Wy P-dogs 2010

Well we had a great time over Memorial Day weekend in WY. Found out a few things this year.

A 22-250 actually kicks a little after shooting all day.

A 16" barreled AR-15 shooting 40 grain vmaxs is not the best for p-dogs in the wind over 200 yards.

And the 6mmBR shooting 105 amaxs around 2900 fps is awsome at longer range in the wind. The first one I hit with the BR as at 400+ yards and it through that sucker in the air like it was hit with a 22-250 at 100 yards!!! Awsome to say the least. I also got my longest confirmed kill this year at 705 yards with the 6BR.

Here is a pic of the 705! If you look in the background above my right shoulder you can see a spot thats my truck we were shooting from.
http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/...Dog2010033.jpg

Here I am shooting the 22-250.

[img width=600 height=450]http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af169/seiprairiedoghunters/Matts%20WY%202010%20P-dogs/P-Dog2010032.jpg[/img]

And here is one of the towns.


[img width=600 height=450]http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af169/seiprairiedoghunters/Matts%20WY%202010%20P-dogs/P-Dog2010025.jpg[/img]

Looks like you really had fun. Thanks for posting the pictures I enjoyed them a lot.

Man that place looks awful familiar.......

I liked using my 6br last year also, and also had my longest kill shot with it at 872 yds.

then we talked pdog06 into walking ALL the way out to check it , that was fun

Good report and glad you found some dogs. The dogs around here are down enough I headed for Colorado(newest boomtown waiting for the plague to find it) over memorial weekend. Had the bobsee twinns(CZ American in 223 and an old left handed Tacticle with a flutted 204 barrel) out for most of it. They both are topped with 12x Leupolds and shoot to same POA to 300 yards.
It being Memorial weekend I also took along a couple of guns from fellow shooters who are no longer with us...The 308 Baer that Murph traded me into did an alright job of dispatching dogs with a 210 grain Berger getting 16 for 20 past 300 yards. Not the most cost effective round for dogs but sure did bring back some great memories!! I had almost forgoten how much fun a 22lr can be untill I brought out Iwegion Joes favorite 22lr. That old Ruger 77-22 maybe dont send them flipping but they aint safe inside of 250 yards. I can still hear that old Norwegion farmer giggleing like a school girl when that little 22 connected on a long shot.
The camera didnt catch this Colorado sunset near as good as my memory did
[img width=600 height=305]http://photos.imageevent.com/cjnmn/outandabout/websize/Memorial%2010%20019.jpg[/img]

I am about a week out from heading there myself . . can hardly wait. This year I am going to take 3 - .223's with me, nearly melted the barrel off my Winchester last year, not going to do that again . . ;D .. My personal opinion - for what it's worth, the .223 is about the best all round gun for the PD's there is. Now - if you like to reach the long distances - 300+ yup, mo bigger gun !! By the end of the day, if and when we get bored with the mid range stuff, we will break out the 22-250's and have a good time with them out over the 300 yard line, but for the most part it is a "Social" event, more fun talking about the hits - than actually doing it anymore . . . ::) Some people just have to spend their money on something that they enjoy . . . right ?? Besides, I can't see them that well out past about 500 anymore, toooooo old eyes . . . :)

Did you do the entire shoot off the ground . . ? OUCH . . my ole body won't do that anymore. We got us some Big Shooter stands and have them mounted on a trailer . . much better . . ;) Saves on the ole body getting up and down. I usually shoot off of Burris Bi-pods, but it takes too long to switch them around - so this year I bought a nice Caldwell solid rest for the front and have it all ready to go, let's see how that works . . ?

I'll post some pictures when I get back . . after the 4th of July . .

Yeah we did almost all the shooting off the ground. 7 guys in two trucks and we really don't have room for 7 benches. I did bring a couple though. The first one is a cheapo "big game" fold up shooting bench. Found if its windy you are better off to lay down. The second pic is of me setting up the 6mmBR for the long shots. Thats a bench I built right before we left. Very stable, just takes a bit to get set up.
[img width=600 height=405]http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af169/seiprairiedoghunters/Matts%20WY%202010%20P-dogs/shootinoffthebench.jpg[/img]

[img width=600 height=450]http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af169/seiprairiedoghunters/Matts%20WY%202010%20P-dogs/SettingUPthe6BR.jpg[/img]

I would alternate between laying down prone and sitting up with legs crossed. Helped my back and stomach from hurting as bad.

Question does anyone here shoot a bench style rifle (you know with the 3"wide forearm) off a bechrest pedistal but laying on the ground? I was doing some research on long range competion shooting and it looks like F-class is shot off pedistal rests on the ground.

Maybe thats what I'll start practicing and next year can shoot the 6BR a little more just off the ground.

This is a picture of our PD Rig . . I know, Roughing it . . . ;) But when you get over 60, the ground is not a friend . . . ;D I used to do alot of Ground Squirrel shooting off the ground . . no more, OUCH !! This is much more comfortable and is really a very stable platform to shoot from. We put the tail gate down and the trailer has some jacks that we extend down and then put the trailer wheel down and crank it down . . almost like a bench. The only thing we do is if one guy is going to shoot a long shot we have a signal to be still and that works out really good for us. Too much movement will jar the cross-hairs around some, not too much but anything over about 250 yards it is best to be as still for the other guy as possible. . .

