doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com .22 Rimfire ballistics.

I didn�t care for Stingers, on game I planned to eat. They were really destructive, and shook up the woods.

Best,
Ted

I had the chance to go out for a few hours today after varmints that are overall a bit smaller than squirrels. I only prefer to use open sights and took something over three hundred shots. If I get the urge, I'll take out a scoped bolt rifle and probably only one box of the really good stuff and see how the fun factor adds up. No, I'm not hunting for the pot, but the shooting sure seems to help with calling the shot and it sharpens the eye for spotting game.

When they first became available Dad used the high speed segmented hollow points on red squirrels. He was taking shots at about 15 feet. Cut them in half every time.

The sub-HP version might be nice for distance work, if I could get past the sticker price.

No need for that, Brent- I hunt squirrels (also woodchucks) because a very wise old woodsman taught me, in my youth- that "If you want to be a good deer hunter, first become a very good squirrel hunter". When he bought a new box of 20 shells for his Win. 94 .32 Special- you could figure on 20 dead deer-

I have had fried squirrel- also beaver, possum and raccoon in past years. All are vermin, in my lexicon, but if the meat is dressed out and aged properly- not bad- I just don't care for the bother it takes to skin out and field dress "tree rats"-- so I give my dead squirrels to the farmers--same with rabbits--

I don't hunt with a partner now-a-days--so I just sit in the shadows on an Oct. afternoon, and hunt them like a sniper- scoped .22 with CCI rounds- head shots only. One shot- one dead tree rat. RWTF

coosa, Blake looks like a spunky dog. I haven't squirrel hunted in over a third of a century. When I did I shot a single shot Remington M41 TargetMaster which I still have and a Ruger 10/22 which I don't have. Both were fine squirrel guns. I never hunted with a dog, but I run into dog hunters during woodcock season. One group comes from the mountains to hunt the area and I asked if they didn't have squirrels in the mountains. "Yes, but we don't have flat land." They were as serious about squirrel hunting as we are about turkeys. Gil

2-piper, I understand on the advantage of the sub-sonics when stalk hunting. The noise doesn't matter when hunting with a dog. The challenge for the hunters is to just spot the squirrel and then hit him well enough to get him out of the tree. Like most types of hunting with dogs, it's all about seeing the dogs work.

Gil, thanks for the compliment on Blake; he was a good dog and I had him until he was 13. He was completely deaf near the end, but he still treed squirrels right on through his last hunting season. There are a lot of folks around me who take squirrel hunting with dogs very seriously. They have competition hunts that will draw people from several states.

Coosa;
I fully agree the sonic crack would be meaningless when hunting with a dog. I have been a few times with someone who had dogs & thoroughly enjoyed it. However, as I stated my squirrel hunting was primarily in the first month to 6 weeks of the season. I never found dogs to be particularly useful, or even desirable in this early hunting. What was of extreme importance "To Me" was to avoid that Sonic Crack.

Gotta say, I've never noticed the squirrels noticing the supersonics more than the subs. Back in the day when I used supers, I would shoot one, and the commence to skin it on the closest log while it was still warm. Often as not another one would come over in a minute or 2, I suppose to check out what the noise was all about

Today (D-Day eve) I went out for the afternoon to an area farm, mainly looking for woodchucks- with all the rain recently, no alfalfa has been cut- and the usual tunnels near feed silos didn't bear fruit- but raccoons- ah yes- Farmer told me he had been hearing their chitter-chatter down by the dirt road that borders the South side of his land-.

I took my favorite squirrel "dinger" Ruger 722 BA with 4x Leupold scope and CCI Mini-Mags- He directed me to a stand of 4 mature shagbark hickory trees- full of bole holes- well leafed, and I got into the shade and waited- over 2 hours, five raccoons decided to peek out of their holes in the trees- 2 fell dead from limbs, the other 3 dropped down the hole when shot "between the running lights"-

I looked over the 2 dead ones that "hit the deck" I put the crosshairs right between their eyes- est'd range 25 feet- both died instantly- ears gone, top of their skulls blow clean off- I use the same gun and loads for fox squirrels in October- head shots only--Whether I am shooting "tree rats", raccoons or woodchucks, I want a clean kill every time- even on vermin, I want a sudden death every time I squeeze off a round- so I stay with this load- time after time-- RWTF

Blake was completely deaf by his 13th season, but he still had more desire to hunt than any other partner ever. And it took it dead seriously; there was no joking around when we were after a squirrel.

I only hunted squirrel with him, but never made a big deal about Treeing some other critter. He treed fox and gray squirrels, possums, coons, buzzards, and turkeys. He once treed a bobcat that bailed out of the tree when I approached and it led them on a long chase that went out of hearing.

But I think he hated kitty cats worst of all. There are several stories of cats that did not fare well after leaving the safety of the tree. Real bad decision.
Here is Blake on one of his final hunts. He put 5 coons up a single tree and we recovered them all.



Blake and Joe caught this Yahoo, but I made them turn him loose. They aren't that rare in our area, but I didn't wanna be on TV.



At age 13, I was dreading the day when I'd have to make a decision about what to do with him. He took care of the problem for me. I let him out of the pen right at dark one day and he never came home. I suspect he died as he lived - violently. He probably tried to tackle some critter bigger than him and finally lost. RIP, Blake.

I've heard it said that every man deserves to own one good dog in his life. If true, I've had mine.