Prairie Dog Caliber

Going prairie dog hunting next week. Seems like a good excuse to add a nice bolt action to my collection. What caliber do you recommend? I assume we'll be taking shots at several hundred yards. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

22-250

.223, preferably with a tight twist to handle 68-69 Match bullets if the shooting will be long. Cheaper to load than a .22-250, takes longer to heat up, and doesn't burn barrels as quick. JMHO...

A 223 and 22-250 so you can rotate when 1 heats up.

.223 or .243 with stainless barrel and a tube sock.

Tube sock over the barrel and keep it wet.

I can see you've done this before!!!

I always used 223's (as in take a spare), less barrel heat but you do give up range. FYI if you use the heavier match bullets you tend to lose the explosive impact of a true varmint bullet. I stick to 50-55gr varmint projectiles for maximum effect.

I've already got rifles in 223/5.56 and .308. I was told the 308 would be too much recoil to easily see the little guys do their flips. Would good glass on my colt LE 6920 be sufficient? It currently sports an ACOG, which at 4x might not be enough to reach way out there. I don't mind buying a new rifle, so feel free to poke holes in an idea to use an ar15. Thanks again for your thoughts!

Use everything you got. Just don't plan to shoot the over 22 calibers much. Your shoulder will thank you, no matter how tough you are. The 204 is about as good as it gets for a PD rifle. Half the wind drift of others

204 is a good round for pd. I know some guys that shoot 25 cals for long range shots and use 22 cals for everything 300-400 and under.

I just use 22 cals but I would like a 204 added to my rotation.

My wifes grandfather shoots thousands of them up here in Colorado. He shoots a cooper tac20 and has a few savage 17wsm rifles he likes a lot also.

mac is right, I have lots of PD rifles and the Cooper in a Tac 20 is my favorite one.
I usually start with the 17 HMR and keep shooting till I run out of 150 yarder's or less and then move up to the 17 FB or 221 FB depending on wind. After those are warm or dogs are to far I get the tac 20 out. Sometimes the 20 Vartarg is used in the rotation. If you are buying a new gun and want to go on the cheap just find a CZ 527 varmint in 204 or 223 and your good to go. If you are interested I have a nice Cooper 223 with a Leupold 6.5 x 20 that I would sell!! ready to go, shoots very well

good luck and enjoy

Sounds like you have an AR15 in 223 so why not add a heavy barrel 22-250? It would give you the extra range for those longer shots and you can rotate rifles to keep them cool.

Make sure you take more than two guns. When you get into some big towns you will heat up two guns in a hurry. My son and I start up close ( under 100 yds ) with either 17 hmr or 17 wms then go to 223 with 22-250 as our last gun. We then move four hundred yards and start the process again, barrels can still get hot

Take a good .22 with a scope. But they get smart quickly, so you will need a center fire to reach them. Also take a lot of ammo!

I have a pair of heavy barrel .223's and a heavy barreled .243 that I rotate in and out as the heat up. Been thinking about re barreling the .243 to a 22-250. Even the .243 has just enough recoil for me to miss the aerobatics and explosions of p-dogs.