I am new to the Prairie dog shooting sport. I bought a 22-250 Encore and have been shooting about 6 times. My results very wildly in similar shooting conditions. Some days 25-33 % some days 75% . My shots are taken from 100 to 300 yards. I don't expect to hit all shots but I really think it is my gun. But my ? is for you guys that have been doing this a while what is realistic.? Is the bolt action the only way to go? I do reload 36 gr. varget 52 gr.bthp. I am considering a Rem. Varmint Lam. in 223 I know there is more to shooting than the gun but you must have the proper tool for the job. Please comment on this subject. Thanks

Depending on distance and weather conditions with a stable platform to shoot from I would say about 90%. At a minimum 75%.

What size five shot groups are you getting at 100 Yds. ? What power scope do you have on your rifle ? Are you useing a rifle rest ? What are the wind conditions when shooting ? A seven Lb. walking or a12 Lb. target- varmit rifle ? A prairie dog is about a 3X9 inch target ,pups 2X5 inches. Give us some data . Only accruate rifles with large power scopes are fun prairie dog rifles.

Get the 223. You will be able to shoot it when the 22-250 is cooling off. My friend bought a 22-250 first(ruger 77 varmint) and I got a 223(rem VLS).
He now also owns a 223 as of this year. He got tired of me being able to shoot more during a session. I now have a 25-06 for the long range shot or two, but still use the 223 most.

Joe

When I first started shootin dogs I really never kept track of hits and misses. Over time I did start keeping a few informal notes just for comparision. On really windy days my percentages can go pretty low ....under 70% and another thing you quickly discover esspecially if you shoot the same basic area is that they figure out your effective range and won't come out unless they are outside it.
Calm cool days we will hit 85-90 % as its pretty common to shoot 10-15 in a row then miss.

Break action guns require slightly different techniques to load for, set up and to shoot. I use a Contender carbine and several bolt rifles of different flavors. All have about the same accuracy potential out to 300 yds. Don't give up on your Encore until you have tried a few different things with the gun, loads, rests, scope etc.
When you originally set up the gun what kind of groups would it shoot ? A good PD gun would have to regularly shoot nothing worse than about 3/4" at 100 and preferably much better than that....as it will extend your range.

There are several good web sources of info. regarding care and feeding your Encore.... pm me if you want more.

How does your rifle shoot on paper?? If it groups well and is accurate on paper and then goes awry in the field, your positioning and shooting technique is at fault. What is your shooting platform in the field? Can you put a bipod on one of those things?
As you can see, there are no answers, only more questions.
I would get the bolt gun, probably in .223. Altho, a VS in 22-250 wouldn't be bad neither.

I should tell you I have a problem with my rifle. Two gunsmiths have told me it has excessive headspace. I sent it back to T\C today to verify this and hopfully get a new barrel.That explains my gun's problem. I was very interested in what I should be expecting when I get a good barrel. I shoot with a 6.5X20 simmons which seems good to me but I admit I do not have Any experience in this game yet. My rest is homemade with a shot bag back rest. I guess I wanted to find out if My encore could be as good as any bolt action commonly seen in the dog towns. What do you guys think of the out of the box performance of the rem.700varmint in223. My son seems to enjoy this sport so I must get him a rifle. This seems to be an affordable gun with longrange varmint shooting potential. Your comments are appriecated and thanks for your comments so far . I just found this site and it is helping greatly.Bipod-yes

My guess is that yes your Encore can be made to shoot well on most any dog town. A couple of things to look for if your still have accuracy issues with it after the barrel gets back from TC.
When you attach the fore end put a small o ring (some guys use a steel washer) inside between the wood and the metal around the screw...this effectively free floats the foreend.
If you believe that your chamber still has excessive headspace ...use new brass and load medium level loads with the bullet firmly engaged into the rifling. the idea being that the bullet will hold the case back against the breechface to allow for proper ignition and allow the case to fill the chamber correctly. This will basically fireform the brass to your chamber. Future loading of that brass..... size just enough to bump the shoulder back to allow the gun to close.
Although a bipod works pretty well on my Contender I like front sand bags better....minimumizes the stress on the dovetail nuts in the barrel.
Where the gun rests on the bags is important too...some break actions like the gun pushed clear up to the trigger guard on the bag...others farther away.
If you have the time and desire go to the website
www.bellmtcs.com you will learn plenty of valuable information regarding your gun and the special issues with loading for it.

