Nothing went as planed. First off we lost power the night before we left so our alarm clocks didn't go off on time. Then we began to notice a loss of power on the hills outside of Jamestown, ND. We pulled off for fuel and the old girl just wouldn't stay running so we had it towed to the Ford garage in town only to find that they wouldn't be able to work on it until Monday. This was on a Thursday afternoon. The Tow truck driver hooked us up with a truck repair outfit that said they would be able to fix us up the following morning. We parked the RV in his parking lot and made camp right there. The owner of the repair shop handed us the keys to his pickup and told us to feel free to use it to see the local sights. We had all we needed in the Motor home so we declined his offer but thanked him for his kindness. If you ever break down in North Dakota just hope you're close to Kevin and his boys at Buffalo City Diesel Repair. They replaced the faulty fuel pump and had us back on the road in short order.
We have been shooting the same spot for four years. It's public land and holds about 120 acres of Prairie Dogs. Usually, three or four of us camp there for five days and have plenty of shooting without moving.
It started raining when we were about 25 miles from our destination. The sky's turned black and the lightning began to flash as we turned off the highway. The wind picked up and pelted us with rain and light hail as we made our way down the two track to our hunting site. We wanted to get parked before the mud got too bad to make it. As quick as it started, the rain stopped and the wind died down. Our two buddies, Bill and Tim, pulled in right behind us and we set up our campsite and shooting benches. It was getting late but we still had plenty of daylight to get in a little shooting before dinner.
Saturday morning we had 10-15 MPH wind out of the west and we were shooting to the north so it was a direct cross wind. It made it tough, and the .222's that Bill and Tim brought (They were new at this) had a tough time at 200-300 yards. Mike and I were shooting 6MM's so we had a small advantage. A few rainstorms blew through but for the most part, it was a fairly nice day of shooting. Mike and I were both connecting regularly out to 600 yards and anything under 400 was dead meat.
Tim and Bill decided they had enough fun for one weekend and said they would head home on Sunday morning. Mike and I were going to stay no matter what happened. Tim cooked us a wonderful dinner and we all turned in with full stomachs and big smiles.
Sunday morning brought us clear sky's and no wind. Bill and Tim headed out at 0530 so Mike and I had an early breakfast and started thinning out the Prairie Dog herd. Mike was shooting a BSA single shot bolt action that I had put together and I was shooting my 6mm BR Remington. Mike had installed a 6-18 Nikon Buckmaster mil dot scope. We had shot it on the local range out to 600 yards to verify the 1000 yd dope sheet that I made up from an Excel spread sheet. We had a wind meter to help us gage the wind and a Target rich environment to play with.
On Monday Mike decided to try for an old dog that had been popping up at around 850 to 900 yards out. It was the farthest hole we could see. I had measured the distance to the road when I made my 836 yard shot a few years earlier so I knew this guy was going to be close to 900 yards. We figured Mike needed 21 minutes of elevation and 9 minutes of windage to connect. He dialed in the dope, set up the shot and squeezed it off. I was watching the dog and as Mike fired, the dog ran for his hole, then ran the other way, then back toward his hole, then died. At 900 yards his 75 VMAX has slowed to around 1400 FPS so the splat factor is gone. The time of flight for that round is 1.290 seconds so Mike was able to get his scope back on the dog in time to see him expire. We walked out to the dog and took a GPS measurement. When I entered it into Google Earth we found the distance to be 915 yards.
When we examined the dog we found a head wound without much damage.
