ShootingSquirrels.com

This video is OK, but I have a problem with shooting an AR-15 at squirrels that are standing in front of cows, houses and roads. I know that lots of people don’t really take into account what is behind their shot, but to me that is very dangerious and scary. I’m not going to judge these guys, but I do think you should pay attention to the safety violations that take place during this video, just so you know what not to do.

If you are going to shoot squirrel in an area with people, cars and livestock, you need to make sure you do a good job of checking your background before taking the shot. I know it’s sometimes hard to do when you are in the heat of the hunt, but you really need to do so so that you don’t end up giving all hunters a bad name.

Safe squirrel hunting people,

SquirrelSniper

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I went to the range the other day to make sure my 17’s, the .223 and my new dog were dialed in for squirrel shooting season, and they all did OK. There was a quartering wind at 10 mph for most of the morning, but the guns still did pretty well when I remembered to breathe and squeeze the trigger instead of yanking it whenever the cross hairs on the scope got close to the mark.

The first thing we did (did I mention the Verminator went too) was to have the Verminator shoot some .17 HMR while I held the new puppy, who isn’t really that new anymore and hardly qualifies as a puppy. He’s around 6 months old, weighs about 60lbs and is an all black, Black Lab and Golden Retriever mix. He is by far the smartest dog I’ve ever owned, but that’s not saying much.

When the Verminator shot, I jumped and “Hunter”, looked at me like I was some kind of pansy. “I wasn’t ready”, I said, but he still kept looking at me like I was a wimp. I then had the Verminator fire off a couple more from the .17 just to make sure that his reaction wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t, he still looked at me like a pansy when I jumped the next two times.

“Well, that doesn’t seem to bother him”, I told the Verminator, “Why don’t you try the .223?”

“OK, but why don’t you let him go then, instead of hanging on to him, he’ll get jumpy if he feels you jump each time the gun goes off”, said the Vermin… ator.

I hate him sometimes!

So I let Hunter go, and he wandered off and started eating shell casings, gravel, cow crap and anything else that looked like it wouldn’t bite him back. That dog is a fricken goat, and will pack away tons of garbage, and then puke up this big pile of rocks and sticks and plastic bottle caps and stuff… he’s gross. But he is also soft, black and smart, so I’m willing to overlook a few small character flaws.

The Verminator then broke out the Bushmaster .223 Varminter and fired off a round. The dog, who was about 20 yards away, looked up with a look that said, “What the heck”? I told Vermin to do it again and the dog had the same reaction, but went back to eating whatever he was eating when the 2nd and 3rd shots were fired. After awhile, he came over and lay down under the bench where we were both shooting the .17’s and the .223’s. He is by far the calmest and coolest dog I’ve ever seen under fire… he doesn’t even look up while you’re shooting; unless you drop your doughnut or something, of course.

The first rifle I got out to get sighted in for this year’s sage rat season was my Savage .17 hmr with Accutrigger. I didn’t have any of my usual 17 gr. Hornady Ballistic Tips, so I used some CCI Hollow Points I had left over from last year. The first couple of groups were all over the place, until I remembered to squeeze instead of jerk. Then the groups settled down to a decent inch, with one group coming in at about 5/8th of an inch.

I then tried my Remington 17 gr. Ballistic Tips. The Remington’s shot about the same size groups as the CCI’s, but they shot like 2 whole inches to the right. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s a little weird don’tcha think?

The Bushmaster was OK, but I was still trying to use the Ammo I got at Wal-Mart last year, and it had a deviation of like 79, which leads to 2 inch groups at 100 yards. I need to go to the store and pick up a couple of different brands and see which does the best in my rifle.

All in all, I think I can hit some squirrels next month in Lakeview. I’ll also do some filming when I’m there, so look for some new squirrel shooting videos on Youtube in about a month.

SS
ps. I shot the Henry Golden Boy in 17HMR, and it works fine, but none of the rings I took to the range fit it, so I will have to get some and go back and sight it in later… Sorry.

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I’m really upset about how my Bushmaster is shooting right now. I took it to the gun club on Wednesday to sight in my rifle now that it’s back from Bushmaster with the new trigger and scope combination. Short story is that it shot like crap.

