Killing me softly

[Grayrock]

Other than suppressed weapons, what do you use to minimize noise for varmint hunting? I have found an old Stevens Model 56 .22 loaded with CB caps is great out the back door. My old Benjamin model 310 pellet rifle makes more noise than that .22 does. I just had some fiber optic sights put on my 56, next it gets a trigger polishing- then watch out squirrels!!

 

[redneck]

Well.....I tried a ballpeen hammer once, but my swearin done woke the neighbors....

So I went back to the policy of usin whatever ammo was handy in the .22.
Quietest I've ever used was Remington Hypervelocity Yellowjackets....but that was with a coon firmly chompin on my gun barrel. He was in a trap so I guess thats kind of a hard setup to make permanent. Muzzle heavy anyways.



I pretty much quit worryin about noise actually. I've got a spring piston air rifle that rattles the windows. Used to use CB longs in the .22, and that was pretty good, but they got hard to find for a while. So I just used golden bullets, or whatever I had for awhile and haven't had a single problem despite the noise. I did just find some remington subsonic hollowpoints I'm going to give a go, and I actually found a source for some CB's . So I'll probably buy a box or two of them sometime, mainly for plinking since lots of loud shots might raise complaints.
For popping a varmint here and there, the noise of a .22LR isn't really a big deal, least around here.

 

[WYO]

Subsonic .22 hollowpoints work great on squirrels to 50+ yards. I couldn't do it without a scope, though.

 

[Art Eatman]

I have an ancient long-barrelled Mauser .22 that with CB caps provided a few meals of squirrel stew. The neighbors never noticed. I'd guess a max of around 15, maybe 20 yards.

Art

 

[Frohickey]

Silent Loads

I liked the story about the turtles.

 

[redneck]

Just did some ballistic testing with the remington subsonic hollowpoints. A racoon obligingly assisted me

These things weren't as quiet as I was expecting, after reading posts here. No sonic crack, but the boom still echoed off the treeline about 40 yards away. Nothin to make you hold your ears, and its not a sharp report so I doubt people would notice a shot or two from any distance.
They did just fine on the racoon. Plenty of punch. They're also the most accurate ammo I've found for my old rifle judging from a quick 5 round test from about 50 feet, free hand and open sights had 3 holes touching. Nothing real impressive but I don't shoot this gun very often and its pretty eradic with some of the other ammo I've tried.

 

[WYO]

I've been using RWS subsonics, but I suspect the sound is going to be roughly the same as any of the .22 LR subsonics. One thing I noticed about hunting squirrels with the subsonics is that squirrels often stick around for follow up shots in the event of a miss. I don't think that they can really pinpoint where the sound is coming from. They don't stick around for follow up shots when hunted with shotguns. (I know, you shouldn't miss with a shotgun, but it happens.)