On Thursday, I got a Taipan Veteran Short in .25 from Tony at Talon Tunes: a very sweet little gun. Yesterday evening, I stole the Westhunter 3-12X44 from my Ranger, put it on the Taipan and zeroed it at 30 yards. I then set out for a walk about the farmyard to see if any pests would present themselves. I walked along the south side of the barn and, coming to the SE corner, I carefully and slowly peeked out and saw... nothing. I started toward the next corner, taking a wide berth of the long empty manure trench, when a spatze (house sparrow) flew out from above the barn door and landed in a rabbit/deer cage around a small apple tree, 15 yards away, if not 10. I stood there for a moment, incredulously, as we stared at each other.
I raised the gun slowly, lined up roughly, closed my left eye and started trying to find him. The scope was set to 12x, as I needed to be able to ID birds, since there are a lot of finches here that could be mistaken for a spatzina (female house sparrow) at distance. I fully expected to find nothing and that when I opened my other eye there would be an empty cage, as he would have long flown off. I did find him however and, despite a blurry image as my side focus was set to 25 yards, I could see he was still staring at me. I lined up, squeezed the trigger, and he started up at the noise of the report, then crumpled to the ground in a trail of feathers. I heard the thwack of the pellet, and then a whizzing noise of it flying off. The 25.4 grain JSB, moving ~890 fps, passed through and continued on with a good bit of energy to spare.
I guess that, since I was in the shadow of the barn, he couldn't quite make out what was going on? Seems like a stretch, though. I probably should have let him go, as he was clearly the biggest dunce spatze in WI, and my shooting him didn't do nearly as much damage to their population as letting him pass on his genes would have.
First bite for the Taipan Shorty: spatze, 15 yards, offhand, complete overkill.
I raised the gun slowly, lined up roughly, closed my left eye and started trying to find him. The scope was set to 12x, as I needed to be able to ID birds, since there are a lot of finches here that could be mistaken for a spatzina (female house sparrow) at distance. I fully expected to find nothing and that when I opened my other eye there would be an empty cage, as he would have long flown off. I did find him however and, despite a blurry image as my side focus was set to 25 yards, I could see he was still staring at me. I lined up, squeezed the trigger, and he started up at the noise of the report, then crumpled to the ground in a trail of feathers. I heard the thwack of the pellet, and then a whizzing noise of it flying off. The 25.4 grain JSB, moving ~890 fps, passed through and continued on with a good bit of energy to spare.
I guess that, since I was in the shadow of the barn, he couldn't quite make out what was going on? Seems like a stretch, though. I probably should have let him go, as he was clearly the biggest dunce spatze in WI, and my shooting him didn't do nearly as much damage to their population as letting him pass on his genes would have.
First bite for the Taipan Shorty: spatze, 15 yards, offhand, complete overkill.
