Back in the 60's us kids spent countless hours harassing them with our trusty .22's in south central Montana. Living here in OR we don't have them in anywhere near the same numbers so several guys I know from the trap club make the trip up there every summer. If they ever get stopped on the way they are risking a hazmat violation for the load of ammo they pack.
Fairly sure as long as you stay east of the Rockies you'll find them well into the Dakoda's at least.
You'll want to take several guns, it's good sport with a contender, and all the ammo you can afford.
And watch out for the rattlers!

 

Well actually we don't have any PD in Oregon at all. None, zip, nada. We have several varieties of ground squirrels though. They are much smaller than PD and due to fee hunting and/or poison cabbage it can be hard to find opportunities, let alone the hoards of them we had decades ago.

 

I used to live in Lamar, CO where I went prairie doggin' a couple times a month. It was very common for my shooting buddy and I to log a couple hundred kills per trip. I used a Rem 700 BDL, chambered in 223 Rem for long shots, a Winchester Mod 9422M for 75~100 yard shots, and my Remington Mod 511, bolt action 22 LR rifles for shots under 75 yards. Most of the kills were made with 22 LRs. We would drive my old '71 El Camino in the prairie dog town and set up a shooting bench. Surprisingly, prairie dogs were curious and kept an eye on us, barking from one of their mounds. For long range shots, PDs were out in the open, grazing on vegetation. For closer shots, about all you get is a quarter coin sized head shot so you need a good accurate rifle. It was great fun and we did the ranchers a big favor by keeping the prairie dog population under control.

I don't think I ever visited a prairie dog town without seeing rattle snakes. They liked to get in abandoned PD holes, burrow owls too. I only had to shoot one rattler ..... it crawled under my shooting bench and coiled up about 18" from my leg. My Single-Six came in handy that day.

 

My dad loves to do it in Wyoming. We went several times. Damn things are almost too cute to shoot. Almost.
Somewhere around big horn basin if memory serves. (I was 12 when we went last)

 

@Meacham Bearcat
@Iowegan
@maddmatter1970

Would you say it's fairly easy to plan on hunt on public lands or is an outfitter the only way?

 

@Meacham Bearcat
@Iowegan
@maddmatter1970

Would you say it's fairly easy to plan on hunt on public lands or is an outfitter the only way?

We went public lands. But you would have to check. For residents, sometime ago, or my dad lied, we did not even need a license. Either way we didn't have one. BUT it was 1982

 

@Meacham Bearcat
@Iowegan
@maddmatter1970

ok so the consesus i guess is multiple rifles, so what do you think about this line up ...

Remington 22-250
Henry 327
Marlin 22 mag

Those three should do the far, medium and close shots ... ????

 

Like @Iowegan said... plan around a 300-350 yard shot from prone. 22-250, .223, would be my choices. That 1982 trip I was loaned a .243. Sako or some odd ball thing

 

I've never hunted on public land. I had friends that were ranchers so that helped. I knew of about a dozen large prairie dog towns so I was never in want for a place to hunt.

For a good kill ratio, I found my 223 Remy was excellent. I never took shots beyond 250 yards because that's about where my groups started opening up and missing the PDs. I also had a Winchester heavy 26" barrel Mod 70, chambered in 22-250. It would hold tight groups out to 300 yards but at that distance even the scope (Leupold 4~14X 50mm) wasn't powerful enough. Besides, 22-250 ammo wasn't cheap.

 

Just let your imagination have some fun, one logger I knew from Libby would tune up for hunting elk by using his .300 WBY.
Personally, I agree with your .22-250 upper limit and a .22 is mandatory.
Anything in between is great, the bee and hornet are 2 of my favorites.
Some of the best challenge is using a t/c contender in almost any caliber or most any handgun.

 

I worked up a load with 115gr Speer JHPs for my 7x57 Mauser. Very accurate and they chroned at 2800 fps. You should see what happens to a prairie dog with a full body hit from this gun at a couple hundred yards. It's a red vapor moment, leaving only hair, teeth, and eyeballs. My 223 Rem was notorious to "air plane" PDs at 200+ yards. When you get in a target rich environment, the barrel would get so hot that you can't handle the gun so was set aside to cool off while you used a different rifle. I always took a 357 Mag Blackhawk on prairie dog hunts but it was loaded with snake shot. I did paste a few PDs with my Single-Six and my MK I at close range. One of my favorite things was to purposely shoot in front of a running PD. They would turn around and head for a different hole, then you would shoot in front again so it would reverse directions. It reminded me of an old carnival target range. Finally, the PD would stop .... a fatal move.

