When is hummingbird season?

[Boomer81]

Don't just filet the breasts out. The legs and thighs are the best part!

Nothing like a nice rack of hummingbird ribs, either!

[Tom W.]

Attachment 221776When I was a kid I bought one of the Western Haig revolvers thinking it sounded like it would be fun toy as the advertisement made it sound almost like a real gun.
What I got was a plastic pistol that resembled a revolver with some no. 12 lead shot pellets.
What powered the firing of these pellets was a standard roll of caps just like a toy cap pistol I owned when I was younger yet.
I was really disappointed with the pistol as I tried to shoot a pellet thru a potato chip and it would just bounce off.
I wrote a letter to the company complaining that I was ripped off and wanted my money back. I never got a response or my money.
I did let a friend once shoot me in the back with a 22 birdshot shell at about 40 feet away thinking it wouldn't even get to me as we tried shooting sparrows at about 20 feet and couldn't kill one , just knock a few feathers out and they would fly away.
Believe me that birdshot stung like HELL ! and that was no. 12 shot I believe also. Out of a smooth bore 22 they may have slightly more effect on hummingbirds.

Jedman

I remember seeing those ads back in the early and mid 60's. Dad had already bought me a Sears .22 bolt rifle that held 25 shorts, 20 longs, or 18 LR, so Momma said I couldn't have the Western Haig. I saved my pennies for some imported .22 ammo that the hardware store had that was really cheap. I believe it was made in Finland.
I wanted one of those revolvers. Someone also made a rifle that used either BP or smokeless. It had a turret that you put a ball in and filled the chamber with powder and closed it by turning it clockwise, and used "greenie stickum caps" for ignition. It came in two different calibers. Momma nixed that one, too....

Does anyone remember those rifles?

Rocky Mountain Arms Corp. made them.

[MusicMan]

Rocky Mountain Arms made them. I have one in .22. It used a #4 buckshot ball and any old cap gun cap would ignite it with about a empty .22 shell worth of black powder. It uses a forcing cone to elongate the ball to .22 elongated projectile. It looks and feels like a toy but is gives .22LR performance.

[GooseGestapo]

0.12” is #5 shot.
#12 shot is .05”
NOT the same thing...

A .45Colt case will hold 0.4oz of shot. #12shot makes a potent snake load.
Recently I was gifted 5lbs of #10. Looking foward to loading some snake loads.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Turns out that all the small shot I have measures just a little over 0.05", making it #11 or #12. I have like 10 pounds of it now. Sniper may take a pound or two. That leaves a lot of snake shot to be loaded!

Speaking of snake shot, check out this photo of the rattlesnake my brother-in-law bagged with his shovel just as it was going under his pickup while fishing at Horsetheif Reservoir in western KS. Minus the rattles and some of the head the skin measures 44". It is now in his freezer, and I'm looking for someone to make it into a hat band for my Cowboy Action Shooting outfit.

Attachment 222749

[WRideout]

Any time a friend or family member takes possession of orphaned reloading components they bring them to me. My latest gift is five pounds of No. 12 lead shot. I wonder how many pellets will fit in a SP-10 wad?

BB

Same thing happened to me, only I ended up with 50#; two twenty-five pound bags. I load them up for shot loads in the 357 Mag, which actually patterns and penetrates pretty well at seven yards. It is going to take me a while to use it up. I did roll up a box of 12 ga with it, just to see if it will break clay targets.

Wayne

[Texas by God]

According to CTD ad copy, the 2.75" Rio 12 ga shell with #12 shot has 2470 pellets. That 10 gauge will hold 4000 easy.
I catch them in my hand and they taste like a cross between Spotted Owl and Bald Eagle��

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Sniper received the shot I mailed. He mentioned that rattlesnakes are protected in UT. Too many green weenies. It took a bit to figure out what I wanted when I specified a Thomas Jefferson bill.

I worked a year at the nuke power plant in Byron, IL, in 1996. To make a point on local dollars, an effort was made to use only $2 bills. I sent them to grandchildren and all sorts of people. When you tried to use them where they had not seen them, some were not sure they were legal tender. Just a little humor.

There is a restriction on commercial take of the Western rattlesnakes in Kansas. Limit of 10 per day and 20 in possession. Completed products for sale is unlimited. Mom used to kill at least one each year in the yard with her garden hoe. The cats, dogs, chickens, always alerted you to their presence. One year Dad got 40 while driving the county road grader. All with a long handled shovel since firearms were not permitted in government vehicles.

