Good sound attenuation ... or deaf squirrel?

[NavyVet1959]

OK... So, I walk out to my garage to test out one of the 10mm loads that I just loaded and see a squirrel standing right near the side door. I walk in, set up my bullet stop and fire the round. Recovered my brass to examine it and walk back outside. The squirrel hadn't moved. Either my garage attenuates the sound quite a bit or the squirrel's deaf.

No neighbor complaints, but I suspect the squirrel's deaf...

[fecmech]

I have had rabbits continue to feed 8-10' behind my steel backstop while I'm shooting .38 spl's from 25 yds. Also on my 50 yd rifle range have had rabbits and squirrels continue to advance towards me from the backstop to within 10' of the bench while firing groups. Evidently they are so used to gunfire around my house it doesn't bother them.

[LUBEDUDE]

With a 10mm going off in a garage?, he was scared stiff!! :)

[NavyVet1959]

With a 10mm going off in a garage?, he was scared stiff!! :)

I accidentally did this once without hearing protection.. I was pretty close to deaf for awhile.

[w5pv]

My hearing is so bad from the big guns in the army that now when I shoot any gun I use earplugs(the foam type)and then I use ear muffs along with them.The big bores just sound like weak pops instead of big bangs.

[tigweldit]

The wife and I were at the local shooting pit and went through about 75 rounds of 10mm full power loads. We finished shooting and put our gear in shooting bag to leave. When we turned, around there was a big doe grazing about 20 yards behind us. Critters just sometimes know when they are not the object of our attention, or our lead.

[Mal Paso]

Early this year a squirrel sat in a tree 15 feet away and watch while I unloaded a dozen full house 44 Mags rounds and chattered at me. My ears would have been ringing for days.

[osteodoc08]

while the report of a firearm may peak their interest or temporarily scare them, if it's not considered an immediate danger, I can see why he went about his usual business. How many here have shot a deer to have their running mate scamper a few feet and look around to see what the noise was?

[GOPHER SLAYER]

A friend and I were in Kentucky many years ago hunting ground hogs when I saw a large one standing in the entrance to his burrow. We were looking at him thru some rather thick brush and he didn't see us. We were both carrying .22 pistols and my friend fired first. Nothing happened. The ground hog just looked around but didn't seem in the least bit disturbed. I took a shot and the critter still didn't move. After a bit he simply disappeared into his hole. I have no idea how both of us could have missed at such a short range but we did. We couldn't have been more than twelve feet from him. I also can't understand why he let us get off two shots and remain standing. That area was crawling with the big rodents, and they are big. They do a great deal of damage to the crops so farmers are glad to let you shoot as many as you can.

[WILCO]

I'd say the squirrel just didn't care. Putting one under his behind would change that.......

[FISH4BUGS]

I attended a shooting school in Maine held at a very large sand pit. This included some machine guns. During the middle of the training we saw a large buck standing at the top of the rim of the pit, probably 100 yards away, but directly on top of where we were putting the bullets.
Maybe he was deaf too.

[RayinNH]

NavyVet, are you sure that wasn't the taxidermy squirrel you put there years ago :mrgreen:?

[NavyVet1959]

NavyVet, are you sure that wasn't the taxidermy squirrel you put there years ago :mrgreen:?

Nope... Looks different...

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/09/b8/7e/09b87ea13f0854a11e5d84a4a3aa09c8.jpg

[RayinNH]

At the club range we have a woodchuck that lives near the fifty yard berm. One day I was shooting and not 25 feet away the chuck came out to munch grass. Ten or so minutes later the gentleman that mows the grass at the club came to visit to see what I was shooting. He looks downrange and says" Look at that SOB, he's standing on his hind legs". Apparently he didn't feel threatened.

[edctexas]

When our NatGuard Co was shooting recoiless rifle (105mm I think), we had to hold up shooting til the deer moved away from the targets. Mind you these rounds were HE and made a big bang. The deer just moozied along less bother than the RO for the range. We could have killed them with the 50cal spotting rounds, but were highly discouraged from doing that. (This was in 1972 so the memories are not quite vivid anymore)

Ed C

[MaryB]

We generally leave critters be at the range... then gophers moved in and started destroying the berms. So now any gopher in a rifle range is a target! When you hit one with a ballistic tip 223 round there isn't much left to recover!

[RayinNH]

We generally leave critters be at the range... then gophers moved in and started destroying the berms. So now any gopher in a rifle range is a target! When you hit one with a ballistic tip 223 round there isn't much left to recover!

Same at our range Mary. The above mentioned woodchuck comes out of his/her hole and has a snack munching grass. What's the point shooting it, it's causing no harm. After all it would just sit around and stink for a week or two if it were shot.

[RED333]

Not a range story, but is is a squirrel hunt story.
As I was moving around a tree to get a better shot at a squirrel I
looked over to another big forked tree. The bottom of the fork was about 4 feet off
the ground. In the fork was a squirrel just standing there looking at me, did not move a bit.
I look back at the squirrel I was hunting and he was on the side of the tree on my side, not moving.
As I was thinking on how to get a shot off I heard a noise above me. I look up in time to see a large Owl
fly off. Before I could look back at the squirrel to get a shot both were gone.

[ericp]

A range I used to shoot at in the northern lower peninsula had a family of turkeys that would hang out on the rifle range. Once they were walking along the firing line about three feet in front of the fence and my dad touched off a 30 Herrett right as they in front of him. They didn't even flinch.


Eric