Just wondered if I hold the AR record for consecutive hits on prairie dogs.....my longest string was 39 using a .222 in a Sako L461 on a Fajen stock that I built in about 1970. I've still not come close to that string since and doubt that I ever will.....what's your best string?.....be honest now.

Vapo,

Since you brought it up,here is my take.It really depends at what the distances the shots were made.

If they were all shot inside 200 yards,thats not so impressive to me.Also, if it was a dead calm day and you are shooting off a rest/vehicle etc,not very tough.

If it was typical westerm PD shooting with plenty of wind and distances that stretch a .222,say out to 300 yards,then it's damn good shooting..

Of course,if a tree falls in the forest and nobody witnessed it,did it really happen?(LOL)

vapodog,

I've got to agree with sharpsman. If under 200yds with calm conditions that would be prettu good shooting but not spectacular.

My longest string is probably around 10 or so but I've never counted.

I've only been on one "trip" to hunt prairie dogs and it was in November in New Mexico.

I doubt I ever did better than 10 on that trip but we weren't keeping score. Winds averaged from 10-25mph and the dogs had been hunted all summer so shots were usually between 175 and 375 yds.

When I lived in Colorado I usually hunted them with my deer/elk rifle so didnt' shoot a whole lot of volume. My average outing involved about 40 shots and I often was looking for long ones.

I was more of a coyote hunter out there because the mountain coyotes (where I lived) were big with excellent hides and a local taxidermist was payint pretty good money for whole 'yotes.

The reason I used my medium to big game rifle was because I had 11 rifles stolen within a couple of weeks of when I moved to Colorado Springs and never really recovered from that financially until I moved back to Florida... <sigh>

$bob$

that picture is the biggest horned prairie dog I've ever seen. If I remember right my record was 53 in last 70's in S.D. with a 222 mag HB sako. I think on that trip my son & me shot up 1200 rounds in one day. conditions were perfect and the dogs were dumb.

Ground Squirrels or Sage Rats are not in the same categorie as prairie dogs. They are smaller targets, but dumber than prairie dogs and a lot more plentiful in an infested area.

I have seen guys with 10/22s kill 750 to 1000 in just a day, using fence posts as rests. I myself am a bolt guy. Of course I am talking shots under 100 yds, but with a 22 Rimfire.

Go out the next morning and all the carcasses are long gone. Eaten by Seagulls, Crows and Coyotes during the night. Sage Rats are also cannibals.

I have hit some with a 223, and blow them inside out, and before the remains hit the ground, others have come running to feast on the remains of their buddy.

Shooting one eating the remains of another, sort of removes any guilt one might have about killing so many of the little rats.

Cheers & good shooting
seafire

Vapodog: Many years back I was in an informal contest with a good Varminting friend of mine. The contest was as you describe, sort of. We alternated shots on a Prairie Dog town and he eventually won! WE had no distance limits (minimum ranges!) we were just trying to see who would miss first! It was my turn to try to continue my string (as I recall we were both at or near 25 PD's in a row!). I took careful aim at a young PD that was only about 60 yards distant! I was taking up the slack when the PD darted left and at the same instant my trigger broke! I missed an easy shot at 60 yards! I could not believe it!
On that particular dogtown the rancher wanted ALL the PD's eradicated! So we hit it pretty hard. Normally we would not shoot the real close ones like we did on that ranch.
Anymore I hardly ever shoot at Prairie Dogs closer than 200 yards! Then on the other end I seldom shoot at them past 550 yards either!
My limits of recent, are set for personal satisfaction reasons and for "conserving" my barrels and the PD's themselves! I find that by setting shooting "limits" of various types at my favorite places, it helps in subsequent years Hunts with continued success (fun) on ample numbers of targets.
I am sure that that is one of my longest "strings" though if not, THE longest!
So I enter the contest with 24 or 25 as my longest string! I am trying for second place obviously!
I have a small hand held click counter that reads up to 999! I click it when I make a hit in a PD town. I have never got real near to 999 in one day but I have come real close to 800 in a day in years past (not counting misses here just hits)!
Now in self defense I will pre-empt any attacks on the numbers that I harvested with this caveat! I sleep amongst the PD's at night when I am on Safari! No motel in town for me (no lost daylight to travel time) - back then I could not afford them anyway! AND I do not eat breakfasts (in town or out on the prairie) when on Safari. I would get up with the sun and be shooting at first light! I also always used to shoot all day (and sometimes still do!)! When I took my lunch break then I would clean the 4 to 8 Rifles I have dirtied that morning then I would hit it again til sundown! Cleaning Rifles and eating then after sundown! I only moved from a town when the PD's became shy or low in numbers. So in a fourteen+ hour day of great shooting, I was whacking about 50 to 60 an hour! Anymore I almost always Hunt PD's with 3 or 4 chums and those big number totals per day are not realized.
I used to Hunt most often by myself as my "weekends" did not coincide with normal folks. So I would start my Safaris on like a Wednesday and come home on a Friday (about 10 days later) to start work on a Saturday.
I feel well satisfied anymore when I shoot 150 a day! But back when I was more "number oriented" I was also driving 1,000+ miles each way to get to good PD Hunting grounds. Now its much, much closer for me to get to good PD country and I do not feel the compulsion to "get'em all" today - so to speak!
39 in a row is a nifty run - good for you!
I have some friends now that shoot at such long ranges (exclusively) that a run of 3 PD's in a row is mentionable! They often shoot about 10% hits at these very long ranges!
To each their own!
Have fun and congrats again on that run of 39!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Just for the record that 39 straight was in 1973 and we was invited to a ranch in South Dakota to rid the place of dogs.....and we tried.....
I was driving a K-5 Blazer 4 X 4 and the terrain was very hilly and the dogs was out everywhere.....I doubt that little sako .222 with it's abreviated 16 1/4" barrel took a single shot over 100 yards It was just drive over a hill, use the mirror as a rest and shoot a bunch of dogs...drive over another hill.....etc....

My 40 th shot hit a barbed wire fence and deviated from path or the record would have been much higher. My friend and I killed over 1,000 dogs that day and the next and as we drove away couldn't even tell the numbers had been reduced.

We used a .22-250, a .225 Win, a .222 and a .25-06 and thought we had bought a lot of ammo.....hell, we ran out!!!

On a hunt today I'm lucky to shoot 100 rounds and then a 60% hit ratio is a happy day