Small varmint kills (the bastards!)

#52
Browninglover1 said:
Does hunting them with muzzleloaders count? Easily the most carnage at sub 200 yards on rock chucks I’ve ever seen 😂

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Whoa! No 204 is gonna match that artillery!

It’s as though each rock chuck’s Super Bowl team won and they all leapt up while taking their shirts off! Only they didn’t leap and it wasn’t their shirts that came off!

Are you sure this isn’t staged? Like with hidden claymores or something lol 💥😂
 
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#53
2 down and at least 1 to go

Damn groundhogs have burrowed under the concrete slab running down the middle of the barn. Saw one of the little bastards out last nite in a shootable spot so I did just that.

Opened the slider, set up a chair inside the door, plopped my Gamechanger down on the back of the chair and let it have it with a suppressed 22

Eff those burrowing bastards!

There's another one out there somewhere. It'll show itself at some point. When it does...

M
 
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#54
mikeshaw2 said:
2 down and at least 1 to go

Damn groundhogs have burrowed under the concrete slab running down the middle of the barn. Saw one of the little bastards out last nite in a shootable spot so I did just that.

Opened the slider, set up a chair inside the door, plopped my Gamechanger down on the back of the chair and let it have it with a suppressed 22

Eff those burrowing bastards!

There's another one out there somewhere. It'll show itself at some point. When it does...

M
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Pics or it didn’t happen haha
 
#55
XLR308 said:
AKA redneck Kung Fu, like walking face first through a big ass spider web in the dark out coon hunting. 🤣🤣
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You made me just think of that Indiana Jones scene where he walks into a cave of spiders with spiderwebs all over YEEEESH

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#56
Mudburner said:
Non venomous snakes get a pass at my house. In fact, last summer I woke up and there was a five-foot long black snake walking across my kitchen floor!

"Peace, brother... you go on & eat all the mice you want in this house..." Apparently, it ignored me because I am on number 20 or 21 mice killed since last year at this time.

I couldn't prove it was the same snake, but the last time I saw this one was when it was hauling ass outta the orchard cuz I was mowing the grass. Fair is fair, I guess. I ran it out of its home, so it made a point and visited me in my kitchen. I got no problem with snakes, generally. View attachment 8413901
I think this is a baby copperhead?
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King snake or juvenile black snake. Has round eyes which makes it non poisonous. The shape of the head and eyes almost always give it away. Fount this one by the door last year or so. The oldest wanted to know if she could pick it up, so we had a lesson on how to tell that day.
7A0C6021-B666-417F-949D-B9D518F71212.jpeg
 
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#62
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#65
nikonNUT said:
Ditto. The whole weekend was dead. Might be everything hunking down before the weather goes turns ugly again.
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I think I’m going to try, once again, to use my loyal standby, the suppressed Kidd 22LR shooting subtonics. But first I have to wait until my dad has his fields mowed and baled as even last weekend the grass was getting too high to see the buggers.

My working theory is two weekends ago the 17 Hornet (also suppressed, but shooting supers) might have got them associating BOOM with DEATH. I know pdogs will learn to understand this. Previously I’ve only shot gophers with the Kidd.

Last weekend before I settled in to hunt, I shot a KYL target for a bit with a 17 HMR this time (gotta keep it interesting). Maybe that made ‘em hunker down for the duration.

Or maybe the grass was hiding them. But I kinda doubt it, as my dad’s wife didn’t see anything either, and she spots everything.
 
#69
At the range today working up a load for my new 223ai for a prairie dog trip next Monday and this little guy popped out next to my target……… 53vmax 3200 ish fps at 100 yards. The half’s were about 10’ apart when I got there.
 

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#78
322FC38D-DFE5-420D-AF29-95575DE7C898.jpeg

Only got one this weekend, but only saw one!

So, 💯 percent success lol

Back to sneaky subsonics in the hope I won’t train the targets to hide when BOOM happens.

The field needs to get hayed as I can’t see them little things in the tall grass.
 
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#79
We didn’t do a great job counting today but we were around 300 between 2 shooters. Pups were out and really dumb. Were able to get many many 3+ per mound before they scattered.

The new 223ai was shooting great while fire forming.
 

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#88
918v said:
Does squirrel fur have any utility? Or is it too fragile?
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I've salted a few tails and tied them to a tippet on my fly rods. Great for working on streamer presentation (might as well be throwing a kite!) and it drives the cats batshit crazy! Unlocks their "Catiness" I suppose. Flip it out there and strip line like you are teasing a trout and watch the hilarity ensue! BTW, no hooks are used (obviously).
 
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#91
carbonbased said:
I find that with even the best tripod setup, save one, me making one shot hits past 300 on small rodents is just as how you describe. More luck is involved than I would like.

Or maybe I just suck.

Instead, I take my longer shots off of a 360° rotating bench. My gun is nestled in an 14lbs X-shaped sandbag. You need weight to stabilize the bench in the high winds of the prairie, so if you love bipods you’d most likely have to add weight to the bench. Even a heavy bench is essentially a sail.

My bench is much more stable than my RRS TVC-33, leveling head w/panning clamp and TFT-34 w/anvil or Arca B1 ballhead. I can do longer distance one-shots (300-475yds) off of the bench…not all of the time, but often.

With the bench the limiting factor becomes the wind calling, not the stability.

Except…one tripod comes close to that bench. I’ll discuss it later when I’ve checked some things out.

For the light RRS CF tripods that I use for walking around, I want to experiment with using a rear support. During my rotent-shooting journey I started with a Primos Trigger Stick shooting tripod, which is actually pretty cool. It adjusts height with a press of one button.

