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Old 09-21-2016, 07:02 PM
Silverfox Silverfox is offline
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Default ND PD Hunt on 9-20-2016

I left Williston at 8:44 a.m. and arrived at my parking place on the west end of the dog town I was going to shoot in at 10:00 a.m. It had begun to rain when I was about 8 miles from the dog town. I had parked my pickup in the trees on the west end of the PD town and needed to check the point of impact on the two rifles I was going to use today. I had checked the weather forecast and there was a tiny chance of rain, but not much. Well, that “not much chance of rain” had been falling for quite a while. It kept raining even after I parked my PU so I set my wrist watch alarm and was going to take a nap when I noticed an object up on the top of a scoria butte to the NNW of where I was parked. I got my binoculars out and saw that it was a pretty nice antelope buck. I grabbed my camera with the big zoom lens and zoomed in to 300X and snapped a couple photos. I thought I could see some additional antelope down below him on the sunny side of the butte and sure enough there were four does there.

Here’s the photo that turned out the best. The pictures get rather grainy when I zoom up to 300X. I didn’t range how far away they were, but I’d guess they were over 3/4 of a mile away. I took a nap and when I woke up, the buck was lying down, but still up at the top of the butte.


When the rain quit around 11:00 a.m., I set up my target box at 100 yards west of my pickup and started shooting. After a few shots I glanced up towards where the antelope had been and they were not there. I finished sighting in my two rifles and got my gear ready and set off to see if there were any PDs around to shoot at. I had 22 rounds for my Stiller Predator action .17 Remington I wanted to use up. I had a load of 22.9 gr. of Varget and that is almost a half grain over the max and the bolt lift is somewhat hard when trying to eject those spent casings. I’ll be working up a load that isn’t as hot. I also had 20 rounds of 25 gr. FBHP Kindler Gold reloads for my tight neck .17 Remington with the BLACKNITRIDED™ barrel that I wanted to shoot. That’s the last of the four hundred 25 gr. Kindler Golds I bought several years ago. Now, I’ll have to decide if I want to shoot the 30 gr. T-000 Nagels, the 25 gr. T-000 Nagels or the 25 gr. V-Max. I’ll probably save the 30 gr. T-000 Nagels for coyotes and since I only have 400 of the 25 gr. T-000 Nagels I’ll use those up and start using the 2,000 25 gr. V-Max bullets I have on hand. I’ll probably wind up using the 25 gr. V-Max bullets for prairie dog shoots for all my .17 Remingtons. That’s the bullet I’m reloading for my son and grandson’s rifle and once I have shot all the 25 gr. T-000 Nagels, I’ll use the 25 gr. V-Max in my tight neck .17 Remington for PDs in the summer. The 25 gr. V-Max has a BC of .225, which I think is higher than the BC of the 25 gr. T-000 Nagels. However, the 25 gr. T-000 Nagels shoot great out of my .17 Remingtons so I might change my mind about ordering more of those.

I finished getting the scopes adjusted at 11:40 and was walking ENE in the PD town by 11:55 with the Stiller Predator action. I ordered the Stiller’s Picatinny rail for this action and it is chambered in .17 Remington. I added a Remington 700 BDL conversion kit in silver for the bottom metal. The stock on this rifle is a Bell & Carlson Tactical Medalist vertical grip stock in tan with black webbing. The scope is a silver Leupold VX-3 in 6.5-20x4mm LR with the fine duplex reticle. I wish I could have found silver rings!! When I had this rifle built I added a Jewell trigger and also added an aluminum trigger shoe to that trigger.

I figured I should be able to get those 22 shells fired and be back at my pickup in an hour or so in time for lunch. I shot my first PD of the day at 11:59 and had to take a photo of that one. Here’s the rifle and the first victim.


This PD was turned somewhat sideways and looking my way when I shot him. I hit him just inside his left front shoulder and blew the stuffing out the other side. Here’s a collage of the entrance wound on the left and on the right is a close-up of the exit wound. I don’t think he suffered very much.



My second shot happened at 12:05, and third shot at 12:15. Seventeen minutes later I took my 7th shot of the day. SLOOOOOWWW GOING!!! So the time required to shoot 22 rounds DID NOT WORK OUT the way I planned. There weren’t many PDs out and when there were a couple out and I shot one, the others disappeared and didn’t come back up. At 1:13 p.m. I started to walk in a big circle so I would wind up back at the pickup. I still had 6 unfired shells and finally found a spot where there were some PDs that stayed above the ground even after I shot a PD pretty close to them. I finished shooting all 22 shells and was back at the pickup by 1:34 p.m.

