My handloads on P-dogs

[stimpylu32]

The only factory ammo that I shot at the shoot was 22LR and 22 Mag , all the rest were my loads . found some things that I didn't expect . all of my .22 cal CFs did very well on the little guys .

My .224 GNR did a great job with both the 52 grain Sierra's @ .224 and the Speer 40 grain @ .223 , I would have thought that the there would be a diffrence but out to 300 yards the POI was very close ( with in an inch vert. ) both used the same powder charge so I think the extra FPS helped 40's hold POI .

Next was the 218 Bee , the 35 grain V-max @ .224 and the 40 grain SP Sierra's @ .223 did quite well out to 150 yards , when the wind was down , lite bullets and 30 mph wind do not mix well . 

The one that made the most diffrence was with my .223 Rem , both loads were using the 55 grain V-max , one was with my goto load of IMR4895 and the other was a max load of BLC-2 , with thw IMR load zeroed at 200 yards the BLC load shot a consistent 12" lower and 4" to the right at the same range . Now that I have some time I will load a batch of both and shoot them for FPS just to see what is causing the shift in POI .

stimpy

[Graybeard]

I didn't shoot enough to get down to my reloads. I fired one round of .22LR and killed one prairie dog real dead with it. Each spot I began using my Remington Model Seven Predator in .17 Fireball and Remington factory ammo with the 20 grain plastic tip bullet supposedly moving out at 4000 fps. It was a death ray on prairie dogs. On Saturday morning over at Mr. Bohlman's place it didn't miss a time at the first spot we stopped. Each time it went bang one or at times two prairie dogs died.

Hornady is still out of stock on dies for it so I was unable to reload for it but since the factory stuff shoots into tiny little half inch groups I'm not sure I can match it when the dies do finally arrive. I bought up 33 boxes of the factory stuff for the trip and still have a LOT of it left for latter. I am looking forward to working up some loads for it when the dies become available. I have Hornady bullets in 20 and 25 grain weights and some Bergers as well if the dies ever get here.

For my Remington SPS Varmint .22-250 I had 16 boxes of Hornady factory ammo with the 50 grain V-MAX and never got those shot up so didn't bother with the 200+ rounds of my reloads I had in reserve. That factory stuff shot so well I decided to begin with it but really my reloads seemed to shoot just as good and at 100 yards to the same POI.

I didn't even break out my Remington SPS Varmint .223 the entire trip. I had close to 1000 rounds of my hand loads for it ready but they had been worked up for a different rifle and while they stayed under an inch consistently in it they didn't shoot nearly as well in this rifle as the .17 Fireball or the .22-250 did so it never got used on the trip.

Since I can't take the sunshine or the heat of day I was done before noon each day and wasn't about to go back out to shoot in that bright sunshine and heat of day so I probably shot less than most anyone else other than Grampa Mike as he got sick and missed Saturday morning. But it's not about who shoots the most it's about having fun and meeting folks and of course eating up all that good food Dan puts out for us. On that I definitely did my fair share as I was able to wait until the sun was nearly down and then get in the shade for my eating so I was not in the least hampered in my eating of Dan's cooking.

Seeing and meeting the new folks not at the first shoot I attended was fun and now I can associate a face with the user names here. Mike and Donna are great travel companions who went out of their way to make my trip a pleasant one. They are both just as nice to be with as I was sure they would be from my time with them at PD shoot #1.