Now, I don’t know if it’s the scope, the ammunition, the new trigger job or that maybe they screwed up when they polished my loading ramp when the company was fixing my jamming problem, but I used to be able to put 5-10 rounds in a 1/2 to 3/4 inch group at a 100 yards, but when I shot it on Wednesday, the groups were coming in at like 2-4 inches. (I almost threw up and cried… I’m a big baby when my pet guns get old and shaky and can’t shoot the eye out of a squirrel at a 100 yards anymore.)

I talked to the Verminator about it, and since he is way more into guns than I am, he said he would take it down and see if it was me or if it was the gun. After running the ammo I was using, which was Federal’s Power-Shok shooting a 50 Grain Jacketed Hollow Point, through the Chronograph, he concluded that it might just be the ammunition. Here are the 10 shots recorded out of my Bushmaster’s 20′ V-Match H-BAR.

1. 3201
2. 3215
3. 3224
4. 3229
5. 3276
6. 3256
7. 3235
8. 3231
9. 3263
10. 3228

According to the Verminator, if you take the high number and subtract the lowest number, it gives you some kind of spread or deviation that tells you something about the consistency and quality of the ammunition. So, if you take the high of 3276 and subtract the low number, which is 3201, you get a deviation of 75.

 3276
-3201
_____
= 75

The Veriminator says that the lower the number, the better the consistency and potential accuracy of the ammunition. He also said that the number needed to be under 20 to be any good and that what you really want is for your ammo to come in with a spread that is less than 10.

Now that we know that the ammunition might be the problem, I’m going to have to go to Bi-Mart and pick up 4 or 5 different types of ammunition and see which shoots the best in my rifle. I’m nor really looking forward to that, because the Federal Power-Shok is really cheap and worked really well in my rifle this year. If I have to change ammunition, I’m probably going to either spend a fortune for a higher grade ammo, or have to take the time out of my busy life and start reloading my own .223’s again. I’ll keep you posted.

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The Verminator put a 6.5 - 20 x 50mm Burris scope on my Bushmaster yesterday, and now I need to go to the park and sight it in. (Did I say that out loud?)

So, now I have my .223 Bushmaster back in action, with a new-to-me, high dollar…. OK, medium dollar, scope on it. Add to that the new, Smooth-As-Butter, two stage sniper trigger and all I need now is a couple of hundred squirrels to shoot. To get ready for that I think I’m going to take it down to the range and see if I can put 10 rounds in the same 1/2 inch hole at 100 yards.

WOW I’m Looking forward to that….

On another note, the Verminator, who has really bad luck with .17HMR’s, just got his Ruger 77/17 back from the gunsmith. The barrel that came on the rifle had a “SLIGHT” problem, where it drifted rounds across the target as it got warm. It was really noticeable, and made the gun not worth a sh*t as far as accuracy went. So he is also feeling the need to run to the gun club and see how the new barrel works out.

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Today must be Christmas!

I got my Bushmaster back today. While I haven’t fired it yet, it doesn’t really matter, because the trigger is “BUTTA”. (Butter for those of you who aren’t Jewish or watch old Saturday Night Live clips.) The old trigger had, I swear, a 15 lbs pull. The new Bushmaster 2-stage trigger they put in for me has like a 3 or 4 lbs pull. (Sing with me now: 1 little, 2 little, 3 dead squirrels, 4 little, 5 little, 6 dead squirrels….. sung to some song I remember when I was a kid that had something to do with “Little Indians”.)

Remember, I had them put in a 2 stage trigger when I sent it to them to fix the jamming problem it was having. I was going to be really cheap and just buy a 2 stage and put it in myself, until they informed me that, according to a federal national database that they can tap into, I’m an Idiot. The reason is because they will install any parts you buy from them for free. (Did I tell you the trigger was as smooth as butter yet? Well, it is!)

I think I’m going to go make a dead squirrel video, since I’m feeling a whole lot perkier now that my rifle’s back.

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I found out that my Bushmaster is a V Match, not a Varminter like I thought, so that explains why my rifle is a little bit more accurate than Verminator’s Varminter. (I love saying that…) But, since it has the same feeding problem as the Varminter, I decided to actually do something about it. I called Bushmaster.

