I headed up to Idaho to play in a golf tournament (we tied for 1st), visit some friends and family and do some chuck hunting. I hunted four hours on Friday and got 21 chucks. I hunted seven hours on Monday and got 29 chucks.

I was shooting a custom 260 Remington shooting the 120 ballistic tips and 142 matchkings when chucks were beyond 500 yards. Longest hit was just over 650. This caliber with the above listed loads is very harsh on the rockchucks (lots of gutpiles Ackman). I shot 8 chucks with the 260.

I have a newly aquired custom Savage 20 BR that made its first trip to the varmint fields. Accuracy, trajectory and lack of recoil were even better than I expected. Longest shot was 469 yards and that required very little hold over. Bullets shot were the 32 vmax, 39 blitzking and 40 vmax. I was surprised and a little disappointed with the lack of punch with the cartridge. While some chucks were hit hard, several others dragged themselves down the hole after a center hit. I may have to limit the 20 br to pdog and ground squirrels. Most of the chucks I shot were small. Not this years crop but last years. I did not shoot a single large chuck.

I ended the day Monday in spectacular fashion. It was quite cool and windy so the chucks were not out in really good numbers. The last two chucks I killed were small guys. The 2nd to last was a stander on a rock at 379 yards. When the 40 grain vmax hit him he went flying end over end 4-5 times before he hit the ground. The Russian judge gave him a 9.9. The last chuck was 479 yards away and only peeking. I only had his head and neck to shoot at. It was very satisfying to watch him launch off the back of his perch. Boy the 20 BR sure fights the wind.

Man I love this stuff!

Stormbringer: Congratulations on the early season Chuck Hunt! Good for you.
I have many fond memories of the Varminting I have done over the decades in Idaho!
One of my favorite Varmint Hunts of all time occurred while I was Hunting Spring Black Bears on the "River of No Return" (Salmon River).
We had jet boated about 40 miles into the wilderness and were Hunting Black Bears and hauling back shed Elk and Mule Deer horns by the armload!
I kept seeing Rock Chucks in my travels and I was greatly distressed that I had not brought along a Varmint Rifle! I was not expecting there to be such an abundance of Rock Chucks up that River.
Then it came to me - I had my my trusty S&W Model 63 (Kit Gun stainless model) along with me and a couple of boxes of Remington Hollowpoints! I camoed up and headed out to bag some Chucks. I had to creep within 20 yards of the double chubby Chucks before I would unleash the 22 L.R.'s at them. I ran off about 10 straight head shots (one shot kills!) then I wounded one and it took several more rounds to bring that one to bag!
I had shot enough of them by then and put the S&W away for the rest of the trip. I have a couple of 35 mm pictures of the Chucks and the pistol on a rock with the beautiful Salmon River way down below them, in the back ground.
I am not trying to be contrary here but your great posting seems to contradict itself! Does the 20 BR kill the Chucks with "solid hits" well enough for you or not?
If you were sending those Chucks spinning into the air with the 20 BR then I contend it has enough "hutzpah" to work on Rock Chucks!
I have taken quite a few Chucks (40 or so) with my various new 204 Ruger Rifles (I think the furthest distant one was 325 yards or so!) and I deem them well worthy of taking Chucks cleanly!
If some of your Chucks drug off with the 20 BR hits then I am puzzled! Could you tell if you got good center of mass hits on them and maybe the bullet failed or could you have hit one of the "laying down on a rock" Chucks a bit towards its "edges"? That can happen as I assume you are well aware, with any cartridge.
I have a Remington 700 VLS in 260 Remington and really enjoy it! I have killed a few Chucks and a couple of Coyotes with it!
If it wasn't for the recoil I am sure I would use it more. I like to "see" my hits if at all possible!
I am using the very accurate Nosler 100 gr. Ballistic Tips in my 260 for Antelope back up duty and the occassional Coyote foray!
Those "Russian Judges" can be hard to impress at times - you did well with that 9.9 score!
Long live Idaho!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

All the chucks I shot were small. They were I think last years pups. When I hit those guys with other larger caliber rifles they usually stay down even with marginal hits.

I am not sure about marginal bullet performance. The 40 grain vmaxes seemed to do a better job than the 32's or the 39 Blitzkings. More testing is required I think. Looking at the energy charts for the bullets at the velocity they were shot I expected better results.

