I have squirrel hunted for well over 50 yrs now & drawn my own conclusions as to suitable arms. I have always found the squirrel to be a tough, vivacious little animal which deserves adequate "Killing". Over the years suspect I have lost more hit ones than any other game I have hunted. While I will occasionally use a shotgun my prefered arm is a .22 RF. I like the 40gr LR in a flat point, but absolutely do not want the "Crack" of a high velocity round. When a "Gang" of squirels are cutting a single tree, I have found that Supersonic "Crack" the most efficient "Tree-Emptier" possible to find, while with a subsonic they simply continue feeding. I have fired an old Stevens Favorite in .25 Stevens RF & with it's 60 gr flat point bullet @ 1050 fps was as quite as a .22 short. I feel if these were still readily available would be the ideal squirel gun. The 29gr wt of the .22 short can give reliable kills with head shots, but of all the various .22's I have hunted with over the years none would shoot them accurate enough (all were average guns chambered in LR). I have absolutely no desire to go less than this nor to see how "Minimum" I can use & still kill a squirrel. Most "Cheap" .22's with a litle ammo selection are simply superior to the finest pellet guns ever built at collecting squirrels (just one rednecked hillbilly's opinion).
