Perfect Woodchuck gun

[725]

Grew up shooting chucks with my dad's Win 69A. Years with a .22 long rifle put an untold number (my most memorable day was 13) of the critters before the pearly gates. Then one birthday Dad elevated me to professional status when he gave me a Marlin .22 Mag lever action. It was a significant improvement.

[smkummer]

Sure as heck, the holes continued to be dug out. So here is the mate, I guess they work and live in pairs. Again, one shot of 22 Winchester magnum HP and it dropped in its tracks. If I wasn't in a rural sub-division, I might use 223 but 22 magnum is loud enough and it kills dead.

[Vern Humphrey]

My favorite for chucks, crows and so on is a .22 Hornet. I load a 35 grain Hornady V-max on top of a case full of Hodgdon's Li'l Gun for about 3100 fps. It is no exaggeration to say this is an explosive load!

[Hickok]

While we are on the subject of groundhogs, have the coyotes in your area decimated the groundhog population?

Hunting 'pigs used to be a passion for me, but the coyotes have made finding them difficult.

I know the farmers hate groundhogs, but I sure like to shoot them for sport.

[marshall623]

Never had any trouble with the 22LR Contender out

[richhodg66]

Don't see wood chucks around here very often, did just see a road killed one last weekend, but I can only think of two or three I've seen in 20 years of living here. I kind of wish we did have them, they seem like entertaining critters.

[Hickok]

Rich, they are amazingly strong and tough animals. Their hide is tougher than boot leather, takes a good sharp knife to open one up.

At rare times, a bad shot/hit with powerful rifles will leave pieces of them scattered about, while they crawl back to their holes. I have always thought if ground hogs were the size of German Shepard dogs, they would be worse than brown bears to stop.

[tward]

Ground hogs can be tough. My grandfather had one eating his pepper buds, put 7 22lr hp in him and he ran 20 yards to the barn! Gramp said I missed him but when we pulled the car out of the shed there he was with 7 holes in him. Strangest shot was about 35 yds. The chuck dropped right over but we could not find a bullet hole, turned out I got him inside the ear! Tim

[SPRINGFIELDM141972]

I had a mess of these critters. I killed 7 a year before last, and 2 last year.

[kgb]

When I decided to remove a couple from my grandparent's yard with a .22 I used some older Super-X copper plated rounds which I'd given a flat-nose treatment via a Paco Accurizer. Looked mostly SWC when done and two groundhogs died with single shots each into the lungs. Ranges of 20-25 yards, I don't think I'd try for anything over 50 with a .22LR.