Summer is here and the fur is flying across the west as well-armed riflemen square off against the perennial pests of the plains. It is a love/hate relationship. Ranchers hate prairie dogs and a dedicated segment of rifle enthusiasts love to shoot them. The prairie dogs do not express much emotion about it one way or the other but it does seem to me they have become increasingly skittish in recent years. Maybe it is just my imagination but the prairie dogs I have encountered lately appear to be downright paranoid - always spinning their heads around taking quick glances over the shoulder, and often hunkering down behind any available cover. Who can blame them?

Prairie dogs offer a challenging target for precision shooters. Despite the emotional hysteria by some environmentalist these prolific pests are expanding their range and sport shooting is a humane and effective way to control their numbers.

The last couple decades have yielded many advances in the precision of our prairie dogging equipment. We can buy rifles off the rack with accuracy enhancing features that were previously available only on the custom jobs. We have brighter optics with more precise and reliable tracking, lasers to tell us how far away our target is, and ballistic programs to help us judge the bullet's trajectory and wind deflection. With due credit to all this fine equipment, I believe one of the most important advances that helps us reach out there and take prairie dogs that were heretofore out of range has come in the area of bullet technology. Fact is, some of the old rifles were very accurate, and some of the older scopes were very rugged and precise. You just had to work a little harder to find them.

For example, a few years back I customized an old Swedish Mauser 6.5 x 55mm. I cut the barrel back to 21-inches, reworked the bolt handle, slimed down the stock and added a few other external touches. When the job was done, I had a pretty nifty little Mannlicher style carbine. After mounting a thirty year old Weaver scope, I took it to the shooting bench. The first group fired went into a ½-inch cluster at 100 yards. Remember, this is a century old military barrel. I am fully convinced the deciding factor was the custom handloaded match grade bullet I fed into the chamber.

Still, the most notable breakthrough, as far as the varmint hunter is concerned, has not been in building a more accurate bullet. We've had super accurate match bullets for some time. The trick was to incorporate match grade performance into a flat-shooting bullet with explosive terminal performance at a wide range of velocities. When I first started varmint shooting back in the early 70s, choosing a varmint bullet meant compromise. You could go with a match bullet that might not expand properly at long range, or you could use a bullet with gaping hollow point or exposed lead tip that ensured expansion but caused a rapid decline in down range velocity. A bullet needed a thin jacket for explosive performance, but if too thin and pushed too fast it would sometimes vaporize on leaving the bore.

When you care enough to send the very best, one of the very best .22 caliber bullets for prairie dog shooting is the Nosler 40-grain Ballistic Tip.

Then along came the Nosler Ballistic Tip. Nosler didn't invent the polymer tipped bullet. Norma already had a variation on the market, as did CIL of Canada. The tip on these, however, was a simple ball to initiate expansion and did little to improve the bullet's flight characteristics. And these were big game slugs, whereas Nosler applied the polymer technology not only to game bullets but to varmint bullets as well. Explosive impact is ensured by a thin jacket and gaping cavity at the nose of the projectile. This hollow point is then filled by a polymer tip which not only greatly increases the bullet's aerodynamics but further aids expansion. To protect this fragile bullet from the pressures of high velocity cartridges and allow it to be launched at blistering speeds, Nosler incorporates a heavy solid base.

Other companies followed suit and we now have the Hornady V-Max and Sierra BlitzKing. While all these bullets look pretty much the same externally, the different manufacturers utilize various internal designs. Nosler claims the solid base design of their bullet prevents deformation when fired very fast. I am sure it does but I have pushed the Hornady V-Max and Sierra BlitzKing bullets past 4,000 feet per second with no problem. Whichever the brand, one feature common to all these bullets is a high ballistic coefficient in relation to their weight.

The increased ballistic coefficients made possible by the polymer tip design have greatly improved the usefulness of light for caliber bullets. Prior to the introduction of the Nosler ballistic tip, 40-grain .224 diameter bullets were mostly a short range proposition and few varmint hunters used them for serious work. The 40-grain polymer tipped bullets have ballistic coefficients comparable to 50-grain projectiles of conventional hollow or soft point design and, since the lighter bullets can be pushed to higher velocities, the result is a flatter trajectory.

Polymer tipped varmint bullets may look the same on the outside but different manufacturers use different internal designs. On the left is an exterior and interior view of the Hornady 40-grain V-Max .224 caliber bullet. Note the difference in internal design between it and the 40-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip on the right. Despite the differences, terminal performance is very similar.