Mike.

Good for you man-glad you had a good shoot! Always kind of nice to get that first one of the year in.

Now, I would just try to wait till they pup out and that can be a challange to wait for...

I no longer shoot chucks at under 350 and that is the very reason why I will use the big 6's on up. Nothing smaller in the rig for me when I am chucking anymore. My fav chuck rounds are the 6/06, 7 Mashburn Super and the 340.

Not preaching, not trying to debate just the way I go about life.

Make it your best day!

Mark D

great report!

If we can get rid of winter over this way... we are having December in FEB... coldest March in the 10 yrs I have lived here...

I was thinking of a 20 BR, but from your report, it sounds like a 22 BR or a 223 would do the same job, with less fuss... or a plain old 22.250.....

Glad you included a report on the 260... I have a VLS in that one also, with a spare factory take off barrel I bought for $75.00.. It was never fired.. a local gun store owner bought a bunch that didn't sell, took of the barrels and had them re barreled to 6 PPCs....

Like Varmint Guy, mine sees a lot of 100 grain bullets used in it....The 120s might be the way to go for those real long shots... I just put a new Nikon Mil Dot 4.5 x 14 scope on mine...

My favorite long range rifles are in 6mm Remington on a long action.. for prairie dogs and rock chucks...

Mark Dobrenski using a 340 Weatherby....well He gets my vote for the most macho! varmint shooter I am aware of....Mark, does it leave anything bigger than a blood splat... with the remains landing over in Wyoming or Idaho???

cheers
seafire

You guys and you're VLS/260's are killing me, man would I love to have one of those in the corrals....I would love to use it on lopers!

Good day guys, make it your best

Mark D

I am not familiar with where the 20BR weighs in at. How does it compare to the 204 Ruger?

Mark Dobrenski: I just checked my brand new 2,006 Remington Catalog and they do not offer the 260 Remington it seems this year in the 700 VLS!
I have seen just a few of these fine offerings (700 VLS in 260 Remington) over the last few years!
Maybe (as so often happens anymore!) Remington will burp forth with some heavy barrelled 260's of some kind under the "limited run" program?
Maybe a call to Remington or a big distributor to see if anything may be on the horizon.
I have certain "standards" I envoke on myself for the Hunting of my favorite Varmint - the Rock Chucks!
I do not shoot them at under 200 yards nor until after "pup up" time myself.
Unlike some other Colony Varmint species the Rock Chucks can be "wiped out" and they are slow to recupe their populations once they get very low in a particular area!
Long live the 260 Remington!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
PS: By the way Mark, Remington offers the 260 in 3 models this year but all are sporter barrel weights.

The 20 BR has approximately 5 grains more powder capacity than the 204 Ruger and of course the shorter fatter case design. Velocity is 200-400 fps faster than the 204 Ruger.

Mike.

Hvy barrel: I refer you to the great article on 20 caliber cartridges by fellow poster on this forum "Kory".
I will link it for you below:

http://www.6mmbr.com/20caliber.html

I think the 20 BR is a somewhat peppier 20 than the 204 Ruger! In other words flatter shooting and even better wind drift numbers than the sensational 204 Ruger has!

Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Where abouts in Idaho are ya'll hunting rockchucks ?

Seafire-yeah the 340 is fairly effective at long range chucks. I've come to prefer the 200 NBT for the work although the 250 MK works well also.

Chuckin is one of my all time fun things, I kind of believe it should be in the Olympics. Tons funner to watch than Curling...

My better years will find me putting the roast on near 400 chucks. My best year to date is 457 but I worked at it pretty darn hard that year.

It don't get much better for me than to take a good lunch a good bud (spotter) and a couple of rounds and head out for chucks.

We pretty much back up to at least 350 anymore and much prefer to do the majority of it at 500 and beyond.

Long live the chuck and yeah it is fairly easy to burn out a colony.

Mark D

Chuck hunting is my favorite type of hunting. I too never hit a spot so bad as to deplete it completely. It is tough though to find a balance between making the landowner happy (who wants them all gone) and leaving enough seed for the next year. I have hit some spots on private land early this year but they have plenty of chucks left.

I have not been to any of my public land honey holes. I will save them for in May.

