Help with Prairie dog equipment

[meatyrem]

PD splatting What a good way for practice. And so much fun too.

Here is another hint or piece of advice: Go have a blast!!!gun)

 

[WildRose]

Thumbs
Any kind of shooting bench is better than trying to shoot off the sticks. I've got one word for you: Pricklypear. If you don't know what that is, goodle it. It's a cactus that covers most if not all of the prairie region of the U.S. If you're going to be shooting off your belly you better have a thick pad. And I won't even mention prairie rattlers.

If nothing else, buy you a small folding leg table or cut you a piece of plywood and buy a pair of the folding legs for about $20 and add them to the plywood. If all else fails you can shoot over your hood from sandbags, but put something on the hood to keep from burning the paint off. Shooting off the bipods sounds good, but trust me, it's not.

Some real wisdom here. However... .

Ratlesnakes will not come to find you. The biggest threat they pose is when you are walking around or poking around where they are coiled up.

You can buy rolls of kevlar, viper cloth, or cordura pretty cheap. Put that under a sleeping bag mattress and you have some real comfort to shoot prone. You can also buy a dragbag/shooting matt that is made of cordura. Either way you can eliminate cactus from being an issue.

As for the shooting off of bags on the hood, be sure you are high enough off of the hood to avoide powder burns on the paint job, or worse, flat peeling the paint off! I've done both... .

One of the most comfortable ways to shoot is to use your mirror for a rest and just shoot from the truck... where it's legal.

 

[Nimrodmar10]

Why not? I live in N. central Mt. (pretty much PD, gopher central) Bipods or sling is all I use, never saw the need for anything more. I've seen and used portable benches, but at the end of the day I was always left wondering why bother with it, just ends up being another piece of crap to load in the truck then unload afterwards. No offense just wondering why you think so, and stating my observations/conclusions.

Hi Joe

Like I told Thumbs, the areas I shoot are covered in prickly pear cactus. You'd have to put down plywood to lay on the ground. The heat waves (mirage) are much worseat ground level and a shooting bench is a lot more comfortable if you shoot from daylight to dark like I do. I'll average 600-1200 shots per day. Most of this is 285-600 yards with an AR rifle. The muzzle blast from these guns blows up a lot of dust if shooting prone, even with a suppressor. I also carry 8-10 guns when I go and shoot them all. I don't get far from the truck so a bench or two is no big deal.

But to each, his own. If you like to lay dog when you PD hunt, more power to you. There's no wrong way to hunt them. Just be safe.

 

[Joe King]

Hi Joe

Like I told Thumbs, the areas I shoot are covered in prickly pear cactus. You'd have to put down plywood to lay on the ground. The heat waves (mirage) are much worseat ground level and a shooting bench is a lot more comfortable if you shoot from daylight to dark like I do. I'll average 600-1200 shots per day. Most of this is 285-600 yards with an AR rifle. The muzzle blast from these guns blows up a lot of dust if shooting prone, even with a suppressor. I also carry 8-10 guns when I go and shoot them all. I don't get far from the truck so a bench or two is no big deal.

But to each, his own. If you like to lay dog when you PD hunt, more power to you. There's no wrong way to hunt them. Just be safe.

I learned as a youngster, LOOK for the cactus's, learned that one the hard way backed by plenty of reminders lol

 

[thetravlor]

Sitting in that hot summer sun sucks. We used our EZUp pop up shelters. What works best is to extend the legs on only one side of the rig. It ends up about 4' high on the back and at a 45° angle. It cuts the sun and wind down and we didn't have to keep moving the table around like we did on day one. Lots easier on an old man at days end.