First of all, here is a pic of my 'hunting ground.' The side yard off my dad's deck. Chipmunks abound here and they must have a gazillion holes all through it because they can appear and disappear faster than you can click off a safety. The tree line to the left is "No Man's Land" because it's the boundary to the neighbor's yard.
The chippies were extra spooky yesterday and I missed one when I forgot to push off the safety. I had a nice sight picture on its forehead, pulled the trigger and ... NOTHING. The click of the safety going off was enough to make him scurry away into one of their multitude of holes. The next one was my fault, he flinched, I flinched and hit him on the right side at the base of the ribs, a killing shot, but not an instant kill, so he made it to another of the holes. I'm still using the Gamo Redfires and through the scope I could see the entry wound in his side. The third shot was textbook. The way he was sitting, I lined up on his left ear and fired. He did a back flip and was done, not even a twitch. It hit him right in the ear and must have traveled the length of his body because there was no exit. The last one of the day was really spooky and I had to follow him in the scope for what seemed like a few minutes to get the shot. I lined up on his head, fired and he jumped, putting his chest where his head had been, d@mn. And another one reaches the tunnels.
I envy you guys who can have a permanent bait station where the quarry will sit still for a few moments.
What I found odd was that my two body shots bled like crazy, which made me feel A LITTLE better, knowing that at that rate of blood loss, they were done quickly even though they 'escaped,' but the one I head shot only had a small drop of blood in his ear, almost no bleeding at all. Up until now, ALL of my hits have been messy. I did take the advice of someone and sighted my rifle @ 10 yards with 5 pumps, which is what I was shooting yesterday. I have a chart on my phone that shows a ROUGH estimate of FPS/FPE for my rifle: 5 pumps = 568 FPS/10.2 FPE - 8 pumps = 666 FPS/14.1 FPE. Could that make that much of a difference in the damage at impact? 100 FPS & 4 FPE? ... even as I type this, I think I know the answer.
The chippies were extra spooky yesterday and I missed one when I forgot to push off the safety. I had a nice sight picture on its forehead, pulled the trigger and ... NOTHING. The click of the safety going off was enough to make him scurry away into one of their multitude of holes. The next one was my fault, he flinched, I flinched and hit him on the right side at the base of the ribs, a killing shot, but not an instant kill, so he made it to another of the holes. I'm still using the Gamo Redfires and through the scope I could see the entry wound in his side. The third shot was textbook. The way he was sitting, I lined up on his left ear and fired. He did a back flip and was done, not even a twitch. It hit him right in the ear and must have traveled the length of his body because there was no exit. The last one of the day was really spooky and I had to follow him in the scope for what seemed like a few minutes to get the shot. I lined up on his head, fired and he jumped, putting his chest where his head had been, d@mn. And another one reaches the tunnels.
I envy you guys who can have a permanent bait station where the quarry will sit still for a few moments.
What I found odd was that my two body shots bled like crazy, which made me feel A LITTLE better, knowing that at that rate of blood loss, they were done quickly even though they 'escaped,' but the one I head shot only had a small drop of blood in his ear, almost no bleeding at all. Up until now, ALL of my hits have been messy. I did take the advice of someone and sighted my rifle @ 10 yards with 5 pumps, which is what I was shooting yesterday. I have a chart on my phone that shows a ROUGH estimate of FPS/FPE for my rifle: 5 pumps = 568 FPS/10.2 FPE - 8 pumps = 666 FPS/14.1 FPE. Could that make that much of a difference in the damage at impact? 100 FPS & 4 FPE? ... even as I type this, I think I know the answer.