For a hunter using the .223 cartridge about 3400 feet per second is about all the velocity that can be safely attained with a 50-grain bullet. With the 40 grain bullet he can reach about 3800-fps. This means his velocity and trajectory is very close to what he might have gotten from a 50-grain bullet in a .22/250 not too many years ago. Little wonder the .223 remains so popular for shooting prairie dogs. Mild recoil, good barrel life, and relatively low cost of ammunition doesn’t hurt either.

It has long been advised that hunters should use heavier for caliber bullet weights for their wind bucking abilities. But if both bullets are started at top velocity in the .223 a 40-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip has less than a half-inch more drift in the ubiquitous 10 mile per hour crosswind than a 55-grain Ballistic Tip way out at 400 yards. I doubt any shooter is skilled enough to detect this minor difference in wind deflection, but the difference in drop is more noticeable. If both bullets are zeroed at 250-yards the lighter bullet will drop about three-inches less at 400-yards. Another factor to consider is that the 40-grain bullet will still be traveling about 150-fps faster at that 400-yard mark. The 55-grain bullet will, of course, be carrying more energy but it is speed that causes the explosive results on prairie dogs that ensure humane kills.

Shooting paranoid prairie dogs in the wide open spaces of the west requires a precision rifle and accurate, flat shooting bullets that provide explosive terminal performance.

It is the superb performance of polymer tip bullets that makes the new .204 Ruger such an exceptional performer. If we were still limited to conventional soft or hollow point bullets I am not sure the .204 would have been introduced. If it had, it would likely not have been nearly as successful. It is the polymer tip and streamlined design that allows the .204 to shoot as flat and buck the wind as well as any .22/250 load and it does it with less recoil and muzzle blast. Many shooters are discovering that the .204 Ruger just may well be the finest prairie dog cartridge in existence.

The newest varmint cartridge on the market is Remington’s .17 Fireball and, again, it is the sleek polymer tip combined with a streamlined profile that raises the performance level of its flyweight bullets. Remington is loading a 20-grain Accu Tip-V bullet in the .17 Fireball and trajectory is about the same as the old .17 Remington load with a 25-grain hollow point bullet. This is because the polymer tipped 20-grain Accu Tip-V has an almost identical ballistic coefficient as the old 25-grain hollow point and is launched very close to the same velocity. The lighter bullet makes it possible to reach the 4,000-fps mark in the smaller Fireball case resulting in less muzzle blast and almost no recoil.

Speaking of the .17 Remington, it was and still is a great cartridge and deserved better than it got from American shooters. It shot flatter out to a few hundred yards than any .22/250 load of the time and bucked the wind far better than gun scribes of the day gave it credit for. You might say it was the original flyweight wonder, but it is little used today and bullet manufacturers have largely ignored it. Remington does offer the 20-grain Accu Tip-V bullet in the .17 Remington and the larger case boosts velocity about 250-fps over the .17 Fireball. If Nosler or Hornady would come out with a 25-grain polymer tip bullet for the .17 Remington it might breathe some new life in the cartridge but probably not much. The .204 Ruger performs better in that case size and the Fireball case is likely a better size for the tiny .17 caliber bullets.

Obviously, for small varmints such as prairie dogs, the flyweight wonder bullets are hard to beat. They offer higher velocities for more spectacular terminal effect, flatter trajectories for long-range shots, and are not blown about by the wind as much as many people might think. For larger varmints, a heavier bullet might be better. Anyone who has taken aim at the south end of a north bound coyote knows what I mean. The heavier bullets offer more penetration. Not that the flyweights don't have their place in the predator caller's ammo box. With careful shot placement that emphasizes short routes to the vitals they offer quick kills while minimizing pelt ruining exit holes.

The .204 Ruger is quickly becoming a favorite of many prairie dog shooters due to its flat trajectory and mild recoil and muzzle blast. This performance is made possible by sleek polymer tip bullets.

There are other situations where heavier bullets are desirable. Most notably, when shooting at very long range. Even the best light bullet loads begin to lose their advantage as 500-yards is approached. Way out there the heavier polymer tips prevail. Also, some rifles will not shoot the light caliber bullets well, though most do. Personally, I still use some of the old classic soft point bullets in the 50 to 55-grain range for some applications in my .22 centerfires. A big plus is they cost less than the polymer tipped bullets.

Bottom line is...you should give careful thought to what bullets you send downrange and do not buy into some of the old guidelines for bullet selection. Technology has advanced and the best way to determine what works best for your needs is to crunch some numbers on a good ballistics program and then get out there and try the bullets in the field.