[img width=600 height=450]http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii138/13phantom/PD-08-1.jpg[/img]

We have the Umbrellas when it isn't windy, if the wind comes up we take them down and just use Sun Screen and big hats . . the sun is no longer a friend either . . :) Here you can see the extended jacks on the rear and the trailer wheel down, if we had stayed much longer than about 1/2 hr. we would have put the tail gate down, then the guy in the rear can shoot nearly 300* and if the Rhino is driven off a distance both of us can shoot nearly in a circle . . In this area we were shooting pretty much to just the one side - away from the picture, Oklahoma Panhandle . . And as a matter of fact about an hour later after this picture was taken the wind came up and nearly blew us off the shoot . . typical Oklahoma Weather . . . Windy !! It may not look like it, but there were a lot of Dogs in this area . . we were taking a lunch break when I took this picture. As you can see, there are several rifles in the back of the Rhino, we kept 3 rifles hot for most of the morning and into the after noon, till the wind came up . .

Like I say, I am about a week out from going and getting ready by the day . . I will post some pictures when I get back . .

Phantom: We have almost the identical rig. Except we use an 12'x12' EZ UP canopy that takes 5 min for the 2 of us to put up and we are out of the sun all day. And if it is windy we just use the ground stakes and we are set to go. Dale ;D

We move around a lot and don't want to mess with the large canopy's . . The Umbrella's work really good during the middle of the day, late afternoon they are kind of useless. We may sit in one place for an hour or so and then move to an area the is closer to them or to another area all together. Last year we were shooting on nearly a section of land so we let them kind of "Cool Down" some and move. After a while we have shot nearly all that we can get to easily and some of the long range ones, then we move, kind of keeps them from getting "too" gun shy. By the 3rd day we found that they were getting gun shy - we whipped up on them pretty bad, and then we were using the 6PPCs and 22-250's to do the job. We also have some really long range equipment, and getting to having a good time with them for a while.

Phantom- what kind of benches are us using there? Or are they home brew type? We keep talking about bringing a trailer or two with wheelers on them, then converting them to shooting platforms when we get there.

All the tripod style benches that Cabelas had I was not that impressed with the stability. Maybe they just needed a little more attention when put together!

Ya Phantom where did you get the rotating bench"s. They sort of look like the sharp shooter bench's that Cabela's sells but I can not quite tell. ???

The site is: http://www.thebigshooter.com/ . . These are attached with straps as you can see in the picture, last year before we went he made some receivers for the uprights that hold the tables. Makes for a much nicer stand, they won't move around when we are going from place to place and we don't get our feet tangled up in the straps. We made another modification to them, the stand is held together with 1/2" bolts, so I bought some new - longer ones and cut the threads off and drilled a hole through them to accept a flip pin - like they use in the military, and that makes for a much better and quicker set up of the tables . . I would highly recommend doing that.

The ones from Cabela's are a bit flimsy and they don't move around well on the ground, if we take the legs that he got with his we can sit them on the ground and shoot off them that way, but the trailer is so much better and it puts us another 12 to 14" higher off the ground, we can see further out - better. . . ;D What would be really nice is to have them in the back of a truck, about another 30" higher, but we can live with what we have quite well . . . ;D

I guess if I was much higher I would shoot more ammo . . ouch !! Shot nearly 1000 rounds last year, not going to run out this year . . I am taking plenty . . been loading all year for this . .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by phantom

The Umbrella's work really good during the middle of the day, late afternoon they are kind of useless.

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They arent useless if you use a clamp for your table that will allow the umbrella to swivel, such as this one. Funny, it also doubles as a tool at my work...LOL. The base clamps to the table, then the other pc threads onto it and will swivel 360degrees. Then you can keep adjusting it as the sun moves so that you have shade all day long.

here it is in action, at different angles for different parts of the day.

[img width=600 height=400]http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t106/pdog06_photos/huntin%20and%20animal%20pics/wyoming09021.jpg[/img]

[img width=600 height=400]http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t106/pdog06_photos/huntin%20and%20animal%20pics/wyoming09147.jpg[/img]

[img width=600 height=400]http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t106/pdog06_photos/huntin%20and%20animal%20pics/wyoming09111.jpg[/img]

Hey - I like the idea of a swivel base . . the ones we had there were a quick set up by my cousin at the time, we may work on that idea of a smaller umbrella and swivel bases . . I think for the most part we are moving about every hour or so and we just didn't want to have to take them down all the time to move . . at least that is what worked out with them, we put them up for a while and then when we moved - took them down and didn't put them back up. Then if the wind comes up like it did the past couple of years, they really get to having an influence on the shooting benches . . so much so that they won't stay still, nearly blew our hats off it was so stiff - that and we had to go to the bigger calibers to shoot over 150 yards. . ;D If there is no wind, that would be the Cats Meow . . we will work on that idea though - thanks !!