Problem is it’s a little flimsy and way closer to a typical X shooting stick setup, so I’ve long since stopped using it. But, with the gun on a RRS tripod, the Primos seems that it would work well enough to very quickly support the buttstock in a dynamic environment.

I need to test it past just dry fire practice. They make monopod and bipod versions too. The bipod one is just a two-legged tripod, not a typical Harris sort of bipod.

The bipod one might work easier in that rear-rest role.

They have a little adapter for binos, spotting scopes and the like but I sometimes use it at the range for my Garmin chrono. Or maybe I could fashion a little table top for the Primos to place a little Ryobi fan on. I currently use that fan to blow the barrel mirage away from the scope, but often it’s a little far away from long barrels.
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For me, the best method I have found is a folding chair (preferably a low seated one) and a tripod. The trick for me is adjusting everything so that when mounting the rifle, my elbows rest naturally on my knees. It makes for a very stable position for long shots. This came from back in the day, and shooting off crappy Velbon tripods from Wal-mart, made into homemade "cheaters" (bunny ear bag, velcro'ed to a board that had a 1/4-20 nut JB welded into a countersunk hole).

I agree, 1000yd PD shots are pretty hard. My best so far has been 753yds, twice, in consecutive shots. After the first shot, my buddy said "Wow, that was luck", and then I shot the second one on a mound, 20yds to the left, and responded "I'm not thinking it was luck." and then laughed. That was a 224 Valkyrie and 77gr TMKs.
 
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#92
MarinePMI said:
For me, the best method I have found is a folding chair (preferably a low seated one) and a tripod. The trick for me is adjusting everything so that when mounting the rifle, my elbows rest naturally on my knees. It makes for a very stable position for long shots. This came from back in the day, and shooting off crappy Velbon tripods from Wal-mart, made into homemade "cheaters" (bunny ear bag, velcro'ed to a board that had a 1/4-20 nut JB welded into a countersunk hole).

I agree, 1000yd PD shots are pretty hard. My best so far has been 753yds, twice, in consecutive shots. After the first shot, my buddy said "Wow, that was luck", and then I shot the second one on a mound, 20yds to the left, and responded "I'm not thinking it was luck." and then laughed. That was a 224 Valkyrie and 77gr TMKs.
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What kind of tripod and head are you using?

The tests I’ve done this year have shown me that the TVC 33 + leveling head + panorama base have given me a) the most accurate shots, and b) the easiest to line up shots.

I need the pano base for two reasons: 1) without it the leveling head twist lock at the bottom tends to unscrew due to constant panning back and forth, looking for rodents. 2) it’s nice to have a separate tension for panning and vertical motion.

This was compared to the TFC 34 with the Anvil. That head is hard to use varminting, for me, anyway. Panning isn’t its strong suit.
 
#93
carbonbased said:
What kind is tripod head are you using?

The tests I’ve done this year have shown me that the TVC 33 + leveling head + panorama base have given me a) the most accurate shots, and b) the easiest to line up shots.

I need the pano base for two reasons: 1) without it the leveling head twist lock at the bottom tends to unscrew due to constant panning back and forth, looking for rodents. 2) it’s nice to have a separate tension for panning and vertical motion.

This was compared to the TFC 34 with the Anvil. That head is hard to use varminting, for me, anyway. Panning isn’t its strong suit.
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I use a TFC 34, clipped in rifle. I've found it best to lock the rifle in at a 6 o'clock low POA, then lean into the rifle to load it and move it up onto the target. Makes for a pretty repeatable loading of the rifle.

I typically glass with binos, and once found, lase them with the binos, which then goes to the kestrel attached to the tripod leg. Get on the gun, locate the target, glance down at the come ups and either dial or hold over if they're running around between mounds.

Other times I'll just throw a tac table onto the tripod with a bag, and pan the rifle around as needed. Just depends on how far, and how active the PD's are. I'll see if I've got a photo or two to post up...
 
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#95
One from 2021 (224 Valkyrie, JAE chassis, TFC-34, PMR smart scope). This was my first time back since having major surgery, so I was taking it easy, and spending more time trying to stay hydrated (swallowing was still a challenge back then).
2021_Summer_PD_trip.jpg
 
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#98
carbonbased said:
Interesting. So, with the Anvil, do you lock it off all of the way or just partially before you load down and into it?
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Lock it down most of the way (I never lock it down tight); just enough to keep it from moving on it's own. Then lean into the rifle slightly, to bring it up onto the target. On the last photo, you can just see the anvil's handle hanging out towards the front.
 
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#99
MarinePMI said:
Lock it down most of the way (I never lock it down tight); just enough to keep it from moving on it's own. Then lean into the rifle slightly, to bring it up onto the target.
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Ok, that’s the way I was using mine, except once on target I tightened it. Very hard to tighten it and stay on target. I’ll try it your way.

Never locking it fully off is how I use the leveling head, although if I feel the need, it’s much easier to lock it as the lock off motion is shorter/simpler/less disruptive.
 
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#100
carbonbased said:
Ok, that’s the way I was using mine, except once on target I tightened it. Very hard to tighten it and stay on target. I’ll try it your way.

Never locking it fully off is how I use the leveling head, although if I feel the need, it’s much easier to lock it as the lock off motion is shorter/simpler/less disruptive.
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FYI: You can adjust the tension on the anvil to have it engage with a shorter stroke. Pretty sure it's in the manual somewhere.

Yeah, I didn't know either, until I was bitching about it, and another shooter showed me how.:ROFLMAO:

I didn't RTFM...
 
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