I made it back to the dairy farms and was finally able to break in the three of my pcp guns. I brought the Kratos(.25), the streamline(.25), and the Huntsman(.177). I don't know if anyone here is like me but I always forget something and this spur of the moment trip I forgot my 30mm mounting bracket for my NiteSite and my scope adaptor for my scope cam.
I arrived late Friday night and after I got my travel trailer setup, I headed out with my Huntsman and a red light. The first night I was able to massacre the flying rats and finally went to bed pass midnight. I got up Saturday morning about 9 and decided to only use the Kratos and to use the streamline on Sunday. I checked zero and confirmed my drop before walking the cow pends. After a long 8 hour day of walking on two of my permissions, I got a good sense of the Kratos; I'll include a 50 yard target of the kratos and this will give you and me a good idea how it performed out on an actual hunt.
As you can see most of the groups were ok and a few of the groups were excellent and a few had fliers. This is what I saw out on Saturday. For the most part, the Kratos did an excellent job hitting it's target out to 60 yards and was able to get a hit a 80 yards after sending one pellet first to see how the wind was pushing the pellet. I just adjusted the second pellet's hold and got a clean kill. I was riding high at that moment with this gun until I got three misses at 30 yards and hit a frustrating low with the gun. After the three misses, the kratos would put down anything under 60 yards with no problem. At this point, I could never fully trust the kratos but I never had a miss under 60 yards as the day ended.
When the night came around, that's when the real work began and the Huntsman really blow me away. I never missed with this gun and devastated pigeon population despite my handicap of using a red light. As I was outside on the second night blasting flying rats, the supervise came outside to watch me and later he comes up to me and asks me how accurate can I be with the gun. I tell him I haven't missed a shot yet which was true. He asked me to come inside the building and take out the birds inside but warned me not to hit any of the pipes or the lights. Of course that made me really nervous of making a missed shot, and if I didn't know my holdover shots at 10 and 5 yards, I would've told him I wouldn't be able to safely make those close shots. All my fears went away after I was able to squeeze two shots through two small openings. After these two shots, I was taking shots off lights fixtures and threading pellets through inch and half openings with ease. As I was smacking birds through two rooms (a machine room and a large room where the cows are lined up), several workers were running around pickup the birds and/or shinning their lights on pigeons they spotted. Here are a few pictures I took after I cleaned out the two rooms:
On Sunday and my last day, I started the day with the streamline. I got out the dairy at 9 and ended at 2. Despite having a shorter day with the streamline, I was able to get twice the number of birds then the kratos. My confidence with the streamline was so much higher that I was confidently making kills out to 80 and 100 yards with ease. Because the streamline was fitted with a DonnyFL, I killed most of my birds at 30 to 50 yards. Being able to dispatch flying rats 50, 60, 70 yards with almost no misses just puts a lot confidence in to your gun.
All three pcp's I took out were my first time hunting with them and they all did great; with the Huntsman being the better of the three. The Huntsman did such a wonderful job killing pigeons that on my next return trip, I may only bring it. I probably wouldn't be able to make those 70+ yards shots but most of the kills I was making were 30 to 50 yards during the day and 20 yards and under at night.
I arrived late Friday night and after I got my travel trailer setup, I headed out with my Huntsman and a red light. The first night I was able to massacre the flying rats and finally went to bed pass midnight. I got up Saturday morning about 9 and decided to only use the Kratos and to use the streamline on Sunday. I checked zero and confirmed my drop before walking the cow pends. After a long 8 hour day of walking on two of my permissions, I got a good sense of the Kratos; I'll include a 50 yard target of the kratos and this will give you and me a good idea how it performed out on an actual hunt.
As you can see most of the groups were ok and a few of the groups were excellent and a few had fliers. This is what I saw out on Saturday. For the most part, the Kratos did an excellent job hitting it's target out to 60 yards and was able to get a hit a 80 yards after sending one pellet first to see how the wind was pushing the pellet. I just adjusted the second pellet's hold and got a clean kill. I was riding high at that moment with this gun until I got three misses at 30 yards and hit a frustrating low with the gun. After the three misses, the kratos would put down anything under 60 yards with no problem. At this point, I could never fully trust the kratos but I never had a miss under 60 yards as the day ended.
When the night came around, that's when the real work began and the Huntsman really blow me away. I never missed with this gun and devastated pigeon population despite my handicap of using a red light. As I was outside on the second night blasting flying rats, the supervise came outside to watch me and later he comes up to me and asks me how accurate can I be with the gun. I tell him I haven't missed a shot yet which was true. He asked me to come inside the building and take out the birds inside but warned me not to hit any of the pipes or the lights. Of course that made me really nervous of making a missed shot, and if I didn't know my holdover shots at 10 and 5 yards, I would've told him I wouldn't be able to safely make those close shots. All my fears went away after I was able to squeeze two shots through two small openings. After these two shots, I was taking shots off lights fixtures and threading pellets through inch and half openings with ease. As I was smacking birds through two rooms (a machine room and a large room where the cows are lined up), several workers were running around pickup the birds and/or shinning their lights on pigeons they spotted. Here are a few pictures I took after I cleaned out the two rooms:
On Sunday and my last day, I started the day with the streamline. I got out the dairy at 9 and ended at 2. Despite having a shorter day with the streamline, I was able to get twice the number of birds then the kratos. My confidence with the streamline was so much higher that I was confidently making kills out to 80 and 100 yards with ease. Because the streamline was fitted with a DonnyFL, I killed most of my birds at 30 to 50 yards. Being able to dispatch flying rats 50, 60, 70 yards with almost no misses just puts a lot confidence in to your gun.
All three pcp's I took out were my first time hunting with them and they all did great; with the Huntsman being the better of the three. The Huntsman did such a wonderful job killing pigeons that on my next return trip, I may only bring it. I probably wouldn't be able to make those 70+ yards shots but most of the kills I was making were 30 to 50 yards during the day and 20 yards and under at night.
