Prairie dog shooting is a type of high-volume rifle practice that has been popular with hunters for centuries. Sizzling-hot bull barrels, dusty vistas, and sunburns are the name of the game. I don’t know that there has ever been a prairie dog shoot that didn’t have some element of friendly competition for bragging rights over the longest shot. Increasing distance was a goal of a recent shoot I did on the outskirts of Casper, Wyoming. goals, including getting reps Leupold’s new BX-6 rangefinding binoculars Joe used Hornady’s 4DOF ballistic solver and had to try to hit at least one prairie dog at 1,000 yards.
a little more than luck
The first morning of our shoot the dust had not settled back on our tire tracks by the time I was rolling out my shooting mat. The winds were absolutely calm and if there was ever a time to score on long shots it was now. I immediately fitted a heavy-barreled 6mm ARC with a bipod, broke out a box of ammunition, and began scanning a mid-range prairie dog to check for dope before trying a distant shot. I found one of about 500, I fired once and hit it. After that, I quickly made three hits between 1,000 and 1,228 yards. As the wind increased, we closed the distance and continued shooting. By noon time, we were accumulating over a mil (3.6 MOA) of windage to hit prairie dogs at less than 300 yards. We also made a concerted effort to achieve another shooting challenge – taking on the nearest prairie dog. I managed to get a shot in the head with a .22 LR at 11 yards after crawling in the dust.
I spent most of my second morning working on a bug-infested patch of ground between 400 and 600 yards from our shooting location, alternating between the 6mm ARC and the 22 ARC to keep the barrel cool. In the afternoon there was not as strong a wind as the previous day, and I spent most of it bouncing between groups of prairie dogs at a distance of 600 to 900 yards. However, they were scattered along the fence line about 1,100 yards apart and, while watching one particular group, I noticed a conspicuous stander a few hundred yards from the fence. In afternoon conditions, one of the challenges was actually finding the prairie dogs that could be seen well enough to take accurate aim through the mirage.
The rangefinder read 1,368, and I applied an elevation correction of 13.3 mils, keeping about .4 mils for windage. After a quick trigger pull, more than a second passed before a cloud of dust erupted on the right. A quick correction and another shot sent a 6mm bullet a hair’s breadth to the left. The third bullet overturned him. Or maybe it was the fourth – I don’t remember.
Although I certainly felt the temptation to go to the gas station and scratch at the end of the day, there’s more to it than pure luck in killing something as small as a prairie dog at that distance. I hit targets over 1,000 yards seven or eight times on that trip, but the real achievement was the practice – and what it means when applied to running a rifle at normal hunting distances.
How hard is it to hit a prairie dog at 1,368 yards?
While the average smart-ass would assume that if you have unlimited ammo, it’s not difficult at all to kill a prairie dog at three quarters of a mile, but that’s actually not true. Nor is it true that a shooter with sufficient skill has a good chance of doing so on the first shot. So what do you really need for you? Let’s take a look at some of the factors involved.
How big is a prairie dog?
The average prairie dog, when standing, is about 12 inches tall and 4 inches wide, give or take. If you are dealing with close range and windy conditions, a horizontal varmint gives you a more forgiving target to aim for and the opposite is true if there are lighter winds and less precise distance. Any way you slice it, a P-Dog is a small target at over 1,000 yards.
In minute-of-angle terms, that prairie dog is about .28 MOA wide and .84 MOA tall. There are a lot of hunters who think that just because they have a quarter-MOA rifle, there should be no problem making the kill, right? Well, it doesn’t work that way. Through thousands of rounds of testing, we have found that the old standard of a rifle that shoots three-shot, sub-minute groups does not qualify it as a sub-minute rifle. When testing with legitimate sample sizes (at least 20-shot composite groups), hunting rifles that are actually capable of reliable sub-MOA performance are not ideal.
Fortunately for me, I was shooting very accurate rifles that were reliably sub-MOA, but probably not capable of half-MOA precision. Considering the size of the target and that level of dispersion, under perfect conditions, with accurate wind estimation, and less than 10 fps of velocity variability, I only got a 7 percent hit probability according to the Applied Ballistics WEZ hit probability calculator.
velocity variability
Variation in velocity from shot to shot is one of the biggest factors in shot-to-shot accuracy at long ranges – especially when we’re talking about such small targets. Reloaders strive for a low standard deviation of velocity, but like dispersion, it is important to use a valid sample size to calculate it accurately. Single-digit SD can be achieved with large samples, but this is not common. Top factory match ammo typically has SDs between 12 and 18 fps and extreme dispersion in the 40 to 75 fps range. If we apply a 30 fps range to our velocity, that reduces our chance of impact to 1 percent.
drag variability
One thing that often doesn’t become a factor until you get to longer distances is drag variability. This is a slight variation in pull from shot to shot and bullet to bullet. A little more drag means the bullet will slow down more quickly, less drag means it will stay faster for longer – and have a higher impact downrange. I’ve been shooting Hornady bullets, which include their Drag Variability Reduction Technology, or DVRT, but it’s still not completely consistent from bullet to bullet.
Wind: The Great Equalizer
Wind has the biggest impact on where your bullet lands. We have already seen that even without air there is no possibility of hitting such a small target. A perfectly constant wind from shooter to target is easy to calculate and compensate for, but it is never consistent. What does this do in the case of the prairie dog? A wind speed of zero to one mile per hour would carry my bullet about 13 inches at 1,368 yards. A three-mile-per-hour change—which is often imperceptible—takes the bullet by 39 inches. Any variability at this distance drops the theoretical hit probability in the WEZ calculator to zero or one percent. Ultimately, shooting into the wind requires best guesses, accurate corrections, and fast shooting before conditions change again.
Making Hits Happen
Given all this, it’s a surprise that these hits are even achievable – and I’ve certainly put more slugs into the dirt than into the fur at that distance. It can be done, but it requires repetition as well as getting everything right. Consistent positioning, crisp trigger squeeze, and good recoil management give you a great opportunity to recognize your mistakes, make corrections, and send shots that will connect. One important thing to know is when not to improvise. At extreme ranges, the very nature of your rifle’s spread will cause some misses. If your shots are falling within the expected area of dispersion, don’t change anything, just keep shooting. If shots are consistently falling low, high, right or left of where the group center should be, make corrections. It is relatively scientific, but also relies on some intuition.
final thoughts
Ultimately, the accomplishment in doing this is the fun, the practice, the experience that can be applied to other hunting and shooting disciplines – if it is done purposefully. Beating away small goals all day until you achieve one won’t do you any good if you don’t do it in a way that will improve your skills. The three most valuable things I was able to work on were wind calling and correcting, accurate ranging, and target reference. On a small target, you must not only guess the wind correctly, but also make a precise grip so that if you miss you can accurately correct. Otherwise you are just guessing. Accurate ranging can also be difficult depending on the terrain. This is something that match directors regularly take advantage of in the NRL Hunter competition. Goal reference is another valuable skill both in competition and on the field. Identifying, cornering, and shooting a particular prairie dog in a mile-long basin full of prairie dogs can be more difficult than it seems – especially when talking to a partner or spotter on the spot.
I think every good prairie dog shoot should end with some almost unbelievable brag. Whether it’s an offhand shot at a half-sprinkler quarter, a long-range strike with a rimfire revolver (which I wasn’t), or an accurate rifle reaching the limits of space and time, Prairie Dog Shoot is the place to do it. There’s probably no more fun way to improve skills that will help you during hunting season.