I drove east along the 2-track trail and parked in the shade of some trees so I could have lunch and take a short nap. As I was approaching those trees, the antelope buck and his four does evidently had circled all the way around me and got down wind and I scared them up out of the trees. They ran off to the north. I had lunch, took about an hour long nap and got my tight neck .17 Remington out and ready for the afternoon outing.

I only had 20 shells I needed to shoot and was hoping it wouldn’t take me an hour and 35 minutes to shoot 20 shells like it had for me to shoot 22 shells in the morning. I found a couple spots where there were 3 or 4 PDs I could pop from one spot, but most of the time it was a singleton here and a singleton there. I managed to finish off the last shell at 4:42 so it only took me one hour and 12 minutes to shoot those 20 shells. I had gone 20 for 22 with the Stiller Predator action .17 Remington and went 18 for 20 with the tight neck .17 Remington. In the first hunt I tried a couple of shots in excess of 225 yards with a direct side wind of about 10 mph and missed on those. In the afternoon hunt the missed shots were ones where I was using an old dead tree branch to rest the rifle on and I was wiggling like a bunny’s nose wiggles and missed on those 2 shots. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!!

Sorry, but there isn’t a “Hero Photo” and there’s no blossom photos for today either.
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Old 09-21-2016, 07:42 PM
Bill K Bill K is offline
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Default ND PD Hunt

Again Silverfox and great as always. Enjoy reading you comments, information and ventures in the Flora and Fauna. Bill K
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Old 09-22-2016, 01:41 AM
Joe McNeill Joe McNeill is offline
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Thanks Silverfox, you really do have fun doing what you do and I have fun reading about it.
Regards,

Joe McNeill
SW Arkansas
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Old 09-22-2016, 02:24 AM
Silverfox Silverfox is offline
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Bill K--Thanks for letting me know you enjoy my prose. I am just a sharing person

Joe McNeill--You have me pegged correct. I thoroughly enjoy blasting those little prairie poodles and it is good to hear you enjoy reading about. it Thanks for letting me know.
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Old 09-22-2016, 08:59 AM
Kiwishooter Kiwishooter is offline
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Silverfox, since you are so caring do you want to adopt a kiwi and train him in the art of shooting, flora and fauna

Your stories are a great read and highlight the things I miss and would love the opportunity of enjoying them again one day.........Thanks, Kiwi
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Old 09-22-2016, 06:51 PM
Silverfox Silverfox is offline
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Kiwishooter--

Quote:
Silverfox, since you are so caring do you want to adopt a kiwi and train him in the art of shooting, flora and fauna
It sounds like you are asking me to adopt you and train you to shoot photos of flora and fauna. Is that assumption correct? I'm a little too old to adopt anyone, but if you make it to North Dakota I could take you out to a dog town and try to help you take photos.

It sounds like you have been over here in the States before and I hope you will have the chance to make it over here again to do some shooting.
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Old 09-22-2016, 10:21 PM
Nor Cal Mikie Nor Cal Mikie is offline
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Anybody that can shoot a bit, get in a nap, shoot a bit more, have some lunch then get in another nap, has all of his priorities in the right place. My kind on MAN!! YOU SIR are my kind of teacher. Please keep the range reports coming.
Mikie likes it!!
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Old 09-23-2016, 08:26 AM
Kiwishooter Kiwishooter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silverfox View Post
Kiwishooter--



It sounds like you are asking me to adopt you and train you to shoot photos of flora and fauna. Is that assumption correct? I'm a little too old to adopt anyone, but if you make it to North Dakota I could take you out to a dog town and try to help you take photos.

It sounds like you have been over here in the States before and I hope you will have the chance to make it over here again to do some shooting.
Lol not quite correct, shooting pd's and learning about the flora and fauna sounds like a pretty good pass time between naps.

Yes I have been to the US a few times, perhaps you recall these two threads, one has a couple of pics of another member here taking me pd shooting.
http://www.saubier.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10488
http://www.saubier.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29444

I do hope to come back sometime for another shooting trip, until then I look forward to the stories members on here post.............Kiwi
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