Damon555
Member
I hope it's ok to post this here....it's not really hunting....more precision rifle shooting than anything.
I just rolled into my parents place by St. Louis on my way back to Nashville. A couple of friends and I took a little trip up to Bellfield, ND to try our hand at some public land shooting. The 3 other times I went prairie dog shooting had been on private land in Montana.
It's a little different running into other people while we're out in the field. We saw 3 other parties but didn't get into each others way.....well except for the 2 morons that were too lazy to leave the road and shoot.....I didn't count them as a party. We were clearly shooting off of a ridge and they were nice enough to park on the side of the road DIRECTLY in our line of fire and start shooting at a distant hill in the same town we were shooting.....They finally got the hint (when we didn't shoot for 15 minutes) to get the hell out of the way. That's the only problem we had.
We got there on friday and it was windy and rainy. We shot a little but the dogs were keeping out of sight. Saturday started out kind of slow and was raining some in the early morning. After our little run in with the fools with a death wish we moved to a town that turned out to be excellent. No wind and sunny skies made for some great shooting. It was a slaughter to say the least. There were a lot of pups and they were dumb! We spent 6 or 7 hours in that town.
When the shooting slowed down we moved south of the interstate and found another town off the beatin' path and got plenty of shooting there too. It was nice to find towns where all 3 of us could have plenty of shooting.
Sunday morning was sunny and clear. We returned to the town that we spent so much time at on saturday and got plenty more shooting.
In my previous Montana hunts we mostly shot from benches but we decided to just move around and snipe from various positions. No place to leave benches set up like on the private land. It's a good thing I picked up that tarp before hand to lay on. That brush is rough on the elbows.....I've got the marks to prove it!
I started out shooting my TC Encore pro hunter 22-250 barrel on the first day but changed it up then the wind died down. My DPMS panther bull 20" functioned flawlessly through a few hundred rounds without cleaning....I got tired of chasing brass and switched to my pro hunter 223 barrel. That thing is a dream to shoot. Accurate and easy to carry around. 60 grain V-maxes in the AR and 40 grain V-maxes in the pro hunter (both 223 and 22-250) made for some spectacular air time. I haven't counted the brass but I think I shot somewhere in the area of 300-400 rounds total. Not a high round count but with no wind most kills were 1 shot. We didn't take a lot of really long shots, nothing much past 350 yards or so. We were able to get so close there was no need to stretch it out too far.
All in all it was well worth the drive. Compared to Nashville where it has been brutally hot the weather was phenomenal.....High temps in the mid 70's and intermittent clouds helped stave off any chance of a sun burn.....well a few clouds and a little SFP 30.
I didn't take a lot of pics....too much shooting of guns to do! Here are a few choice ones....
With scenery like this is was very hard to leave....This is Painted Canyon near Fryburg, ND.
Me missing a shot with my AR....
Our shooting party...Me on the right, my buddy Trevor in the middle and his dad Rich on the left.
Trevor's dad Rich getting lined up for a shot....
And finally a few of the locals.....
I just rolled into my parents place by St. Louis on my way back to Nashville. A couple of friends and I took a little trip up to Bellfield, ND to try our hand at some public land shooting. The 3 other times I went prairie dog shooting had been on private land in Montana.
It's a little different running into other people while we're out in the field. We saw 3 other parties but didn't get into each others way.....well except for the 2 morons that were too lazy to leave the road and shoot.....I didn't count them as a party. We were clearly shooting off of a ridge and they were nice enough to park on the side of the road DIRECTLY in our line of fire and start shooting at a distant hill in the same town we were shooting.....They finally got the hint (when we didn't shoot for 15 minutes) to get the hell out of the way. That's the only problem we had.
We got there on friday and it was windy and rainy. We shot a little but the dogs were keeping out of sight. Saturday started out kind of slow and was raining some in the early morning. After our little run in with the fools with a death wish we moved to a town that turned out to be excellent. No wind and sunny skies made for some great shooting. It was a slaughter to say the least. There were a lot of pups and they were dumb! We spent 6 or 7 hours in that town.
When the shooting slowed down we moved south of the interstate and found another town off the beatin' path and got plenty of shooting there too. It was nice to find towns where all 3 of us could have plenty of shooting.
Sunday morning was sunny and clear. We returned to the town that we spent so much time at on saturday and got plenty more shooting.
In my previous Montana hunts we mostly shot from benches but we decided to just move around and snipe from various positions. No place to leave benches set up like on the private land. It's a good thing I picked up that tarp before hand to lay on. That brush is rough on the elbows.....I've got the marks to prove it!
I started out shooting my TC Encore pro hunter 22-250 barrel on the first day but changed it up then the wind died down. My DPMS panther bull 20" functioned flawlessly through a few hundred rounds without cleaning....I got tired of chasing brass and switched to my pro hunter 223 barrel. That thing is a dream to shoot. Accurate and easy to carry around. 60 grain V-maxes in the AR and 40 grain V-maxes in the pro hunter (both 223 and 22-250) made for some spectacular air time. I haven't counted the brass but I think I shot somewhere in the area of 300-400 rounds total. Not a high round count but with no wind most kills were 1 shot. We didn't take a lot of really long shots, nothing much past 350 yards or so. We were able to get so close there was no need to stretch it out too far.
All in all it was well worth the drive. Compared to Nashville where it has been brutally hot the weather was phenomenal.....High temps in the mid 70's and intermittent clouds helped stave off any chance of a sun burn.....well a few clouds and a little SFP 30.
I didn't take a lot of pics....too much shooting of guns to do! Here are a few choice ones....
With scenery like this is was very hard to leave....This is Painted Canyon near Fryburg, ND.
Me missing a shot with my AR....
Our shooting party...Me on the right, my buddy Trevor in the middle and his dad Rich on the left.
Trevor's dad Rich getting lined up for a shot....
And finally a few of the locals.....
