I've had trouble finding targets this squirrel season. The leaves are still on the trees and we haven't had much cold weather. I had one visiting my oaks nearly every afternoon late but it kept running off without giving me a shot. Today my rescue hound, Cola, told me she saw one and I got the 177 out of the coffee table and let her out. I saw a squirrel run up a large oak and started trying to find it. This time it sat in crotch of the tree around 50 feet up. I shot for the shoulder and hit it but the angle of the squirrel and the shot were such that the pellet went up the neck and stopped under the hide under the eye on the other side. The squirrel dropped immediately. 17 ounce female.