Bushmaster has great customer service. Period.

I called them and told them my rifle had an eating disorder, and almost nothing would go down like it was supposed to. So, the guy I was talking to said no problem, and transferred me to the nice Lady who gives out RA’s (Return Authorizations). I gave her the serial number on the gun, my name and address, phone number and email address, and she told me she would email me a FedEx return label ASAP.

Then I asked her if I could send the whole gun, instead of just the upper, and have them install the 2 stage trigger while they had it. She said no problem, and that they wouldn’t even charge me for installing it, since I was buying it from them. It was definitely the easiest return and fix I’ve ever dealt with with a gun company. (Winchester once told me they could fix a rifle I had just bought from Big 5 (broken), but I wouldn’t get it back for 3-6 months.)

I got the FedEx label and the RA in my email about 15 minutes later. WOW! Now all I have to do is print the label, slap it on the box with my rifle in it and head on down to FedEx. How cool is that?

The best part of this whole thing is that they didn’t give me any hassles, they actually acted like they were happy to help me and, best of all, I’ll be able to shoot the Verminator under the table. This is because I have a better barrel, and once they put in my 2 stage trigger, my groups will probably drop to 3/8th at 100 yards. (I’m shooting around .6 inch groups at a 100 yards now, and that’s with the 200 lbs trigger pull that my Bushmaster has now.) Of course, if we shoot at anything over 100 yards, he will still win, because he actually spent more than $100.00 for his scope, which means he can see what he’s shooting at. LOL

Squirrel Sniper

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The Verminator and SquirrelSniper went to Enterprise, Oregon yesterday and shot the snot out of a bunch of ground squirrels. I was using my Savage 17 hmr with the Accutrigger, and he was using his Bushmaster Varminter, which he just got back from Bushmaster after they fixed his jamming problem. (See earlier post.)

I tried to use my .223 V Match from Bushmaster*, but it’s jamming like crazy, so I was stuck shooting my 17. My V Match shoots a tighter group than his Varminter does, but that doesn’t really count when it jams on every other round. (My V match actually shoots a sub 3/4 inch group where his Varminter shoots a 1 inch group.)

But, I digress. Back to the squirrel hunting….
(more…)

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The Verminator was having trouble with his Varminter. (Try saying that three times fast.)

The Verminator’s Varminter from Bushmaster is a really cool gun, with a flat-top for good scope marriage, a heavy barrel and a really frickin awesome two-stage trigger. Basically this rifle is a dream come true for squirrel hunters who need to reach out and put their rounds in the same one inch group at 300 yards. OK, maybe 2 inch groups at 300 yards. But, the point is that this is a very accurate varmint and squirrel type rifle that even a tree hugger would be proud to own; maybe.

(more…)

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OK, I suck. I tried hitting this Badger at like 40,000 yards with my Bushmaster .223 over the hood of my truck with a 10-15mph side wind, but I couldn’t hit it to save my life. Watch the video, it says it all. I finally had to drive up the valley and whack him with my .17 HMR.

Don’t worry, all you tree huggers, it didn’t kill him, just gave him a headache. You can see the 17 HMR bounce off of his fricken head at 50 yards. After I finally got him in the head, he didn’t come back out of his hole, but he’s probably fine and will only have a hangover in the morning, along with a really cool dueling scar. LOL

Double click on the play button to get the video to play.

SquirrelSniper

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When I went to the range on Thursday I took a bunch of Federal Power-Shok 50 grain jacketed hollow point ammunition I had picked up at Wal-Mart last week. I went online to print the drop chart for it, and found out that it wasn’t even listed on Federal’s website. It looks like the stuff has been sitting on the warehouse shelves for a couple of years, and Federal doesn’t even make it any more.

VERMINATOR has been telling me that my rifle, with the 1/9 twist is going to like heavier ammo; stuff over 60 grains. Well, if you remember, last week, while shooting squirrels, I dropped 40 squirrels out of 45 shots at 100-125 yards, with Black Hills 55 grain soft points that were so light that they wouldn’t even cycle my action. (more…)

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