Hi all! I am having a battle with a raccoon that keeps invading my wife's flowers. Two nights ago, I woke up at 0230 and heard him digging through her potted plants on our back patio. like the former Sniper I am, I stealthily crept from my bed and low crawled to my hide (actually, I stumbled, staggered, and bumped into a doorway or two). I grabbed my trusty Marlin Model 39A for this mission, and since I didn't want to wake up the entire neighborhood, I loaded it with a couple .22 shorts (shorts, by the way, were also the only thing I was wearing at the time of this engagement).
So creeping out onto my back deck, I spotted Ricky on top of a table about 10 yards away. This was the first time I actually laid eyes on my adversary, and I have to say I'm not sure how the small table was supporting a creature roughly the size of a polar bear (OK, maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration. Make him the size of a Shetland Pony). In any case, a sneer curled my lips as I thought how easy this shot was going to be.
Thus, I shouldered my rifle (literally, since there was nothing between my bare shoulder and the butt plate), and BLAAAM! (actually, more like "pip."). I doubt the anemic .22 short bullet actually bounced off Coonzilla, but neither did it vaporize him on the spot. His reaction was to jump down off the table and amble to a spot behind the bench at the far side of our patio. From that point, he proceeded to make faces at me through the slats of the bench. So once more I leveled the barrel of my blued steel beauty, and again I let him have it with another THUNDERING "pip." (This really was a pretty good shot. Low-light, at about 40 feet between the slats of the bench.). Ricky shrugged off the second shot, gave me the finger and strolled off into the woods.
I've had enough raccoon encounters over the years to know they are very hard to kill, and since these engagements usually take place late at night, I'm thinking a nice, quiet .38 Special load launched from my Marlin 1894 might be a better option for dispatching these rodent banditos. Anyone have any such loads you've developed?
Howard