Hard to say how a new rifle will group,that can be said about Remington,Ruger and Winchester rifles that I have.It`s common to have the trigger adjusted,glass bedding the action and free floating the barrel to get the best out of a rifle. Only one bolt locking lug was contacting the action on one Remington that I had,a gunsmith lapped the bolt and after word it shot 1/2 inch groups. The bolt action rifles were better over all than the single shot Ruger No. 1 s that I have. Never owned a TC Or Savage rifle. So far this year shot over 800 prairie dogs with a tuned up Ruger 10-22 T with a glass bedded thumb hole stock,a Anschutz 1710 22LR and a Cooper LVT 17 HMR.Had about a 80 % hits. Went out with the browning varmit rifle 223 Rem. last week and missed 10 shots in a row. I need to shoot it off a bench rest. Is it the rifle,scope,mounts,reloads, or me ? At 68 years it could be me ,the last time I shot the rifle it shot 4/10 groups at 100 Yds.

Red,
There are several prerequisites for your gun in order that you get a reasonable percentage on prairie dogs. Most have been mentioned here and all are good suggestions. Once you get the gun to give you reasonably good groups on paper, the job still isn't done though. The single biggest factor in connecting with targets a small as Prairie dogs is the trigger. And I don't mean just adjusting it down as light as it will go, although that would help. The Encore trigger from the factory is away up at least 4 to 5 lbs. The real solution is to have a competent gunsmith do a trigger job where he squares up the contact points in the trigger mechanism and smoothes them by honing. Then he should replace the factory spring so as to lighten the pull. The more you shoot, the lighter you can use the trigger. For a "learing" varminter, I'd suggest getting the trigger down at least under 3 lbs, then as you get used to it try getting it at about one pound. When you get it down in that range and get accustomed to it, the gun will go off when you want it to instead of you having to fight it, and your scores will go up dramatically.
Don Shearer

I agree with D. Shearer!

If you are looking for a affordable rifle for you son. You might want to consider the Savage 12BVSS in .223 with the accu-trigger. I bought one last October after hearing how accurate they were. And I have not been disappointed.

Up here in Alberta, the price difference was about $300.00 cheaper than the remington and I didn't have to do the trigger.

Buying this rifle was the best thing I could have done. I traded off my remington ADL. And have not regreted it for one minute.

I am sure other people could confirm this also.

Graylake

Just home from shooting prairie dogs in Montana. One thing that got me is that there are areas that are being hit with the plague.

I noticed a decrease in abundance from previous years where I shoot NW of Billings Mont. However the size of the prairie dogs was much smaller than previous years also.

Only shot a couple of big brutes. Most of my shooting is within 250 yds. I just limit my distance this year. I sat a a platform on the hood of my Toyota Truck and just drove it to a new spot when the area I was in was getting slow. I just went within 250 yds or so where they were out and taunting me.

However, after shooting sage rats in Oregon all spring, the opportunities for shooting in Montana seemed slow. I got about 75 in an after noon. On sage rats in Oregon I was getting 150 to 200 or better in an afternoon. Granted smaller than prairie dogs, but a lot more plentiful. However the size of the average prairie dog this year was about the same as a big sage rat.

NOT saying one spot is better than the other, just pointing out an observation.

Cheers and good shooting
seafire

"I shoot with a 6.5X20 simmons "

RedRiver, I think you would benefit from a better scope. The 20mm lens on that scope is pretty small for a 6.5 power. So you are probably not getting as bright or clear a picture as you could.

Also, 6.5 power is probably fine for 100 yards, but a little weak for longer range.

I shoot a 3X9X40 on my Ground Squirrel gun, with the power dialed up to 9. Its marginal beyond 150 yards.

I think you'll find many of the guys here who shoot at 200-300 yards use 12-14X scopes, and 40-50mm objective lenses.