1,153 Yards — Beginning or End? With Apologies to the Bard, That Is The Question
Member Roger Cox
reports of the bullet impact location. I loaded a powder charge ladder at
Prairie dog guide Scott Carpenter helped the author with his long- range attempt on a prairie dog.
Scott Carpenter’s personal .243 Ackley Improved rifl e, a rifl e he had ’smithed for himself. I bought that rifle, shot prairie dogs with it, and began thinking about attempting a shot for the 1000 Yard Downrange Club. Never content to just think, I talked
A
to Scott Null at
savagegunsmithing.com and together we decided on a Savage WSM action, caliber 6.5-284, MRC bar- rel, and Sharpshooter trigger in a B&C stock, with one of my Leupold 8.5-25x50 LR scopes with Leupold’s TMR reticle. I developed a very accurate handload using the 142-grain Sierra MatchKing bullet and went merrily off to Montana to “make that 1,000-yard shot” with my long-suffering guide, Scott Carpenter, VHA Member No. 66270. A 1,000-yard shot proved to be not
that easy – not so much, and not even close to getting the job done that year. But Scott Carpenter made a 1,000-yard hit in very few shots with a new rifl e he had smithed – another .243 AI, this time with an 8" twist barrel, shooting 105-grain A-Max bullets. So I returned my 6.5-284 to savage-
gunsmithing for a muzzle brake because a good part of the problem for me was that even with Scott Carpenter and my friend from Georgia, Tom Vivelo, both spotting, I had a hard time relating my hold to their
few years ago I made a 509-yard shot on a prairie dog with guide
two seating depths and sent those rounds to Scott Null at savagegunsmithing while my 6.5-284 was there for the muzzle brake. The report back to me was that the heavier powder charges were at least as accurate and maybe more so than the mild load I had been using. I confi rmed what they said at my local range after the rifl e returned, and then loaded for this year’s 1,000-yard attempt. Scott Carpenter had positioned
some old farm implement discs at 1,000 yards so that any prairie dog behind those discs was certainly going to be more than 1,000 yards from the shooting bench that Scott had set up and tied down. Best con- ditions were early in the morning. First day we worked out a scope zero for the shot – drop was more than 20 feet from line of sight – and it looked like I made contact with a prairie dog that morning. We could not fi nd the prairie dog or any evidence of a hit. Either a clean miss or a crawl off. Second day gusting prairie winds
made any attempts silly and a waste of powder. So we drove to Billings, Mon- tana, and spent some time at Scheels in the Rim Rock shopping center, returning to the fi eld late that afternoon. Winds were still up so we shot some 200- and 300-yard prairie dogs. After all, Roundup, Montana, is a long way from my Southern California home and I was there to shoot. Third day we were at it early. There
is a time, at least on that part of the prai- rie, when the prairie dogs are up and the wind is not yet fully up. And mirage can be helpful for gauging wind for hold off. I click for elevation but hold off for windage. With the now-zeroed rifl e plus a
few more clicks it looked like a hit at about shot No. 10. Again, we could fi nd no evidence by driving down to the area and vectoring with two-way radio with an eye glued to the spotter. So back to shooting. About six shots later Scott yelled, “You got him, he is not moving.
The author, VHA member Roger Cox, made it into the 1000 Yard Club with this 1,153-yard shot on a prairie dog.
Good shot!” And that’s how it looked through the rifl escope, too. So I jumped in Scott's truck and kept one ear on his two-way radio. “Back farther ... farther ... farther
...” and there the prairie dog was, right beside the hole. The prairie dog had been facing me, head down and feeding, and the bullet had struck about a half inch below the top of his spine – dead right there. My lucky day – his bad hair day. Here is Scott – I think he was as
happy as I was – after all, he had done a lot of prep and provided great encourage- ment and technical assistance to making that shot. Scott, VHA Member No. 66270 (406-860-0928), provides a truly premium prairie dog guiding service and I appre- ciate his friendship and advice. He goes way beyond helpful and friendly and is a heck of a cook – steaks, country style ribs, beer butt chicken, and elk loin from his freezer. Did I say I put on 5 pounds? So, now comes the question! In our
V.H.A. pictures section I see that some of our members are making shots way be- yond 1,153 yards. Should I quit now with membership in the 1000 Yard Downrange Club? Or, have a big boomer built? Say, a .300 Winchester Magnum or .338 Lapua – and go for a 2,000-yard shot? Hmmm. Glad it’s winter and I can
take some time to think about ... begin- ning or end?
www.varminthunter.org Page 185
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