cast .224's on prairie dogs

[wmitty]

Had a successful p.d. hunt last week and used the Lee Bator and the newer Lee 55 grain designs for some of the 100 - 150 yd shots. Both were loaded over a charge of 12.5 gr. 2400 and both had gas checks seated with a .225" Lee push thru die. I lubed them with three coats of Ben's L.L. and used .223 brass trimmed and sized to fit the .222 M 788 I used. Accuracy was very good but I was disappointed with the apparent lack of expansion and resulting wounding of a number of the dogs hit. Quite a few crawled back into their mounds after being hit. Anyone have success using cast .224 boolits on p.d.s?

[M-Tecs]

Tried them in my 22 Hornet same results and lots of ricochets.

[GhostHawk]

Alloy?

[largom]

Alloy?

Same question. What is your alloy?

[earlmck]

I use similar boolets at similar velocities out of my hornet on sage rats, and to get accuracy at velocities of 2300 to 2400 fps you end up using hard bullets. I get good results on the sage rats but they are a much smaller critter than a prairie dog so I can see where those loads might not be nearly as impressive on the larger animals, especially at the long end of the range. My strategy is to use the hornet/cast loads for shots up to around 100 yards and something a lot more explosive (and flatter shooting) for the longer shots.

[telebasher]

Find a good used Lyman 225438 and send it to Erik Ohlen and have him work his magic on it. I use straight ACCWW and there will be no crawling back to the holes with proper bullet placement. I use 11 gr AA1680 as recommended by Paco Kelley and get 1 to 11/2 inch groups at 100 yds so varmints inside of 200 are in trouble depending on the wind. BTW, this is with a 12 twist Handi-Rifle.

[richhodg66]

I was fortunate enough to get one of the Lee Bator molds and have used it on fox squirrels in the .22 Hornet. I cast them very soft, don't remember the exact alloy, but I was aiming for the 1% antimony content of .22 LR bullets. With gas checks and 5.5 grains of 2400, it's one hole accurate at 25 yards and terminal performance on squirrels is actually a bit too much, tears up a lot of meat if hit wrong.

This info won't help you with 150 yard shots, but I think te Bator will work well if you can get the hardness, accuracy and velocity thing figured out.

[bronte454]

I've been curious about pouring .225 cast with the pot turned all the way up and water dropping so that boolits are brittle hard if this would help the explosive aspect . Any body tried this ? I also have a .225 lyman hollow point can't recall the mold # right now but I was thinking the brittle boolit might help . But pouring 1 HP at a time for high volume shooting gets old and slow in a hurry lol . I would LOVE a Mihec 4 cav HP in 45-55 grain wow could be lotsa fun .

[MT Chambers]

The problem I have is that you can't use anywhere near to the same sight settings as when I need a J-word load for a long range shot.

[wmitty]

I am using air cooled wheelweights and had assumed the 12.5 grains of 2400 would be producing something over 2200 fps velocity. It might be that I can get by with a softer alloy. I will try it next time I load and post the results as far as accuracy. We were attempting to hit the dogs in the head but at the longer ranges my estimate of holdover allowed the slugs to hit in the guts several times. I watched one dog go back to feeding after being drilled thru the body with the Bator. Really surprised me and I went back to shooting jacketed hollow points.

[gunseller]

Never shot PDs with boolets but have shot a lot of red squirrels and rabbits. I have on old ideal mold that casts .225 weighing 60 grains using acww. I push it along at around 1600 and it drop small game out to 75 yards or more without any problems and little meat damage. A softer mix might help. I do not thing an extra hot pot and water cooling will make any usable difference. I don't think using boolets you will ever get the red mist most are looking for when they shoot dogs.
Steve

[reloader28]

If you want them to explode you need to hollow point them. Drill a 1/16 in hole about 1/4 deep and it should be brutal.
I shot many rabbits and a skunk with my 243 RCBS 95gr SP with straight air cooled clip on WW at 1660 fps and hollow pointed 3/8 deep. They act just like a v max or varmint grenade within given range.

[Iowa Fox]

Prairie Dogs are tough little guys. I've seen them almost cut in half and still crawl back in the hole.