Handgun Hunting Discussion

The wife and I took a little vacation and went to Custer SD. after that we sidelined over to Buffalo Wy. to visit friends and get in a bit of prairie dog abatement. She had never been, and has been pestering me since I went years ago. She used her Tikka 223, since it was her first time and I didn’t want her having issues with hitting the dogs at distance and in the wind. I took my XP in 223, and tried out a rifle scope on it instead of its normal handgun scope.

The scope was a Burris XTR2 2-10x with a nice long range reticle utilizing wind and elevation hash marks in moa. I’ve never used a rifle scope in this manner but considering the light recoil of the 223, figured I was safe from scope eyebrow. She had a similar scope and reticle only in XTR3 guise and 3.3-18x.

We only had two days and wanted to get our friends kids as many shots on dogs as they could get, since they were only able to go for one day. Sherry and I took 35 ourselves the first day and the kids got 50+. They had a blast using 22 rimfire and .223 rifles, the un hunted PDogs allowing all shots inside 250 yards. The rimfire shooter took one a 210 yards, using her Tikka 22 rimfire rifle. The wind was light considering Wy. standards, 5-15mph.

Day two had Sherry and I on our own and the winds picked up to 30mph with most being 15-20mph for most of the day. We situated ourselves so we were mostly facing the wind and later having the wind at our back. Only a few shots were with full value winds, most slightly quartering. Still needing 4-8moa wind consideration, it was really good practice reading wind and figuring hold offs.

We decided before shooting we wanted to try for 100 dogs, but by mid day with the wind we only had 20-30. Again no shots exceeding 300 yards, due to plenty of targets. We decided to move to an upwind position and try to use the vehicle as a wind break for us. The buffeting would move us enough to keep from a steady hold. That tactic helped tremendously, by 4pm we were at 80 dogs, and looking like we could pull off our 100 dog goal. As it got later the dogs weren’t as plentiful, and Sherry was struggling to keep her eyes focused with the wind and dust blowing. I let her take the last few shots and she simply could not maintain focus with her eyes.

So she spotted and I went to work with the XP, making a 7 dog one shot each run, my best one yet. We closed in on 100, and needed 2 more to make it. The late evening sun made the dogs shine and spotting them was easier, but finding them was harder due to less numbers. When we finally ended the day, no shots were taken over 300 yards which was amazing considering previous shoots with rifles had shots routinely out to 300-500 yards. The day ended with 111 dogs.

Her load was a Sierra 40gr.HP and given the relatively short distances some spectacular destruction was witnessed through the binoculars. My load was a Sierra 55gr. HP, and only going 3100 fps or so. So less destructive but still some flying PDog action witnessed by the wife when she was spotting.