Quote Originally Posted by stillair1
How long do you need with rifle in the shoulder ready to go at 12yds.
Well that's exactly my point isn't it - but by the sound of things gathered by reading this thread, what I really should be doing is:
Put in a call to the police station and tell them I'm going ratting at Farmer Bills place. Upon getting to Farmer Bills, I should present him with a bottle of his favourite tipple and ask him if he's noticed the crop damage due to rats and how I will sort out his problem as I understand country life, watch Countryfile and put Countrylite on my toast of a morning.
After helping him with some bailing, I'll make sure that my pre-baiting, dusted, fumigated, clearly marked and illuminated for the previous 4 nights, singular rat run is downwind of me and not at any sort of angle - heaven forbid a less than square on, headshot should present itself due to a slap dash effort at finding an ambush site.
With all this checked, I should then unslip my rifle, obviously it will have remained in the cover until I'm ready to shoot and don my wonderflague as I will have turned up smart to meet the Farmer. This is only after I've performed thorough research and produced a detailed diagram showing the tectonic properties of my backstop area.
After attaching suitable pieces of natural vegetation from the rat's environemt to my ghillie suit ( pallets, bags of rubbish, animal feed and old fridges work best ), I can turn my attention to the rifle.
Then carefully fill up a 700 round magazine ( that way my rifle will never be out of ammunition and I'll never miss ) - carefully inspecting each ( washed, lubed, sized and weighed ) pellet that I've taken out of my sterile neckpurse, before loading them into the mag - obviously this becomes second nature when you've shot a few rats and takes less time.
Then I should attached my lamp or NV weaponsight and check the zero by firing a few dozen shots. If I'm using a lamp, I should dim the flood and rotate the coloured filter every third or so second ( they get used to red, see ). Then I should top the air back up on my regulated, multishot, silenced PCP and fire off three settling shots before firing five more shots over a decent chrono - if fps variation is over 3fps, I should strip the rifle, scrub the barrel check the reg and then start back off at step 2. It goes without saying that all this should be done stealthily, as Ratus won't hang around for very long after he's finished his sit down set meal for three.
After finding a comfortable shooting position - I personally perfer prone over a comfy bean bag for rat shooting, I should focus my scope on the target area to eliminate parrallax error, then wind down to a low mag ( fixed power scopes are useless for ratting ) and check that the spirit level that swings out from the belly of my scope is centralized.
Then I need to point the rifle at the rat ( unloaded, obviously, I don't need to explain the dangers of pointing a loaded air rifle at a rat ) and repeat the above.
With the rat in sharp focus, I need to read off the range and dial in the range setting to the turret - the setting will be kept on the inside of my BC lense cover ( the settings themselves will all have been worked out long before on a rat environment simulated range ).
Then unfold the legs of my bipod, place a camo veil over my face and repeat from step 4 - making every effort not to spook ratty.
One last check of the windicator and spirit level whilst I take up the first stage of my mutliadjustable trigger and then monitor my breathing - if the wind has shifted direction at any point - I'll unload the rifle, clear up, milk the cows for Farmer Bill and then get off home - if not, if all the above is OK and the mildot reticle is resting firmly on the rats left venticle or on the pre-frontal lobe, I'm fine to release the shot.

Then I need to pick it up with 6' tongs and burn it in 3 gallons of kerosene immediately, whilst wearing an NBC suit, before settling down to enjoy another quick shot....