Shootin' rabbit question

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twoblink

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I think it was Art who said, that rabbits are difficult to shoot because even THEY don't know where they are running to..

So what's the secret to shootin' a rabbit that's on the run?
 
If you can stay with them, it seems to me that they always make a big circle back to where they started.
 
It all depends on what I'm using. If I'm using a .22, I try to be patient and see if it will stop long enough for a quick kill. If I'm using a shotgun (not often), see Art's advice above.
 
be quick
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That pretty much sums it all up. Also, a rabbit almost always has an immediate destination that they are trying to reach. If you're shooting in an open field with patches of thick growth, the rabbit is always going to make a bee-line for the next patch of grass or run along the edge of the one he just broke from. It's only thought is safe cover. Keep a lead on the rabbit the whole way and you got him.
 
I dunno I got my first one last week. I looked out in the back yard saw him coming down over the ridge about 200 yards out het got to about 150 I picked up my old 39a and shot him clean in the neck right under the head with a 22 jumped up then hit the ground dead.
 
Cheat. :D

Mentor taught me trick when I was about as head high as a kitchen table.
Early morning, going down the farm road and this wabbit darts out and he blows this whistle.

I was not expecting this...:eek:
Neither was the wabbit. :scrutiny:

No it does not work all the time, but for a kid to be given his own metal whistle, and instructions to sound off the next time a wabbit darted out, it was pretty neat!

Whistle was real metal, with a beaded chain and everything....just like the one he used as a Beat Cop. :)


I still contend the best part of wabbit hunting with beagles is watching the beagles.
Getting to take a shot is a just a bonus. :p
 
Id rather not start a new thread but this relates to a rabbit my friend shot today. something i certainly didnt expect. early this morning i was at my parents house loading up some scrap metal and we saw a rabbit in my moms flower bed. She had recently told me she wanted to get rid of the rabbits and couldnt keep them away. so i decided the best way to get rid of them is throw lead at them. I had my friend there with me at the house so he pulls out his mosin nagant m44. loads up some 147 grn bulgarian ball surplus ammunition. shoots at this rabbit about 30 ft away. it appeared he missed as it ran, stopped 40 more ft away and he shot it again. It then ran into the woods and I kind of gave him a hard time about missing such an easy shot. Later in the day I was mowing the lawn, and guess what I come across, a dead rabbit with a .30 cal hole through the gut. This rabbit showed no sign of slowing down when hit but he obviously hit it. I dont think a hollow point would fare much better on such soft tissue. anyone ever heard of anything like this? I was expecting something dramatic like it splitting in half but the shotgun does a much better job. does that make sense to anyone? who would thin 762x54r isnt enough stopping power for cottontail rabbits?
 
Use a shotgun? They are pretty stupid, sometimes they'll run out of sight into the brush, I'll fire a shot guessing where it went, and it'll run back into the open.

Cottontails seem much tougher than jacks (to kill that is)
 
Hunt with a Savage 24, 22 over 20 or 410, rabbits on the run or still your covered. Hard to beat for cottontails.
I have shot hundreds with a 22 and just learned to move slow and become completely still when one flushed, most times he would stop and give me a shot, kind a like mule deer. Makes good deer hunting practice and will teach a guy Patience for sure..
 
A 12 Gauge autoloader with high-brass #6 shells makes it a lot easier than with a .22:D


But like others said, the .22 is better practice for deer.
 
I prefer to drive a hundred miles north and hunt snowshoe hare with a .22 pistol. A head or heart/lung hit with a good HP will pretty much anchor them, but I once took solids, and had to put 7 rounds through one to finish it! Once the snow falls and they turn white, they'll let you walk right past them, so once you get the hang of spotting them, it's like fish in a barrel. If there's an early thaw, it's funny walking through the woods and all these white rabbits sitting still, thinking they're invisible...
 
We used to spotlight jacks at night back home when I was a kid . . . used shotguns. There were so many jacks back then (the days of "loose"/unbaled hay stacks), that come spring, the haystacks that hadn't collapsed looked like toad stools from the rabbits feeding around the bottoms. Didn't keep many of them, but Grandma used to cook a few in a pressure cooker in some kind of delicious sauce so good that old hunting boots would have been a treat if prepared the same way. Used some for bait for traplines & sold the majority to a rendering plant for two-bits per carcass. Hunted them with a bow and .22 rifle, also. The trick was to walk through the sagebrush until you jumped one, then watch where it stopped. Then walk toward it, but at an angle & not directly at it. About the second or third time you looked like you were going to pass by, the jack would sit still long enough for you to get a reasonably close shot. Only hunted cottontails with a .22 . . . my Dad finally 'fessed-up & told me to quit looking for a whole bunny, but to instead look for a perfectly round black eye . . . amazing how many more bunnies I saw sitting in the brush after that advice.
 
Because it didn't expand and transfer any energy. Like being stabbed with a sharpened knitting needle. If the bullet didn't hit a bone or CNS, the animal will not be greatly shocked, and must bleed out. And depending on how much damage is done, could take a while. Like gut-shooting a deer with an arrow...Lots of those are lost every season. Wrong tool for the job.
 
