.22 bator design on p dawgs

Spent the week in S E Colorado trying to reduce the quantity of grass eating creatures
for some local ranchers. I was using a 788 REM chambered for .222 and found some cast loads using the former Bator design ( blunt ogive) 55 grain g.c. in the bottom of my ammo bag. The load was either 12.0 gr 2400 or 14.0 gr 4227 but I couldn’t determine which as the sharpie marks had worn off the side of the zip lock bag.
Anyway, the p dawg doubled over and twitched a few times and expired. I had used these quite a bit several years back with about the same reaction from a well placed hit. Velocity is around 2 kfps and accuracy is about 1.5” at 100 yds. So about 150 yds range, if the wind is friendly. The relatively blunt nose just doesn’t seem to impart a whole lot of energy and I had to cast them pretty hard to get them to shoot.
Just thought someone might wonder about using them or something similar on the pasture poodles…

That’s good to hear.
I’m working on a .218 Bee load(14”twist) with that same bullet.
I’m five hours away from prairie dogs but I’ve got mud turtles aplenty!


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My Hornet and my 222's like that boolit for low velocity loads (15-1700 fps).

I have als0 been playing with this in a 223. Been a while sense I loaded them. 12 or 13 grains of 2400 my goal was rabbits and squirrels. Works well on those.

I'd thought about using cast loads for sage rats, but decided not to risk it. There's just too many ranch and farm houses within ricochet range. Much as I'd like to try cast on varmints, I'll stick with more frangible bullets until I can find a more open territory to hunt on. Perhaps some jackrabbits or coyotes out in the sage brush (where nobody lives) might be a better choice for my cast loads.

The places I shoot PDs, the owners would get very upset if I wasn't using a frangible/varmit bullet. They've had issues with skipped bullets impacting property and live stock as much as a mile away from the shooting. Not cast boolits, but non frangible or larger calibers. My 22 cal PD rifle is a 220 Swift pushing a 55 grain ballistic tip or Berger varmint bullet at 3,850. All my PD guns are set up to keep terminal velocity above 2,000 fps to insure a quick kill and bullet blowup.

Hope you can keep on knocking those picket pins over with your loads. I wonder how much of a meplat it would take on a 22 round to do a better job of imparting energy? The 788 I shot last year had a terrible trigger but was pleasantly accurate. And the good ol 222 is a fine round that is sorely overlooked in these times. Grandpa kilt many, many groundhogs with his out of the soybean field years ago.

My son and I were given permission a few years back in western Colorado to shoot Pdogs on a particular property, but declined due to the buildings in the background and gravel road on the other side. It was large enough that if we were both shooting 17HMR's that day it would have been safe, but the 223's were too much of a gamble to take a chance on. But on other properties jacketed or cast would have been appropriate. It's all a judgment call.