Coyotes.

One thing you will want to have is a way to put water down the tube of your rifle.
I also drilled holes in the free float tube of my 15 to allow air flow and help keep it cool.

 

[jerrschmitt]

This topic comes up every year about this time and I keep hearing about the quantity of ammo people bring and I'm amazed every time. A 10 hour day has 600 minutes in it. If you shoot one round per minute, each and every minute for 10 hours you'll shoot 600 rounds. No pee break, no lunch break, no gun cleaning break, no walk out to measure the shot and snap a photo break. Not hard to do for an hour or two but prairie dogs aren't dumb and people get tired.

This year I'll be taking 5 Rifles. A rimfire with 400 rounds, a .223 with 450 rounds, a 6BR 14 twist with 500 rounds, a 6 BR 8 twist with 400 rounds and a .243 AI with 400 rounds. I expect to return at the end of the week with ammo left over like I always do. I don't let my rifles get hot. The 243 is good for about 10 rounds and then I put it up for a while. 6BR's can be shot a little longer and .223 longer still.

Why you would ruin a gun by getting it hot enough to melt the coating off the cleaning rod is beyond me.

 

[Viperdoc]

I have heard of people running CO2 from a cylinder through their barrel to cool. My AR has a match stainless barrel which is new this year and probably already has 1500 rounds through it. I suppose it should go to 6,000 or so, but I hate to shoot out a new barrel within one year. I can't believe that shock cooling a barrel can in any way be good for it.

 

[people]

When I go out to shoot PD I go to shoot PD. I say high and do all the pleasantries then it is business time. I take my two 20rd mags loaded with 15 each and my three 30rd mags if I walk away from the car. Sometime I will also bring a 30cal can of ammo with. When I am by the car I just keep one 20rd mag loaded with 15 (just in case) and shoot from the other stopping only to load that mag and to cool the tube. It is very easy to shoot up 500rds to 1,000 of ammo per day. It is very hard to shoot a bolt that hard. Not to say it can not be done but it is harder. Some days the dogs just want to die. With that being said I am a snob when it comes to shooting PD I will not stay at a town where they go down after seeing me or the first shot or only come up near the 1,000 yd mark. Those towns should be poisoned off. On this tube my AR-15 has I am at almost 7,000rds. I think it will hold to the 10 to 12,000 rd mark. I am hopping for 12. The last one was about 10 to 11,000. Do not remember where it was any more. Most people I know are deer hunters and think I am crazy for shooting that many rounds at PD. I think it is insanity to hold all year and then take one shot at 150yds to get a deer. Now one shot at 500 - 800yds that is all kinds of good.

With the AR-15 flattop a person can push into their bipod and take very fast well aimed shots. It is very easy to shoot 15 rds as fast as a person can move the scope to a new target and work the trigger. Most of the time it only requires a very small movement in the scope to be on a new target. I have a Jewel trigger set very low. Long pull but not much for weight. Shooting like this it is very easy to shoot one round every couple seconds if not faster. There is a small town by a dog town I shoot at and their lagoon is next to the PD town kind of like a buffer between the two. Here is a little story of one of the times I went out. The wind was blowing very hard that day and I was able to sneak around the pond berm. I fired almost 500rds as fast as I could load mags and letting the tube cool enough so I could hold it. I am not saying it was not hot but I could always hold it before the next 30rd string almost as fast as I can work the trigger. That day I was able to shoot as fast as I could and never take a shot farther than 200yds. I did need to move forward a couple times. When I was loading my mags I just put the rifle up on the berm a little so it would be more in the wind. I would like to know how many total rds I fired and start and stop time.

Here in ND the wind always blows most days and is 10 or more. So heat builds up but for the most part it is not too bad. I still run a lot of water down my tube. Then a patch and I am ready to rock again. I have been shooting on 100+ days with no wind and yes those days it is almost impossible to shoot 500rds let alone 1,000 rds.

 

[Klong]

I have shot PD's several times. Usually 2 days hunting at a time. After the first day and shooting a lot of dogs, the second is more about quality, challenging shots. Long shots are more the norm (350 to 600 yards) with a 223 and 40 to 52 grain bullets. The 52 HPBT are used for doubles and tripples (line them up) help with the kill ratio ;D. We only used it when we had more than 1 mile of clear area behind the target. We could hear this bullet ricochet.

I always hunted with a buddy and carried at least two 223's and a 22lr, with hollow points. I would shoot 20 shots and let the barrel cool and the buddy shoot, then I would shoot the second rifle 20 shots. 1 shooter and 1 spotter. After 80 shots each it was time to move and clean. We would move and clean while the dogs settled back down at the new place and came out to see what was up.

We use the 100 round ammo boxes. A kill ment the empty case went in the box mouth down and a miss went in mouth up. Made it easy to tally up at the end of the day.

We shot from a table I built and hunted with it from the back of the truck. (We have snakes here)
Wind can play a big part in your kill ratio. When possible set up to shoot into or with the wind.

We killed more than 500 each trip and had a blast.