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Old 07-26-2015, 06:31 PM
Silverfox Silverfox is offline
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Default HOT Day on a ND PD Town 7-22-2015--Part 1

Once again, I have more photos than this board allows in one post, so this will be another 2-part post.

I have a Tikka Master Sporter in .22-250. I had a 1 in 12 Brux barrel given the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment in the fall of 2013 and had my gunsmith install that on my Tikka. I had two other rifle barrels chamber and installed and they both had the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment. One is a .17 Remington and the other is a .204 Ruger and I spent the majority of my time working up loads for those two rifles. Anyway, I started working to find a load for the Tikka late last fall and I am currently shooting the 50 gr. Hornady Z-Max bullets and liking them a bunch. However, a friend of mine suggested that I try the 53 gr. Hornady V-Max bullets. They have a BC of .290 compared to a BC of about .230 for the 50 gr. Z-Max bullets. He sent 25 of the bullets to me and I cleaned them and coated them with hBN. I didn’t have any empty Lapua brass so yesterday I went PD shooting in the afternoon!!!

It was a long day on Wednesday, July 22. My wife and I played 18 holes of golf early in the morning. Then we went to the Dakota Farms Family Restaurant and had breakfast. Next, we drove 15 miles SW of Williston to a little recreation area and recreated for about 20 minutes. We drove back home and I got my hunting duds on and drove about 50 miles SW of Williston and met a friend of mine at 1:45 p.m. He was working close to the area I was going hunt PDs in. We talked coyote hunting and PD shooting. He has a couple of tolling dogs that work really nice. We parted ways and he went back to work and I went PD shooting. It was 97º in the dog town!!!! I got back home around 9:30 p.m. Did I say, “It was a long day?!?!?!?”

I had a couple of areas in this dog town where the PDs don’t get shot at much. Those two areas were about 1.5 miles away from where I had to leave my pickup. So I walked and shot targets of opportunity on the way to my hot spot. I shot 15 shots and killed 15 PDs on my walk to the area I wanted to shoot at. Here’s one of the victims. The 50 gr. Z-Max really demolishes them!!


Below you can see my Tikka Master Sporter .22 250 with a BLACKNITRIDE™ treated Brux barrel with a 1 in 12 twist. I have a Nikon Monarch 3 scope with a Nikoplex reticle and the power range is 6-24x50mm. I like this scope a lot!!!


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Old 07-26-2015, 06:33 PM
Silverfox Silverfox is offline
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Default Part 2 of ND PD Hunt--7-22-2015

It took me almost two hours to walk to that plateau where the PDs don’t get shot at very often. I took my time and stopped to shoot a number of times and also rested in the shade I could find and drank some water. When I got up on the plateau where the PDs seemed somewhat tame, I shot 21 more shots up there. I missed on one shot at a PD with very dark fur. On the one I missed the wind was coming from left to right at about 10 mph and I’m sure I missed him to the right. He didn’t run, but did duck down and then stood up again. I allowed a little more for the wind and DID NOT miss on this shot!!! Here’s a photo of that PD with the really dark fur below.



On another shot I thought I might have nailed a double (but couldn’t find the second one).

I didn’t have my digital camera with me so I had to use my Smartphone camera. My arm wasn’t long enough to get the normal “Hero Photo” so I apologize for the poor quality photo, but I did the best I could with what I had. No, I didn’t touch that gut pile just below my right arm and below the rifle!!!


I managed to find a few blossoms that were still alive and snapped a few photos of them.



As I was walking back to the pickup, the wind died down so when it is 97º and there isn’t a whisper of wind it was mighty uncomfortable. I had taken 48 ounces of water with me and ran out. I shot two more PDs on my walk back to the pickup so I had taken 38 shots and had 37 confirmed kills and one of them was possibly a double. I had weighed myself on the bathroom scale Wednesday morning and then weighed again before I took my shower and I had lost 5 pounds during the day. I’m sure it was mostly water, even though I did try to stay hydrated. Anyway, now I have some brass I can use to shoot some test loads with the 53 gr. Hornady V-Max bullets. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!!
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Old 07-26-2015, 07:35 PM
bburrell bburrell is offline
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Silverfox,
How fun. I wish that I could have joined you. with regards to 22-250 and 50 grain bullets. The advantages of the 22-250 over the 204 are really only realized when you go to a bullet heavier than 50 grain. The terminal performance of 204 with a 39 or 40 grain bullet will surpass the 22-250 and 50 grain bullet somewhere in the 500 yd. range. Until then, you might as well save powder and recoil by shooting your 204. I hope that the 53 grainers work out for you. Of course, a 22-250 shooting any grain bullet accurately is great. Just a few thoughts I have gone through in selecting caliber and bullets. I went through the same thing with the 204 and 32 grn vs. 39 grn bullets. The 39 grn bullets out perform the 32 grn bullets after about 200 yds. So why do i still shoot 32 grn bullets? Because I picked up about 1,500 32 grn bullets very cheap, and, I just like to shoot. Keep shooting.
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Old 07-26-2015, 08:15 PM
Bill K Bill K is offline
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Default Hot day on a ND PD town