I guess I'll chime in here with a few GHD regimens.
1) a "center hit" on a varmint with the rifles and bullets that most of us are using today is NOT a desired hit!! I've seen groundhogs with "center hits" from 17HMR to 30-06 drag off to die a pitiful death!! On the bottom end, the 17HMR is a wonderful little fun cartridge! I'ts inherrent accurracy lens itself to quick and efficient varmint dispatches with HEAD AND NECK shots out to 150 yards......longer depending on the rifleman's ability but not "center of mass" shots!!! (same as 22LR, 22MAG.......on up to the whatever 30 and under caliber you want!!!) Only exception to the "center of mass" guns I've ever seen may be a 22-250 using SPEER GOLD MATCH 52 grain HP!!!!That one was a bad dude!!! Most of the "crawl offs" I've ever seen were from poorly placed .243,6mm, .277,.284, and .308 diameter bullets!!!
2) Shooting varmints in March, April and early May, DEPLETES the supply of future targets for June, July, August, September!!........and the next year also!!!! And old sow hog, shot in March or April just effectively wiped out 5-6 potential targets for later!!! UNLESS it is as has been stated, a place where the landowners don't give a FRA about "sporting hunting"....they just want them gone!!!....have at it!!!
3) Afford the varmint the luxury of dying a quick, least pain and suffering demise as possible!! Respect the target!! All they are doing is out looking for a meal and trying to provide for their family!!!
4) DO I sound like an animal rights person????? ....only up to the point where I think that the animals we shoot deserve a bit of respect from the makers of their doom!!!.........NOT LONG TILL SEASON IS WIDE OPEN!!! Can't wait to use the .260 VLS and the 140AMAXS and 142 SIERRAS at LONG RANGE!!! Up until then the 17HMR, 222MAG, 22-250, 25-06 will handle the short stuff!!! And then the 300SAUM using the 110 and 125's will add COLOR to the page!! hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Good post GD. I would agree with it 90%. The only thing that I do not agree with is the season length. Our rock chucks in Idaho, Wyoming and Utah go back down their holes in July. Once it gets hot they are gone and generally do not come back out. You can leave the farm lands and venture into the mountains above the trees (about 9-11K feet) and find some local colonies.

Now these chucks are very sparse and the local colonies can be shot out in a hurry if you hit them hard or often.

Mike.

GHDS: I am in the 95% agreement camp on your posting also.
I took Stormbringers "center hit" scenario to mean - not the Chucks bellybutton area but the "center hit" of the Chucks upper body or "center of lethal area".
Not gutshot!
Still even projectiles aimed at the center of "lethal area" sometimes become "edge" of creature shots. Due to wind, range miscalculations, mirage, human error, human tremblings, jerked triggers, animal movement at the time of the shot and a host of other reasons! Thats why I inquired of Stormbringer if indeed his projectiles from the 20 BR did indeed achieve center hits and then if some crawl offs occurred he would have reason for concern.
You are 100% correct in your stated intention to harvest the Varmints cleanly and quickly and I strive for that end myself. That is one reason why you hardly ever see me shooting Varmints at or past 500 yards! The likelihood of wounding Varmints at the longer ranges spirals into the unacceptably high percentage range "out there" - for me anyway!
I will let Stormbringer explain himself regarding "center hits" for him but I assumed he meant center of lethal area - not center of torso - or belly button shots.
I reiterate also that I hold off on "Chuckin" til after the pups are eating grass.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Stormbringer and VG, Sorry if it seemed I was being a smart aleck about the center of mass shots. It was typed as a lighthearted reply to some degree. NONE of us can be so good as to never mis judge the distance or the wind or even the performance of the bullet and it happens to all of us I know! I absolutely hate to see a crawl off on a varmint! It ruins the rest of the hunt!!
SB, Around here the groundhogs are coming out fairly regularly now and gathering leaves and grass and dragging it down in their dens in preparation for having more targets! They will be active until on up to October and even November if the temps stay warm. Finding a target rich environment around mid June to mid July can really get us about as close to "colony" varminting as we can do here in the east. Our area is growing houses so fast now that I drive 3-3.5 hours to get into decent populations of groundhogs now.......and that area is pretty rank with coyotes to boot!! My friends their killed over 60(coyotes) in a 4.5 mile stretch of road on 3 farms last year! GHD