IMHO it's all about shot placement i have killed them clean with.177 but I have had them run after my .22 FAC rapid has smacked them. The only one. That has 100% clean kill is my HMR ( overkill for the garden :-) in my experience I like to put the pellet through the eye from the front this seems to drop them cleanly every time.
Good reply.Originally Posted by Martin(rockape)
"Shooters, regardless of their preferred quarry, enjoy their sport for its ability to transfer them from their day-to-day life into a world where they can lose themselves for a few hours". B Potts.
I tried these and at shorter ranges were fine. However when it came to slightly longer ranges they were a little more unpredictable than the barracuda's. Certainly didn't like my hw100, although different barrels etc. 25 mtrs was probably best range for them. The .22/.177 thingy rears its head on this but for shooting into dense trees i found the .177 best due to the flatter trajectory. I have shot the damn things for years using shotguns, rimfires (ground shots only plus rather expensive!) .22 fac air, .22 12ftlb, .177 fac and .177 sub 12ftlb. I have shot literally hundreds this year and have decided for tree's it's the .177 using the h&n barracuda's and static on feeders i use the .22 with h&n barracuda's. Forget the body shots unless it's fac. I gave up on body shots even with the rim fire using hollow points at 40grn and 90+ftlb i was still getting the odd runner (admittedly not very far). Mine are purely head shots every time. That includes with the rim fire in the right conditions. If there is any doubt as to how nails they are, i shot one last weekend with the 16 bore at 25 yards using No 5 shot and it finally dropped about thirty yards from where i shot it. Curiosity got me and i skinned it to find it riddled with half a dozen lead shot in it5 shot will drop most things it's legal to shoot at with a shotgun in this country.
i got onto one of my local shoots yesterday afternoon, i had just left my car and walked slowly round
the corner ,and there was mr tree rat running away from me so i made a loud clicking noise it stopped dead still
about 50 yds away , my fac daystate wolverine .303 sent a 50 grn pellet at 100 fpe straight into its heart/ lung area
and killing it instantly, on inspection the tree rat was not a pretty sight!!!
atb brian
have any of you guys seen a drop in the quantity of squirrels on your shoot lately?me and my mate have been to ours and noticed a BIG drop in amount we see.any thoughts?
mick.
there is a drop in tree rat numbers on my shoots , due to me shooting the blighters!!!!!,
joking aside there does not seem to be a drop in numbers around my area,, i think i have cleared a shoot
and in a few months the blighters are back in force,
atb brian
cheers brian,we dont see many dreys either!there was some dicks shooting them with shotguns before i was given permission[shotguns now gone]
just wonder if they have moved on so to speak,see them now and again,just nowhere near as often!.
mick.
Nope, anything but a drop. I have to put a report into land defence estates every March. Last year i shot 203 squirrels in the year to march. This year as of today i am up to 231 and three months to go. They seem to be crawling out of the woodwork from every direction (no pun intended). I have shot 12 in the last week alone and my mate another 6. They are playing havoc with the feeders. The ground i shoot is an active mod airfield surrounded by wooded areas and thick blackthorne which makes it difficult to control them. Cant use traps as little access during the week due to flying so unable to check traps. However the somerset wildlife trust are pretty happy as they have recorded a rise in the wild bird populations over the last three years or so. It was a breath of fresh air to find out a bunch of tree huggers actually were happy that a man with a gun was doing some good. Only problem on the control side of things, the big shoot next to ours doesnt seem all that interested in controlling their population and they just repopulate our side of the fence so to speak.
I was speaking to a land owner on the outskirts of Yeovil recently about pest control as I used to shoot on his land many years ago until I took a break from it all and he had a horrendous rabbit problem in and around his paddock. He doesn't seem to bothered about them now as he is overrun with squirrels. A way back in I thought but sadly for him (and me) his wife loves them so doesn't want them culled at all.
Maybe they're doing well in the Yeovil area?
Sub 12ftlbs - headshot (and then the right bit of the head) with 20 or 22
FAC Air in 22 - A MID power rifle (16-19) with standard medium pellets, super dome / air arms etc heart shots work well as the pellets generally do not pass through, full energy transfer, ample but not over penetration (they may if shot side on though), or head shots preferable
Based on 'typical' squirrel shooting distances
I've shot a lot of squirrels , and my first choice would be the medium power fac rifle, then a uk limit one. Higher power simply does not help
I have shot a lot of squirrels with 177 too, but on this particular species heavy 177 from a pcp is better than a springer mid weight / light weight pellet, but best is simply something bigger. 20 in sub 12ftlb has been particularly good which I've been looking at carefully for the last 12 months or so -
I've also seen bits of squirrels shot off with rimfire that still hasn't done the job as in one of the above posts, and shot plenty of squirrels which have shotgun shot in the skin/fat layer.(And obviously not stopped). I'm not saying a shotgun at the right range isn't effective, but the best thing all round for these is an fac air gun, but not too powerful -
begining to think the tree rats on my shoot have moved to yeovil
mck.
Maybe it's softer flood waters down this waybegining to think the tree rats on my shoot have moved to yeovil
mck.
Still plenty of the little rats round Gloucester way!!
With Sussex being the most 'wooded' county in the UK, we must have a lot of well fed, well developed squizzers down here, for sure they are tough little 'f+++++s' that cause a lot of destruction to our native habitat
sub 12 then it has to be .25 keeps them down
greater distance fac .22 keeps themn down
.177 its the cal for feather not fur
.177 for feather .22 for fur
V-Mach Webley Mark 1 .177 http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....ghlight=webley
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote