Post by Bill on Mar 13, 2007 7:32:30 GMT -5
As most of you know, I have been gearing up over the last year trying to get set up to shoot a praire dog at 1500 yards. 
This is all fun but I'm finding that "Dang that can be spendy" 
So far getting the rifle seems to have been the cheapest part of the quest. Same with the scope although I got a good one this time. A 6.5X20X40LR SF Leupold..
What will really get you is the rest of the things you need. It just seems to nickle dime you to death. Plus the number of trips back and forth to the local sporting good store to pick up things you need are costly too. And I work at one.
I now have the rifle with the new scope mounted on it which should be a case of "OH your ready to shoot" NADDA.
What I have shot up till now was all factory and just to kind of play with the rifle a bit and give me some trigger time. I used clearance ammo and nothing matches. 
I broke one scope's crosshairs out playing. Still cheap so far. But to get to the end of my quest I need a lot more things than I have. First off is the ammo. The best ammo out there for what I need is the Nosler brass which we just started showing in the shooting catalog but I as of yet havn't seen any on the shelves. 
At a bit more than $1 apeice they aren't cheap. Then I wanted either the 210 grain Match king or the 240 MK and neither of those are in stock. Then I needed a set of Redding .300 Rum dies and a S type neck sizing die. Nadda special order. Well the H1000 powder I need is on hand and so are the primers. Then I go to look at what loads to use and I finally had to go to another web site to find that as all the books I find give totally unrealistic loads like they think I might blow the gun up or some of them at really on the edge.
Then to make my computer program for my palm pilot work. More costs in the project. I need a cronograph to know the exact volocity and Extreme Spread of the load along with the BC which about half of the companys give BC's that are totally wrong or are very optimistic. 
Then I'm not sure how the gun is going to shoot with the load I work up so I am going to have to have a couple differant powders and bullets and primers.
SO, by the time I get ready to kill that praire dog at 1500 yds, its going to have taken me 6 months from the time I bought the gun till the time I'm ready to start trying to kill that praire dog and spent more money on parifial's needed other than the gun and scope than what they gun and scope cost originaly than I originally belived it was going to cost. Maybe as much as 130%
Plus I have been shooting around 50 rounds a week thru various guns just to get enough trigger time to get me back to where I feel comfortable with all my guns to where I think I can just begin to shoot out to 1500 yds. I have been doing pretty good with the cheap ammo for the .223 and .22-250 which is all off the shelf ammo but all mixed stuff as I was buying what was cheapest rather than what the guns like best but thats also the reason I gave Two Moons all the .22-250 brass. Its all mixed stuff. Then when you add the load prep I'm doing on the .25-06AI trying to get it ready too.
So what I am finding out with all this is the following.
Its not cheap by no means to kill a praire dog at 1500 yds.
Its cheaper to go elk hunting or cheaper yet to go deer hunting.
You only need 1 or at most 2 bullets to kill either one of those and a few to practice with.
But if you want to go and shoot a worthless little rodent that your not going eat or touch for that matter as you can catch all kinds of things from those hairy critters its going to cost you big bucks. Even if your going to just go do a couple day praire dog shoot its spendy.
Working up to being able to do it and do something other than just go and shoot at them is even more added costs.
I just hope that when it finally happens and that hairy little rodent is lying dead at my feet it will have been worth it.
I think next time I will just go elk hunting and be done with it. Its cheaper.
This is all fun but I'm finding that "Dang that can be spendy" 
So far getting the rifle seems to have been the cheapest part of the quest. Same with the scope although I got a good one this time. A 6.5X20X40LR SF Leupold.
.What will really get you is the rest of the things you need. It just seems to nickle dime you to death. Plus the number of trips back and forth to the local sporting good store to pick up things you need are costly too. And I work at one.
I now have the rifle with the new scope mounted on it which should be a case of "OH your ready to shoot" NADDA.
What I have shot up till now was all factory and just to kind of play with the rifle a bit and give me some trigger time. I used clearance ammo and nothing matches. 
I broke one scope's crosshairs out playing. Still cheap so far. But to get to the end of my quest I need a lot more things than I have. First off is the ammo. The best ammo out there for what I need is the Nosler brass which we just started showing in the shooting catalog but I as of yet havn't seen any on the shelves. 
At a bit more than $1 apeice they aren't cheap. Then I wanted either the 210 grain Match king or the 240 MK and neither of those are in stock. Then I needed a set of Redding .300 Rum dies and a S type neck sizing die. Nadda special order. Well the H1000 powder I need is on hand and so are the primers. Then I go to look at what loads to use and I finally had to go to another web site to find that as all the books I find give totally unrealistic loads like they think I might blow the gun up or some of them at really on the edge. Then to make my computer program for my palm pilot work. More costs in the project.
I need a cronograph to know the exact volocity and Extreme Spread of the load along with the BC which about half of the companys give BC's that are totally wrong or are very optimistic. 
Then I'm not sure how the gun is going to shoot with the load I work up so I am going to have to have a couple differant powders and bullets and primers.
SO, by the time I get ready to kill that praire dog at 1500 yds, its going to have taken me 6 months from the time I bought the gun till the time I'm ready to start trying to kill that praire dog and spent more money on parifial's needed other than the gun and scope than what they gun and scope cost originaly than I originally belived it was going to cost. Maybe as much as 130%
Plus I have been shooting around 50 rounds a week thru various guns just to get enough trigger time to get me back to where I feel comfortable with all my guns to where I think I can just begin to shoot out to 1500 yds. I have been doing pretty good with the cheap ammo for the .223 and .22-250 which is all off the shelf ammo but all mixed stuff as I was buying what was cheapest rather than what the guns like best but thats also the reason I gave Two Moons all the .22-250 brass. Its all mixed stuff.
Then when you add the load prep I'm doing on the .25-06AI trying to get it ready too. So what I am finding out with all this is the following.
Its not cheap by no means to kill a praire dog at 1500 yds.
Its cheaper to go elk hunting or cheaper yet to go deer hunting.
You only need 1 or at most 2 bullets to kill either one of those and a few to practice with.
But if you want to go and shoot a worthless little rodent that your not going eat or touch for that matter as you can catch all kinds of things from those hairy critters its going to cost you big bucks.
Even if your going to just go do a couple day praire dog shoot its spendy. Working up to being able to do it and do something other than just go and shoot at them is even more added costs.
I just hope that when it finally happens and that hairy little rodent is lying dead at my feet it will have been worth it.
I think next time I will just go elk hunting and be done with it. Its cheaper.
