[nsf003]

I have been meaning to post pictures of my new toy for 3 months now but never got around to it. Been busy with work and all.

The AR will be my last long gun(for now) to get its first groundhog under its belt. I am suprised that I hit it with open sights. I could only find 1 entry/exit wound though and this baffeled me. I shot 3 times, the first time i know i had to have hit it because he went down, i shot again and missed because i thought he ran at first and was trying to shoot near him. I finally ran up to it and shot again from about 3 feet away. I don't remember an entry wound before i shot him the third time. I don't see how i could have missed from about 3 feet away but am baffelled why there is only 1 wound.
I figure that i must have hit him with the first shot and missed the other times because he was down and flailing when i got to him.

Before anyone yells about the poor little grounhog, I'll tell you that he was digging up the shed, eating my mom's plants, and being a general pest around the house. I didn't seek him out, he brought it on himself.

If anyone has any ideas please feel free to critizice my shooting ability.


nsf003

[Texas Gunman]

I have a bushy A2 shorty, first week at the ranch, I also did the same thing, scored my first kill at 100+ yards, first shot, like you had mention, I was suprised, I also used iron sights. :D

Nice looking AR.:cool:


TG

[uglygun]

My AR15 I built up specifically for varminting....

http://home.bak.rr.com/varmintcong/jpar/jpar.html


It's accurate enough for out to 500+ yards on ground squirrels but the shooter has only managed to hit at 400 yards. Inside of 100 yards poor wittle squirrels just launch, but that's what happens when the temporary wound cavity grossly exceeds the overal diameter of the wittle vermin being shot. Best record is about 6feet up in the air with the fur ball landing about 15 feet away, grab up some varmint ammo to see what I'm talking about(Hornady Vmax/Varmint Express, Remington Varmint, or anything with Nosler BalisticTips).


Little pests dig up the ranch land something fierce, on a good day some of the local varminters can get upwards of 200 squirrels in an afternoon. Semiauto with detachable 20-30 round mags starts to look REAL good when compared to a bolt action, more shootin with not much loss in accuracy(I hate carrying loose ammo and having to reload a bolt gun after every 5th shot).



Have fun with the AR, it likely won't be your last..... They have a habit of breeding like bunnies.

[Redlg155]

If anyone has any ideas please feel free to critizice my shooting ability.

Ok..here goes..

I shot 3 times, the first time i know i had to have hit it because he went down, i shot again and missed because i thought he ran at first and was trying to shoot near him. I

Of course you missed. This is the standard groundhog drill in response to someone shooting at him with an AR. They are also taught to do a roll during advanced training.

I finally ran up to it and shot again from about 3 feet away.

This of course is when you shot him. According to the groundhog survival manual you should be giving a high five to your buddy congratulating each other on the "kill", not running up and blasting him. Still, he should have followed emergency procedures and played "dead".

. You asked for it. :D

Good SHooting
Red

[444]

I don't know all the details, but my experience with shooting groundhogs with a .22-250 is similar to what you describe. If I shot one under, say, 50 yards, it would blow a big gaping hole in it or possibly dismember it. After I got out to further than 50 yards, you couldn't find a single wound on it. It was just dead. Somewhere there was a .22" hole under it's fur, then the bullet fragmented completely leaving no exit wound. No blood, nothing but a dead groundhog.
I would guess that you hit it initally at long range and just don't see the wound, the one you do see is the shot you made at extremly close range.

[WonderNine]

Best record is about 6feet up in the air with the fur ball landing about 15 feet away

That's what you get for shooting a squirrel with a shorty. Typically a .223 out of the Winchester model 70 turns a prairie dog inside out and tends to propel them about 20-30 yards into the air. You know that a .223 out of a barrel shorter than 18" at more than 50 yards is just a glorified .22 don't you? :D

[444]

:rolleyes:
"Typically a .223 out of the Winchester model 70 turns a prairie dog inside out and tends to propel them about 20-30 yards into the air. "


I actually did see my buddy shoot a jackrabbit with an AR and a 55 grain Hornady V-Max. One of it's legs flew through the air a considerable distance.

[gun-fucious]

<Big Jim McBob>
well that one blowed up good.
</Big Jim McBob>

<Billy Saul Hurok>
That one blowed up real good
</Billy Saul Hurok>


:)
http://sctvguide.ca/programs/farmfilm.htm

[uglygun]

That's what you get for shooting a squirrel with a shorty. Typically a .223 out of the Winchester model 70 turns a prairie dog inside out and tends to propel them about 20-30 yards into the air. You know that a .223 out of a barrel shorter than 18" at more than 50 yards is just a glorified .22 don't you?


TSK TSK TSK....


Somebody didn't clicky clicky on the linky linky.....


a 15 pound unloaded weight 48 inch long overall length rifle is anything but "shorty". More like a "death dealing devining rod from hell" when properly deployed by a member of the anti-cong varminting crowd.



One thing about conging the squirrels and their prarrie dog brethern, always and I do mean ALWAYS aim for the "crap factory". Allow those Vmaxes and other violently expanding bullets to impact with as much fleshy gooey material and 1/2 digested food as possible. It makes for a better "splat" and spectacular aerobatics. Usually at the point of blast off there will be about a 1 foot diameter ring of muck that is a mixture of red stuff and green stuff, I figure the green stuff is digested grass and other products better left unmentioned and the red stuff is easy enough to figure out. Strangely enough, every so often I'll only find 1/2 a squirrel only to not find the rest of it even if I walk an 8-10 foot radius around the point of lift off/impact.



My best though was 2 kills with 1 shot. One day I found 2 squirrels standing side by side on a plane perpendicular to the centerline of the barrel. They were about a foot apart and I had to play "enie, minie, moe" to choose which one to shoot. I aimed for the one on the left and squeezed the trigger, he did his classic impression of a fissionable atom going critical mass and just flew off landing about 4-5 feet away. What I was not expecting was for a high velocity bone or bullet fragment to exit 90 degrees out the side and kill the squirrel standing a foot away to the right side. Walking down there in disbelief I looked at the poor little bystander squirrel and he had 3-4 little impacts visible around his head, lucky LUCKY shot. That's what he gets for being a spectator.....

[waynzwld]

uglygun, you do know that those little buggers are canibalistic and will eat their dead. I know of some people that have made a hit out past 500 yards and before they get there to verify the hit, the neighbors pull the dead on down the hole and start munching:eek:

maybe that is where the "missing parts" are going:D

[uglygun]

Yes, I did know that.


Often when I'm out in the field I make a habit of making a mental note for the balistic dope needed for each kill. I'll make an entire mental range card of sorts with exact come ups needed to make repeatable hits on the corpses. Say to myself, "Okay, corpse by the rock is 4 clicks up from corpse by the fence post".


It makes for SUPER easy shots on little cannibal squirrels that might come out later to feed on their little brothers/sisters.


I have some very gross stories about cannibalistic squirrels but I don't think I can tell them here.

[standingbear]

the first shot merely caused it to faint or pass out(lol).you missed on the second and got em on the 3rd try.ive seen them crouch down close to the ground right after each shot and just lie there motionless.(until you grab its tail to fling it over the fence)ive seen them run like a freight train after a close shot,right into the side of a barn and knock themselves utterly senseless.ive even shot at one only to not find any entrance or exit wound and wondered if the dang thing had a heart attack.:what:

[SodaPop]

Can I come out there and hunt ground hogs with my AR too? I'm seriously looking into doing some ground hog hunting this year. I just gotta find somebody that'll let me on their farm.