Some day, if it ever gets wet enough, or enough snow cover, to prevent burning up the countryside, we are going to light up the pile that is the remains of the barn and outbuildings, plus trees, that was the farmstead where I grew. It underwent urban development two summers ago via tornado. I plan on having my cowboy action shooting double barrel shotgun and a bandoleer of birdshot for that event. The only downside to that event will be having to shoot flaming bunny rabbits to put them out of their misery.

[pls1911]

Off topic... along with critters running from burning barns per rattleCharlie's note above,
the critters exiting brush piles being reduced by skidsteer brushcutters have been surprising.
Had a HUGE raccoon basically defy an 1800 pound brush eater, only to finally yield the field to 500 pounds of flywheel and blades, reluctantly retreating deeper into the cedar break.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Since we're off topic ... a house cat had bad timing as Dad and the sickle mower came through. He chased that short legged cat a ways before it slowed down enough to finish off with a .22. Dad hated to see any animal suffer. Same here. I ended a friendship over someone burying kittens with just their heads out then running over them with a power mower. Just sick.

[maglvr]

And don't forget your federal Hummer stamp.

[maglvr]

Ohhhhhhhhhh the good old days! Sigh!

[maglvr]

As well as the cheeks! No sense wasting such a fine delicacy!
I remember one thanksgiving we were quite strapped for food, and all we had left in the freezer was hummer cheeks, seems to me we put 3837 of them in the roaster instead of a turkey

[JackQuest]

Used to shoot at gold finches hanging from the tall dry grass (think wheat or oats) at the 105 yard range behind 100 yd line. Dad and I both used Old Style Ruger 44 Mags. Never did hit a bird, but they would faint, actually pass out as that huge bullet came by within an inch or two over the sound barrier. You waited 20 seconds or so and they came flying up following a drunken path! It was fun, but not for the tweety birds.

[Smoke4320]

Have to liberally apply hummer sauce before baking

[rockrat]

Hummers are a protected species around my house and the wife is the game warden. You think a scorned woman is trouble, just try and take out a hummer here!!!

[bikerbeans]

Hummers are a protected species around my house and the wife is the game warden. You think a scorned woman is trouble, just try and take out a hummer here!!!

My wife is the same way only with stray cats. I blame disappearances on the local yote pack.

BB

[Crash_Corrigan]

That about made me puke...……. We lived in upstate NY in High Falls during the winter of '47. We had a major blizzard that left over 3 feet of snow on level ground. Our garage was located about 400 feet away from the house. After the blizzard Mom used the tractor based snowplow to open up the driveway and access to the house. She went shopping and upon returning to the farm she piled up groceries into my infant sisters baby carriage along with the baby. On that walk to house from the barn some cats that had gone feral (abandoned by summer time renters in the fall) attacked the food and in doing so ripped up my sisters face pretty well in spite of my mom batting them off the carriage.

Enter my Dad just back from a business trip and he was quite upset at the folks who would abandon kitties and cats at the end of the summer. Many of them starved to death or were turned into coyote scat. The remainder became proficient and skillful hunters and reproduced in the wild. These survivors were the ones they remained in the area of the farm. My Dad decided to reduce their numbers. We had received on the few Kelvinator refrigerators available at the time from our close neighbors. The neighbor had a bungalow colony (probably the source of the cats) and he purchased a railroad car full of almost 150 of the coveted refrigerators. Any way it came in a large cardboard container reinforced with wood. He kept the carton. Now he cut out a hole of 2" in the bottom of the carton and attached a suitable hose to it into the carton and the other end to the exhaust pipe of his Nash. He baited the carton with a few opened cans of smelly fish based cat food dumped onto the floor of the carton. We waited nearby until a large quantity of cats were in the box chowing down. It was their last meal.
Even with the tractor it was tough digging a hole in the frozen ground. This process was repeated until the cat problem dissipated. Shooting them with a .22 was not merciful and also not efficient nor cost effective.

[Wolfsbane]

Hummer stamp? Rumor has it you can find these stamps tattooed on floozies at your local dive bar.

And don't forget your federal Hummer stamp.

[lightman]

Hummers are a protected species around my house and the wife is the game warden. You think a scorned woman is trouble, just try and take out a hummer here!!!

Yup, same way at my house! We have several feeders out and the little buggers just wear them out. One of them is in love with the red plastic handle on my emergency garage door opener!