The Ultimate Squirrel Rifle

[soundwaves]

if l was allowed a nother rifle l would defenatly get a 17 fireball

 

[Out Back]

I cant think of shooting anything other than the 17 Hornet

CZ 527 mine with a 20gr V-Max and 12.5gr of VV-120 will go head to head with a Cooper costing $1600 More.................

 

[gj]

Not many squirrel hunters around here ! My son used to hunt them with his blow dart set up, he was pretty dang good with it to ! We never ate them , what they taste like ? Is it an acquired taste ?

 

[BillR]

Spent a big portion of my misspent youth hunting squirrels. Tried about everything in cartridges and rifles. Was informed very early on that I was to not shoot them with a shotgun, no one liked eating pellets it seems although a lot a friends from the southern part of the US inform me that a good .410 is a great squirrel gun. Eating the squirrel was the main reason for shooting them so that took out the .22 Mag and the .17's after trying them and high velocity .22 LR's also did a bit more damage so and price of ammo was also a big part in the equation. For rifles I used two of the best I have ever used as far as accuracy and portability were an old 512 Remington bolt action and a 572 Pump. Tried it with a scoped 541 Rem Bolt gun but good old iron sights seemed to work the best for fast moving squirrels up in the cotton wood ,oak and walnut trees on the creek bottoms. Seldom did I need to shoot further than 25 yards. Further than that and you would loose sight of the squirrel pretty quickly. Camo clothing and going slow and plenty of tic and skeeter juice another tool of great import. I could get a lot of squirrels from a box of shells which very early on would cost about .50 cents a box and now can go for 5 dollars depending on what ammo you use. Another rifle I use that does an awesome job is a custom built Kentucky Poor boy Percussion rifle in .32 caliber. Does almost as well at the .22 LR. Just not as fast but then speed was never in the equation when squirrel hunting.
Of the .22's I own which include a Kimber SVT topped with a 6.5X20X40 Leupold. Remington 512 Now retired and one that is like new in the box almost appears to be unfired. A Remington 541 HB also with a 6.5X20X50 boosted to 18X40X50 and a 541 Sporter with iron sights I still grab the Rem 572.

 

[Danehunter]

BillR, Those are fairly high powered scopes for a .22 LR.

How many of you folks use a scoped rifle for squirrels?
My rifle has a modestly priced Bushnell Trophy 1.75 - 4 power scope. It's a good magnification range and physical size for a .22 WMR rifle.

Anything beyond 100 yards is beyond ethical range with that cartridge, even if you are using an expensive CZ bolt gun.

Eric B.

 

[BillR]

Yup, when I was living in South Dakota about 6 years ago my shooting buddie and I were shooting Prairie dogs and started pushing the envelope a bit. To get the best accuracy we were using standard velocity target ammo and made it out to 400 yards. Didn't kill them at that distance but we could do pretty well at 300 yards. Then the government got the bright idea to poison them we pretty much lost all of our PD ground and gave it up. Was a lot of fun until them and with my old eyes and those being the scopes I had on hand to use that would work good that is what I put on them. Believe me it was awesome.

 

[lancetkenyon]

My two bushytail getters. I have easily taken squirrels out past 100 yards with both of them. But 20-40 is usually the norm.



But....my .300RUM pushing a 230 Berger Hybrid @ 3068 did take a LR squirrel @ 1201 yards. So maybe that really IS an ultimate squirrel rifle?

 

[BillR]

Depends on the plan is to eat it or not.

 

[Doghunter23]

BillR, Those are fairly high powered scopes for a .22 LR.

How many of you folks use a scoped rifle for squirrels?
My rifle has a modestly priced Bushnell Trophy 1.75 - 4 power scope. It's a good magnification range and physical size for a .22 WMR rifle.

Anything beyond 100 yards is beyond ethical range with that cartridge, even if you are using an expensive CZ bolt gun.

Eric B.

even for a squirrel? I saw my dad kill a 150 pound hog running at 150 yards with a 22 mag. I killed a coyote at 200 with my mag DRT. one time I killed a coyote at 105 yards with one shot with 22lr Eley Subsonics, he made it about 5 yards and piled up.
My squirrel rifle of choice is my Ruger 77/22 stainless laminated. Topped with a Sightron S3 3.5X10X44 (no such thing as overkill)
to me a 17 will never be able to compete just because of the stealth factor, with Eley or RWS subsonic hollow points my rifle will put a ragged one hole group a 50 yards, and its soo quiet I can routinely get a limit while standing under one active Hickory tree.

 

[turkn8r1]

Got to Go with one of the first 77/17 heavy barrel stainless laminate stock with an original swift while they were still swift 3-9x40 head shots all day.