The snow here has mostly melted after a few warm days, so the grass was exposed again. I put out some more cracked corn and sunflower seeds a couple days ago for the ground foraging birds that like them (ex. cardinals, nuthatches) and of course the nutters like it too.
This time of year, the squirrels aren't coming out early, as it's too cold. They still come out when the ground is not too deep in snow, and today, I was home to keep an eye out. It helped that it was sunny, too.
The first one was a nice fat male.
This is the pesting debut of the .22 Benjamin Summit NP2. Ammo was the famous CPHP, 14.3 gr. The hollow point is just to boost sales, as far as I can tell, as the alloy Crosman uses is way too hard to expand at airgun velocities. My Summit sends them downrange at around 870 fps, for about 23 FPE. I'm not confident enough in the gun's accuracy yet to try head shots, but the beauty of a magnum .22 is that head shots aren't needed as often.
I took aim at this gray nutter and sent the CPHP his way, aiming for an upper chest shot, but it went high (the gun is very hold-sensitive and the zero went up one inch over 10 yards from a slightly different support and being stored in the cold breezeway.) That pellet didn't exit, so he took the whole 20+ FPE, which knocked him down sideways. He managed to get a few feet up the tree, fell out. Tried again fell down. I drilled him again, through the chest, which knocked him off the tree. Got the lungs and he quickly drowned.
Thankfully, I didn't hit the heart, as that is a choice bit.
Here's where and how he fell, with his grim reaper in on the shot:
Entry of first shot; a fair amount of blood:
Exit of first shot, lots of blood:
The second shot didn't yield any external blood, that I could see, so he must've lost all blood pressure by the time that one hit home.
Entry wounds, after clean-up:
Exit wound, post clean-up:
After retrieving my prize, I cleaned him and made the video I posted in the other thread on how to clean squirrels. Sorry for the lack of video footage, I loaned out my good camera and the little one didn't have a card in it at the time.
A bit later, I took an offhand shot on another nice fat nutter, and missed. He started to move, and I jerked the shot at the same time. Clean miss. But this seemed to have drawn the attention of a young nutter, who came bounding across the yard toward the feeder. Maybe he saw the big one head off, and figured it was OK for him to swoop in upon the vittles.
He too, took a round through the chest. No follow-ups were needed.
Entry wound:
Exit:
By this time, it was about noon, and all I'd had to eat that day was a yogurt. It was getting hungry in Ol' Smaug's den. My son would be hungry and wife would be home from her run (18 miles, this morning!) soon. So I fried them up (details in the video description) fried a couple eggs in the drippings with some more bacon grease added, and made a healthy smoothie to wrap it up. (a bit of kale, bit of carrot, cantoloupe, yogurt and milk) That was eaten at about 12:45 PM. It's 5:24 PM now, so it was quite a satisfying meal.
My wife just woke up from her nap. She's on dinner duty.
Happy new year, guys!
This time of year, the squirrels aren't coming out early, as it's too cold. They still come out when the ground is not too deep in snow, and today, I was home to keep an eye out. It helped that it was sunny, too.
The first one was a nice fat male.
This is the pesting debut of the .22 Benjamin Summit NP2. Ammo was the famous CPHP, 14.3 gr. The hollow point is just to boost sales, as far as I can tell, as the alloy Crosman uses is way too hard to expand at airgun velocities. My Summit sends them downrange at around 870 fps, for about 23 FPE. I'm not confident enough in the gun's accuracy yet to try head shots, but the beauty of a magnum .22 is that head shots aren't needed as often.
I took aim at this gray nutter and sent the CPHP his way, aiming for an upper chest shot, but it went high (the gun is very hold-sensitive and the zero went up one inch over 10 yards from a slightly different support and being stored in the cold breezeway.) That pellet didn't exit, so he took the whole 20+ FPE, which knocked him down sideways. He managed to get a few feet up the tree, fell out. Tried again fell down. I drilled him again, through the chest, which knocked him off the tree. Got the lungs and he quickly drowned.
Thankfully, I didn't hit the heart, as that is a choice bit.
Here's where and how he fell, with his grim reaper in on the shot:
Entry of first shot; a fair amount of blood:
Exit of first shot, lots of blood:
The second shot didn't yield any external blood, that I could see, so he must've lost all blood pressure by the time that one hit home.
Entry wounds, after clean-up:
Exit wound, post clean-up:
After retrieving my prize, I cleaned him and made the video I posted in the other thread on how to clean squirrels. Sorry for the lack of video footage, I loaned out my good camera and the little one didn't have a card in it at the time.
A bit later, I took an offhand shot on another nice fat nutter, and missed. He started to move, and I jerked the shot at the same time. Clean miss. But this seemed to have drawn the attention of a young nutter, who came bounding across the yard toward the feeder. Maybe he saw the big one head off, and figured it was OK for him to swoop in upon the vittles.
He too, took a round through the chest. No follow-ups were needed.
Entry wound:
Exit:
By this time, it was about noon, and all I'd had to eat that day was a yogurt. It was getting hungry in Ol' Smaug's den. My son would be hungry and wife would be home from her run (18 miles, this morning!) soon. So I fried them up (details in the video description) fried a couple eggs in the drippings with some more bacon grease added, and made a healthy smoothie to wrap it up. (a bit of kale, bit of carrot, cantoloupe, yogurt and milk) That was eaten at about 12:45 PM. It's 5:24 PM now, so it was quite a satisfying meal.
My wife just woke up from her nap. She's on dinner duty.
Happy new year, guys!
