Caliber choice for prairie dogs

[Prairie]

Well, my battery consists of a .204 Ruger, two .22-250's, a .220 Swift and a couple .243's. All are a lot of fun to shoot and tack drivers! Gotta love it!

 

[emp1953]

22-250 gets my vote, close up, far away, it smokes em no matter what the range is. They poof real good with that round too.

 

[Dean2]

Since you are flying and can only take tw0 rifles you need something with splat, distance and that will keep the barrel cool. I would take a 17 FB and a 22 Hornet. You can pack twice as much ammo for the same weight as a 223, very accurate to 350 yards and won't heat the barrel under fairly rapid fire. If you want to try long distnace Pdog shooting rather than volume then the choice would be different.

 

[Panhandle Pete]

Out to 150 yards: 17 HMR
150-300 yards: 204 or 223
300-500 yards: 22-250
500+: 243 or 6.5 Creedmoor

17 HMR is usually our truck gun when driving between or through prairie dog towns.

Centerfires provide so much more "splat" factor and for economics it's tough to beat the 204 or 223 but the 22-250 gives more consistent acrobatics in my experience, especially over 400 yards.

For the long shots it's worth it to take a 6mm or larger. My personal best was 1404 yards with my 6 Creedmoor.

Ditto on the 17 HMR- calm days 150 yards is easy & can stretch the yardage sometimes on dead calm days, use Hornady 17 grain VMax- stay away from the 15.5 grain round- 2nd -204 Ruger with 40 grain VMax over 8208 XBR powder, mine love this combo and the most explosive between these three 39rain Sierra or 40 grain Nosler BT- 3rd- any one of these 22-250- 243 Win- 6XC- 250 Savage AI- any one of these are the go to in stronger winds and further distances. accuracy and proper bullet/powder selection is the key to all of these rounds.

 

[psdan000]

Appreciate all the input on this thread! Our trip is complete. I ended up taking 3 rifles. A friend of mine asked me to take her deceased fathers Ruger No. 1 in .204 out there with me to shoot some dogs for him. I gladly accepted. My personal main rifle of choice was a Remmy 700 VLS in .204. It performed great out there. I was shooting 32 grain bullets at 3900fps and 300 yards was a piece of cake. 307 yards was the farthest shot I had to take with it. I also decided to take a custom LRI .308 with me as I've never had a chance to really stretch it out. Got to shoot steel at 500 with it and it was a lot of fun. Also shot a few dogs with it but that was a bit overall. My other 3 buddies all took .22-250's. We were shooting factory loaded 45 grain stuff and it was performing very well out to 300 no issues. I think the first 10 shots, 9 were hits from 150-300 yards. We also tinkered around with a .17hmr. Wind was not an issue the days we shot so the .17 was fun but not as "acrobatic" as the .204 or .22-250 of course. All in all, it was a great trip. We have some great people we know out there that took great care of us and got to shoot as many dogs as we wanted. We're already planning our next trip! A few pics for fun (wish I would have taken more), thanks for all the input guys!
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[arch408]

Depends. Most of the time on the farm, i carry a .22LR for chance pot shots. For dedicated hunting, I like my .204, Before i got my .204, choice was the .223 followed by the .22-250 and .17Rem. Sometimes, just for grins, I'll take my super accurate Anschutz .17HMR or my .17M2. Once, on a deer hunt, we happened on a prairie dog town, and took some time out and shot them with our muzzle loaders. I even killed one with my .350 Rem Mag. So take the rifles you like to shoot the best. If I could only take one, it would be the.204. Have fun!

 

[SummitOh]

22-250 and .220 Swift

 

[el pato]

Pre 64 243 win