AZ Prairie Dogs

[Calif. Hunter]

A few friends and I made the trip out to the Seligman area in AZ last weekend for prairie dogs before the closure started. There were about 10 of us, including my son Michael and Frank's nephew, also named Michael. Friday was a bit breezy, but Saturday was great. About 70 degrees, not much wind and a fair amount of PDs out and about. I forgot to take any pictures, though. I managed to hit a dozen or two, and shot a lot more ammo than that as many of them were further than my 600-yard rangefinder would read.

My son also discovered my CZ 527 in .223 and has claimed it as his own. It will probably be what he uses for javelina in New Mexico next winter. He ran through about 300 rounds of ammo. I guess I need to get my Dillon set up for .223 now....

 

[JB]

what, no pics?
Mikey is building himself quite the gun collection

 

[Calif. Hunter]

I was in the gun safe the other day, and he saw the Browning Hi-Power. He comment was, "You never showed me that one." He asked if he could handle it, and then said, "I really like the way this one feels. I think it's mine now."

Along with the Kimber .22-250, the Kimber .45 acp and the S&W Mod 29 that he has won at NRA dinners, he hardly needs to be claiming my stuff.

He is really enjoying being the only son.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

I have been cleaning that CZ-527 .223 since we got home. Boy did it get fouled from all that shooting he did! I think it is finally done. I also think I need to get more Wipe Out. I was using Montana Extreme and it does a good job, but is labor and patch intensive!

 

[1_pointer]

Just get some Tubb's Final Finish and fire a few at the end of the day!

For high volume rifles, I'm giving Ultra Bore Coat a very hard look...

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Copper fouling is not bad in this CZ. There was just a huge amount of powder fouling! Patches kept coming out black for a long time....powder used was H-322 for the most part with a few dozen rounds loaded with H-335.

 

[1_pointer]

I have had very little fouling of any sort with using Ramshot Xterminator in my 223 Ackley...FWIW.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

I picked up a pound of that to try, but I had several hundred already loaded up. I have just loaded 20 rounds with Xterminator and the 36 gr Varmint Grenade, but haven't tried them yet.

 

[1_pointer]

Good luck! That powder makes mine sing with 40 & 50gr Vmax's! It's been hard to find around here so I picked up an 8# jug of AA2230 to do some more fireforming with. If the weather clears up a tad I'm hoping to try a few of those this weekend.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

The load I tried was 26.4 gr of X-terminator, LC brass and a CCI SR mag primer. I guess sometimes we all get lucky - from a totally clean barrel, the first group was 1/2 inch. As I adjusted the POI, the groups got smaller. The last one I fired was 3/4 inch high and three shots looked like two bullet holes touching.....about 1/4-inch. I could go about 2 grains hotter, but if this load shoots that well, why bother?