We used to take a couple coffee cans for "score keeping". Each time you had a confirmed kill, the empty brass case was put in your coffee can and counted at the end of the hunt. The person with the lowest number of brass cases had to buy the beer. A normal hunt would yield over 100 confirmed kills per person. Our record was 350 kills in 2 hours, counting both coffee cans.

Madd, Some people call it skunk cabbage.

 

Thanks! Skunk cabbage I know! Should of been able to figure it out!

 

Never been. Looks like fun.

 

I used to shoot big rats with my dad that we lured out of the barns with horse feed. 22 LR. It was a hoot.

 

Skunk cabbage?

 

One thing I failed to mention was "wind". I never saw a calm day in a prairie dog town .... always a wind, which is also why I limited my shots to 250 yards or less. I still have the digital anemometer that I used. With a good wind drift chart and a bullet drop chart, I usually had kill ratios of 90% or better with my 223 Rem.

Yes, skunk cabbage ... it is slightly poisonous and smells like skunk spray. It looks like this:

 

man, you guys are getting me all amped up about this ... if I can do this and fulfill a bucket list hunt of my father, that would be an awesome thing ... the 22-250 i mentioned was his, he used it extensively for groundhogs here in Ohio. Of course, I'd have to borrow it from my brother who inherited it when our father passed away ...

 

Closest I've come are ground squirrels one summer working at a ranch in Grand Lake CO. Think I was 16. Rancher we worked for loved it as their burrows were a real hazard for his cattle. Me and some of the other hands took my 10/22 out after work and laid waste to the critters. Went through more 500 round boxes of 22lr than I can count. Never did tell my old man of our sport as it violated one of his cardinal rules of hunting: what you shoot, you eat🤮

 

For pure shooting fun, few things equal PD hunting.
I've always been on private property and could probably find some places on CO or Wyo for you to go.
A portable shooting bench is almost mandatory. Shooting a couple of hundred rounds from prone isn't fun.
I take a minimum of 3 rifles and a pistol. Plus 200 rounds of ammo for each.
We usually do 2 man teams and trade off shooting and spotting.
A lot of the bigger ranches in Co,Wyo and Montana offer guided shoots and they take care of everything but the guns and ammo.
22 mag, 22 hornet, 223, 22-250 and 243 are all good candidates for different ranges.
The reason for multiple guns is to keep them cool. A good dog town can burn up a barrel in a day.

 

I did see some guided hunt outfits in SD, I've never used a guided outfit. One picture showed at least 10 guys lined up on portable shooting benches, it just didn't appeal to me. Going off grid on my own is more my style. Also, utilizing firearms that are at my disposal is also key. I'm really liking this crazy ass idea I have.

 

Growing up in NoDak in the 80's we would just go driving down the dusty roads in ranch land to find the PDs. Was pretty easy to find them and no one cared. Trespassing laws were in favor of the hunter back then, but when we asked for permission, the ranchers were in full support. I remember one guy even gave us some ammo.
I think all the tribes in western NoDak do outfitting. The husband of a co-worker used to go out there every year. One year he even checked off a bucket list item and hunted bison.

 

I grew up outside Las Animas, CO. Burned more than a few #'s of powder in 223Rem, 22-250, 220 swift through the '90s. Rotating multiple rifles to allow barrels to cool was the rule. Rimfires weren't very useful after a town had been shot a time or two. We would use sandbags and shoot off the hood of the pickup. Good advice above to mind the rattle snakes, particularly when you have your ear pro on. Spotting for a shooting buddy can be almost as much fun as shooting yourself.

IIRC the populations dwindled and hunting regulations became much more restrictive in the 2000's. Not sure what the regulations are today.

 

I have always wanted to go on a prairie dog shoot. It would be an awesome vacation to load the truck with rifles and ammo and head out. I have accurate rifles in .17HMR, .22WMR, .223 Rem, and .243 Win that I would love to get hot.

