shooting Gopers with a Balistic tip 35gr 22WMR

[pharaoh2]

shoot them in the head or lungs instead of the @ss?

Really?

 

[slicknick]

40gr Maxi-Mag HP's worked great for me in anchoring gophers.
33gr Winchester Supreme HP's chew ragged holes

 

[Cummins4x4]

Both loads suck. The bullet used is a V-Max I believe. I shot gophers with the WMR with the same bullet and had the same results. With the HMR I never had any spectacular shots either. The best I found for the WMR were any of the hollow point stuff, especially the black box Supreme load from Winchester.

I don't have any experience with the WMR but I bought a 17HMR and went through 3 bricks of ammo before selling it in disgust. Over 75 yards the terminal effects were terrible, marginally better with HP's. Now I use a 22 hornet, 204 and 223, almost no runaways, mostly pieces of gopher everywhere. At close range the 204 is amazing. I shot a couple of fatties today at 25ish yards and all I found was the head

 

[rookie wildcat]

You are shooting them wrong!!
I can anchor 90% of the gophers I shoot with just a Stevens 300 and Winchester 555 ammo. Mostly head shots, but body shots are followed with a second if movement allows. Shots out to 100yds are not unreasonable. I can't see where you are not getting EXPLOSIVE results. Stingers are less dramatic. 75yd shots just kill them dead. No movement, just DEAD!
Both the .243 with 58gr VMax moly's and the .308 with 110gn VMax destroy gophers at 200yds. Pieces left scattered around.