Because Norma was experiencing fairly severe back pain this year, she opted to spot full time while I shot. This gave the squirrels a break because she is a very good shot. On the other hand, having a full-time spotter gave me an oppor- tunity to perform what I call “surgical strikes” on specifi c sections of the fi elds where I was shooting. One of my missions was to make
sure that I brought down the population of varmints in the areas where I shot and reduce the amount of devastation these four-legged eating machines do to the vegetation. Our host explained the quantity of vegetation that can be eaten by one Belding’s ground squirrel – something on the order of 10-15 pounds per month. When one multiplies this by the number of animals in any give area, you begin to understand the serious impact that occurs, because a farmer is planning on the revenue from the crops he has planted. In this area there are a lot of cattle herds and the ranchers place signifi cant reliance on the alfalfa and other crops to feed the herds in winter. Once Norma and I settled into
our shooting/spotting dynamic, I vali- dated the effectiveness of the Pac-Nor barrel on my Savage … and found it to be an excellent tool for the job. I had loaded 50-round batches of ammo using 50-grain BlitzKings along with 40- and 50-grain V-Max bullets in both 223 A/I cases and standard 223 cases. One of the great things about a 223 A/I barrel is having the fl exibility to shoot standard 223 ammo along with A/I ammo and have excellent results in a hunting situ- ation. I load my ammo 85-90% of the published maximum velocity and fi nd that it works well and has proved to be consistently accurate. As I did last year, I wanted to col-
lect anecdotal evidence of my perceived differences in manufacturers’ bullets. Initially, I noted that the 50-grain bul- lets had a more dramatic impact on the animals than the 40-grain, regardless of manufacturer. An example of what hap- pened with the 50-grain loads happened with a dead animal being dragged by a live one (these critters are cannibals). When I shot the “dragger” it resulted in both the “dragger” and “draggee” fl ipping into the air. This brings a whole new meaning to “head over heels.” In this case there were two heads and eight heels in this literal use of the term. As
The author’s wife, Norma, used a spotting scope to help fi nd targets and spot hits.
far as my unscientifi c evaluation, I again concluded that the bullet manufacturers do an excellent job of providing us with the best products on the planet. On the morning of May 2, I was es-
pecially successful in one of Bob’s fi elds with 13 kills in a row. The fi eld was a smaller area which had been planted in barley so there was quite a bit of activity, both from burrows in the fi eld and from the fi eld next to it where there was a lot of vegetation. This is where Norma’s spotting prowess was extremely valu- able. When we had a target sighted and I fi red, Norma immediately would shift to “seek” mode and begin scouting a defi ned area for another target. I also would scout a different defi ned area and whoever found a target would tell the other and we would team up on getting an effective target acquisition. This tactic worked very well and kept us both engaged in the excitement of the chase, targeting, and result. Although it wasn’t as good as getting to shoot, Norma enjoyed the spotting assign- ment and was very enthusiastic about the results of the shots I took and their effect on the targets. One of our afternoon shoots was
done on a very large ranch just to the south of the Honker Inn. Host Bob led us to the area and pointed out a number of shooting spots. We fi nally chose a fi eld that was 500 yards wide and ap- proximately 1,000 yards long. At fi rst I did not have a sense of the size of the
fi eld until I took a shot at a varmint and the dust kicked up some 10 yards in front of where I was shooting. After some discussion with Norma and four or fi ve more shots, I decided to pace off the distance. I immediately thought about having a rangefi nder to take care of this issue for me. I have now placed a rangefi nder on my shopping list for this winter. The distance turned out to be 480 paces which is something on the order of 450 yards. No wonder my shots were short. I returned to my bench and took
advantage of my mil-dot scope and fi red off six or seven more shots. Although I was better on distance, the wind was gusting 90 degrees to me as it came off Goose Lake. I accomplished little more than giving the squirrel a dust bath and increasing my frustration level. I now understand how much I need to work on my 350 yards and beyond shooting. My success rate at the 75- to 300-yards range is good and that lulled me into a false sense of confi dence for the 400- to 500-yards range. I will return to the excellent articles
in past issues of The Varmint Hunter Magazine® on long-range shooting chal- lenges. As an aside, I recently received a Cooper MV-21 rifl e in Tactical 20. I was able to do some work with the gun at 300 yards and it shoots fl atter than the 223 A/I. In fact, Norma “killed” many golf balls at 300 yards. She likes the lower recoil, and the way the 32-grain bullet
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