 

I see a few guys have mentioned 17 HMR, that's another choice I could bring along.

 

A couple more random thoughts....
Black-tailed pups start coming out of the burrow around Memorial Day. Higher target quantities, naive, but smaller.
The 243, even in a heavy target rifle, will start to deliver felt recoil by the end of a long afternoon of shooting
The 220 swift does burn barrels much faster than say a 223 rem. I've replaced swift barrels after a single summer of shooting.

 

When it comes to PDs handloading is your friend. One of my buddy's uses a 25-06 and loads 75 or 80 grain bullets.
A new trend is the use of suppressors. The sound reduction is easier on your nervous system and it keeps the dogs up longer.
They key to keeping 220 swift and 22-250 barrels alive is to slow the bullet down just a bit. When it it hits, the PD has no idea if the bullet was going 3500 fps or 4000.

 

I've never really had issues with 220 swift and 22-250 barrels, I run em full out but I never shoot them past where I can leave my hand on the barrel and I clean them regularly. Sure they don't last like a 223, but they aren't a 223. I'd still rather shoot my swifts than anything.

 

When you guys talk about barrel burn out, what quantity of rounds are we talking? 50 per hour? 100? 200? I know it's all about letting the gun cool and I'm sure each gun is different. But what is a reasonable round count?

 

Completely depends on the rifle, caliber, load, and barrel. Oh and temp outside, in March it might be 35 out, but in May it could easily be 80.

I have two Swifts and three 22-250 and all heat up at different rates even with similar or same loads. Having mult rifles makes it simple to keep em cool, just rotate through them as they get warm. Shooting at the range is a good place to see how fast and if you know about how fast you might shoot in the field you'll have a good idea if two is enough or more are needed. If time was only limited to the seasons then I'd have all the time in the world, but in the past it's always been a week or two here/there so a person wants to maximize their shooting. That said, looking forward there's far less opportunities and ammo even if reloaded is costly so I know I'll shoot far less than in the past. This makes me think more about better accuracy, taking further/harder shots vs low hanging fruit.

 

@jxb nailed it. If it's too hot to put your hand on the barrel it needs to cool. One of the local ranges has a barrel cooler made from an old air mattress pump. You put the pump hose in the chamber and let it run until the barrel cools.

 

Killed hundreds when I lived in Nebraska.

Here was my evolution during my PD shooting days.

I started with a HBAR colt in 5.56. The men who took me initially were using 30-06. 5.56 did a wonderful job on them, but after a few shots, the dogs would hide and would stay hidden for a while.
This happened with any caliber, but with supersonic stuff it happened quicker forcing me to move more often and shoot less of them.

Then I transitioned to a 10/22. 10/22 was loads of fun and usually I could shoot them out to 150ish or so. Nebraska has the Sand Hill region so we were protected from sight to some degree. When we shot up a PD town, we could walk to the next hill and the PDs there didn't know we were coming because we were in defilade. We'd sneak up on the crest of a hill and have at it. The rimfire ammo didn't scare them like supersonic stuff did so we could very often lay in the same place for a couple hours working multiple towns.

Lastly, I got bored of shooting them with the 10/22, so I started with a 7.5" single six w 22WMR. It was more challenging for me as we had to sneak up closer and the marksmanship required was higher.

Of all the shooting Ive done in the world, shooting PD's was the best. We left Nebraska after 3 years in 1999 and that was the last time I shot any PDs. I never hunted public land. Farmers and ranchers loved to invite us onto their property to help kill them off. Once the folks trusted you not to kill livestock or tear up the land we were golden. Once in Broken Bow NE, we were shooting and crossed a hill top and across the field was a cow laying dead on its side. I called the rancher thinking maybe we had done that inadvertantly and he reassured us that the cow was dead before we arrived. That's the reason he wanted the PD's gone. The cow had broken a leg stepping in a hole or something. Those types of losses cost the ranchers bigtime. we always tried to shoot where the cows weren't, but there can always be a stray so you have to watch out in that terrain. Usually the rancher knows where his animals are so they'll put you in another area.

The last time I shot in Broken Bow, I got sunburned pretty good on the back of my calves. I was wearing shorts and was so excited and focused on shooting while laying prone, I just didn't notice. Sure looked goofy with only the back of my legs getting burned.