Hunting with Rich Lucibella. (Humor)

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16550&highlight=Rabbits

But first, we had to shoot the rabbits.
Rich is prone to carrying everything from moist towelettes to mortar rounds in his "basic" hunting kit, so it tends to weigh slightly more than my usual complement of 5 rounds of extra ammo, and three squares of toilet paper.
The fun began when Rich, who was walking point in the rabbit infested area, sighted the first potential victi...er, ah, target.

The gyrations of the gear exploding from Rich's back, with the attendant arm waving and dancing to avoid cactus was alarming to me and terrifying to the rabbit, who, being a sensible sort, rabbited off.
Rich took off after it at full speed.
When he (Rich) broke cover a few minutes later, it was noted that he was rabbitless. He regained his pack, and began stalking the next one.
Once sighted, the rabbit and myself were once again treated/alarmed to see Rich dump all of his gear in a flurry of frantic flapping, and take off running after the rabbit.
This same basic scene occurred no less than six times.
The fact that Rich had a rifle with him seemed to have gone completely from his mind.
I asked him if the equipment trail was intended to help him find his way out of the brush, or if he was trying to leave a trail for me to follow.
I suggested that perhaps he would be better off trying to actually shoot the rabbit next time, as opposed to running it down...
His bizarre behavior remains unexplained.
Maybe that's just how they do it in Florida.
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The rifle in question, "funky sight" wise, was a Winchester 94/22, with the standard buckhorn type sights found on that model.
Rich was impressed by the color and pattern of the stock. I explained that walnut wood stocks usually looked about like that.
He asked incredulously,"Wood? On a gun?"
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As rabbits tend to run a bit and stop, awaiting the second shot, it became my policy to drop my (errr Kevin's?) CamelBak and move to a spot wherein I might get a shot.
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HTH :D


I stay in trouble....:)
 
Because it didn't expand and transfer any energy. Like being stabbed with a sharpened knitting needle. If the bullet didn't hit a bone or CNS, the animal will not be greatly shocked, and must bleed out
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I would say you are right. However, I would have had to see it to believe it. I doubt any bones on a rabbit are hard enough to really make that round expand anyways. I guess that pretty much puts an end to the stories of people blowing rabbits in half with some .30 cal rifle.
 
Well, if you reload that M-N round with 110gr hollowpoints at warp 3 and duplicate that shot, I think you'll see a different result...
 
I see the .17 HMR's doing what looks like a much better job rabbiting than the .22LR's.

Thanks for all who answered; the reason I asked was because I was trying to shed some light on market trading; and I figure I'd ask experience hunters how to kill an animal who didn't know which way it was heading..
 
Plus 1 for the .17HMR ITs just a rabbit killer!

As for:

I guess that pretty much puts an end to the stories of people blowing rabbits in half with some .30 cal rifle.
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When I was younger my dad shot a rabbit a .30-30 lever action and trust me, it pretty much did blow up :) The rabbit popped up about 2 feet in air and the force was so great his torso just spun around until it separated. Basically you didn't have to gut it :) lol
 
I actually hunted rabbits with a Mosin Nagant last year, and a Winchester soft point will display a large amount of destructive power on a rabbit. My first rabbit I was able to hit in the neck, and the head was only holding on by a bit of skin. The second one, I was trying for a head shot but the rabbit turned away from me and moved. The bullet entered the back and blew out the entire chest cavity of the rabbit. It just wasn't there anymore. All that was left was a long flap of skin to which was attached the head and the lower abdomen and back legs. There is a reason the rabbit is draped over a log in this picture.
bunny2.jpg
 
I figure I'd ask experience hunters how to kill an animal who didn't know which way it was heading..
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wait for it to stop running, whack it w/ a 22.

nothing runs non-stop forever. watch it, when it stops, note where it is, move to where you need to for a shot, and shoot it.

rabbit hunting is easy, and fun. no reason to make it frustrating by trying to shoot 'em on the run.
 
This is true

If you can stay with them, it seems to me that they always make a big circle back to where they started.
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For the most part, that is. Rabbits tend to run in large circles or patterns. In the movie/ documentary “Wolves at Our Door” there is one part where the wolves chase a large snowshoe hair and catch it. The way they catch a rabbit is that one of them (the wolves) will chase it until he gets tired. The other wolves will wait close by and when the first one starts to fade, another wolf will take his place. Because the rabbit will run basically in a circle the other pack members will not have to run along, they just sit and wait for their turn to run, kind of like a relay race that you would see at a track and field event. The rabbit eventually will get tired and slow down enough to be caught. Then its lunch time for the wolves.
 
I still contend the best part of wabbit hunting with beagles is watching the beagles. Getting to take a shot is a just a bonus.
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Heh, my dad raised and trained beagles for hunting when I was a kid. You never saw an animal so happy in it's life as a Beagle on the scent trail!

As for shooting Rabbits (and rats and most rodents for that matter) they tend to scurry for a certain distance and then pause unless they are being hotly pursued. So you freeze and let them run and they'll stop soon and you can nail them.
 
JMORRIS 100%, I flush them and sit for a couple minutes, they come right back and look around. I use an old single shot .410 bolt gun for my hare. Thinking about one of those Comanche .410 pistols for a little more fun.
 
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