2016 Trip #12
Montana:
Wanted to take a trip to Western Powder for a long time, but it’s a long ways. It took 10 hours to get to Miles City, MT from Denver. Hy 59 out of Douglas, WY was under construction in several places. Several times I was stopped 10 minutes or so to let the other lane though. Go 10 miles, stop again, go 15 miles, stop again. It was like that for 50 or 60 miles and the highway isn’t real wide to begin with. I decided to come back the Interstate all the way.
The first day (Wednesday). I spent the first part of day with Rob Bier touring and in the afternoon I managed to get out and do some scouting in the area. The wind blew 30 – 35 miles per hour and it was cloudy. At the state lands I found i needed a state tag to shoot, no tag couldn’t shoot. That night Rob took me to pick one up and also took me to the BLM office to get maps of the BLM lands in the area.
Around 9:00 the next morning (Thursday) I did get out to shoot on one BLM piece of land. It was about 10 to 12 miles back to the valley that the dogs were in and a very rough narrow road. One place was so bad I questioned if I should have proceeded. As one of my friends said later “no guts, no glory”. I made it and was able to shoot for about 4 hours eliminating 68 dogs.
I shot my 20 Practical with the new 6 – 24 x 50 scope I had just put on a few days before. Used one of my pet loads of the 32 gr Hornady VMax over 25.8 grs of Western Powders TAC. The speed is a little over 3,700 fps at an OAL of 2.250 . It isn’t a hot load at all, I don’t shoot hot loads. I want my barrels to last.
A couple times it spit a little rain and I didn’t want to get stuck back 10 to 12 miles on an impassable narrow road. I would still be there, I got out (I inculcated a short video I shot with my phone). The next day (Friday) it was supposed to rain, I headed back to Denver with a stop in Central Wyoming to shoot dogs for a couple days.
Wyoming:
After a few hours on the road I got off of the Interstate and headed West out of Sheridan, WY. I wanted to see if I could find a place to shoot prairie dogs or rockchucks, no luck. I called a friend that lives out that way and he said “no prairie dogs around here”. He did say “rockchucks could be found in the National Forest area but if you didn’t know where to go you could drive around all day and get nothing but lost”. I moved on down the Interstate.
I stayed in Wheatland, WY for a couple days and shot on a ranch I’ve shot on a lot and didn’t do bad the first day. The weather was cool but the dogs were out in numbers. I used my 20 VarTarg with a 6 – 24 x 50 scope I had just put on it a few days before. Did quite well all day. I shot 138 that day using the Hornady 32 gr VMax, 21 grs of TAC and running right at 3,500 fps at an OAL of 1.900 inches.
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