Again fine info and photo's SilverFox. Bill K
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Old 07-27-2015, 02:05 AM
Chad Chad is offline
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It was a hot one. Glad you to see you whacked them. I'll be in touch.
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Old 07-27-2015, 04:45 AM
georgeld georgeld is offline
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Always enjoy your hunt/shooting stories Leroy.
Nice pictures always.
Thanks for sharing with us.
Hit 98 degree's here today.
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Old 07-27-2015, 07:56 AM
Huntnlabs Huntnlabs is offline
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Very well done and nice pictures. What is that you have on top of your barrel running back under the scope? Walking in 97* heat would be too hot for my body to endure.
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Old 07-27-2015, 03:45 PM
Silverfox Silverfox is offline
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Huntnlabs--The white object on top of my barrel is a mirage shield. It is intended to keep the mirage waves from distorting your view through the scope. It also helps to keep the sun off the barrel if the sun is shining mostly from directly above the barrel. I really needed a "Heat Shield" to protect me from the sun too!!!
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Old 08-02-2015, 01:55 AM
livetoshoot livetoshoot is offline
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looks like you had a good day of fun. How much coyote hunting do you do? I'm actually located in williston also. I'd imagine we have shot at a few of the same PD's HAHA
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Old 08-02-2015, 08:55 PM
Silverfox Silverfox is offline
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livetoshoot--
Quote:
looks like you had a good day of fun.
You got that right!! Even though it was EXTREMELY HOT I still had a great time. As they say, "A day of hunting is better than a day of work anytime."

I don't get out to call coyotes as often as I used to when I was younger, but I do get out a dozen or so times each season. There was a time when I'd go out calling regardless of the 30º below zero temps and howling winds, but now days I hunker down in my easy chair and let the young whipper snappers go out in that weather and play in the snow

Quote:
I'd imagine we have shot at a few of the same PD's HAHA
That may well be. But you would be shooting at very few PDs that I have shot at since I don't miss very many that I put the crosshairs on now days. LOL When I first started to shoot prairie dogs back in about 1969, there were quite a few PDs that I missed. I had a bone stock factory rifle with a trigger that took about 10 pounds of pull to get the shot off and a 3-9x cheap scope. I have refined my stable of rifles since that time and my varmint rifles all have custom barrels on them and high powered glass, custom triggers, and my ammo is all hand crafted. I'm also a fan of killing as many PDs as I can so I don't take many shots at much over 250 yards. I hate wasting the cost of powder, primers and bullets if the bullet doesn't have a 99.9% chance of hitting the PD. When you get to my age the hands aren't as steady as they used to be and the eyesight certainly isn't what it was back in the "good old days." I'm not making excuses, just stating some of the facts about getting older. It beats the alternative though, so I'm really not complaining. I'm EXTREMELY happy to be able to get out and hunt.

Did you ever get in contact with Blaine Leisy about the Blackhole bullets or talk to C.E. Nagel about 30 gr. .172 caliber bullets??? I have never shot any of Blaine's bullets but have used quite a few of C.E. Nagel's 30 gr. T-000 bullets. They work great on coyotes, prairie dogs, and have been very accurate for me. Nagel's 25 gr. HP bullets have worked great for me too, but I have only used those on PDs.

I see you have been using some .204 Ruger brass from Nosler. I have found that to be GREAT quality brass. I have also found .204 Ruger Norma brass to be of high quality as well. I use neck-turned Nosler brass in my RB/LP Savage Target action .204 Ruger and the .204 Ruger Norma brass is what I am now using in my Savage 12VLP .204 Ruger with a super match grade 3-groove stainless steel Pac-Nor barrel with a 1 in 11 twist. This is one of the three barrels that I had the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment done on.
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Last edited by Silverfox; 08-02-2015 at 09:48 PM.
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