I got to take Garrick and Shannon from Red Frog Team on a sage rat and long range shooting trip near Silver Lake, Oregon. Garrick is a retired Navy SEAL with 20+ deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and now runs a tactical training company with Shannon. Day 1 we warmed up with sage rats and some 1200 yard shooting across the alfalfa pivot. Day 2 we went early hoping to get a badger (saw one driving in, but rifle not ready...lesson learned). Shot some rats, then backed up and started shooting a mile with a 6.5 Creedmoor (70 moa of elevation). Shannon bested us all with 5 out of 10 at a mile with a stiff tail wind on a man-sized steel silhouette. We were impressed.

Great way to celebrate Independence Day.











Here's my blog post with more about the outing:
https://sageratsafaris.com/2018/07/12/red-frog-outing-sage-rats-and-long-range-precision-rifle-in-silver-lake-oregon/

You've got it figured out OP. I bet you had fun

How did the 6.5C do at one mile? Do you think having the wind in your favor helped a lot? Typically you hear more 1000-1200 range reports but 1,700+ is a different animal. I assume you were shooting hand loads?

Very cool OP.

........and what the hell is a sage rat

We had a great time.

At a mile, Shannon's 5 out of 10 is the best we've ever done. Usually it's more like 10% to 30% hit rate. It's still supersonic at a mile (in our atmospherics), but getting the wind left/right can be a crapshoot. The tail wind may have saved us a few clicks, but the key was that it was straight to the target. If you need to hold more than 6 or 7 minutes left or right, expect to miss 95%. At 1200, we can reliably hit the target. At 1500, hit falls to about 50%, even with little wind (predictably, missing left and right is the main issue). At a mile, you can hit the target if you shoot at it enough. Targets are 20"X40" steel silhouettes.

I am a reloader, but we were shooting factory Hornady 147gr ELDM.

A sage rat is the common name for Belding's ground squirrel. Picture a 9-inch prairie dog. Agricultural pest that digs holes, eats/buries crop, and attracts badgers that dig really big holes. A single alfalfa pivot in the Oregon high desert can be infested with tens of thousands of ground squirrels. Idaho has a similar pest, Townsend's ground squirrel, aka whistle pigs.

https://sageratsafaris.com/2017/03/11/about-sage-rats-beldings-ground-squirrel/