Rabbits Versus 22 Hornet

[Euan]

Took the CZ Hornet out for a wee run. She went well as usual. The load 7.3 grains of Lil Gun and CBE 225-42 GC, cast from WW, weighs 44 grains with gas check & lube. Ranges from 70 to 160 yards. CZ won.
Cheers Euan.

[357maximum]

Nice thumpin...looks like stew to me.

you scared the color right out of that middle one....was he just an odd phase or a little bit tame?

[Catshooter]

Nice harvest. What sort of velocity are you getting with that load?


Cat

[dk17hmr]

Looks like stew...bbq rabbit...fried rabbit..and about anything else you would like.

Nice work. Are rabbits just a varmint over in NZ or are they game animals?

[carpetman]

Here in Texas,I consider jackrabbits as varmints. I've heard some people eat them. I consider cottontails here as varmints too. Reason is both have a lot of parasites and carry the fever--probably not to a high degree on the fever but catching it once is more than you want. I use to shoot both jacks and cottontails at night on a place that was I think about 55 or so sections. You could go out nearly every night and shoot about 100 of them. I used the 58 grain RCBS both with and without the gas check. This was in velocity around 2000-2200 fps. Use .22-250 and .222 ---used about the same velocity either one. Would reach out about as far as you could spotlight them. Shooting from inside a pickup the reduced blast of the cast bullet was a big plus.

[Bullshop]

Nice lookin criters. They look like the type we raise here for meat. Our wild rabbit are some different than them.
Ray what do you mean by the feever, tulerimia? I think that there is always risk with some critters like rabbits or bear or pork for that matter. The sure way to be safe besides not eating it is to cook it very well done. One thing we do with rabbits to make it safe for our kids is to can them. The boys bone them out and Tina puts them up in jars with taters, onions,cellery,carrots, a bit of hot pepper garlic and salt. Then they go in the pressure cooker at 10 lbs for 90 minutes. After that they are safe and free of living paristiites. They can be shelved for years without any refrigeration until used.
More than just usable they are good and make a quick meal when a bunch of hungry kids are ready to eat, RIGHT NOW!
BIC/BS

[carpetman]

Yes, Dan Tularemia fever. I've heard the danger is not from eating,but from cleaning rabbits. Wear rubber gloves while cleaning I've been told. But I dont want to mess with them. I've heard an active rabbit when weather is real cold is a good sign it's healthy. But we have a lot of hot weather and I've seen rabbits that were parasite infested and I just dont want to eat them.

[JeffinNZ]

Looks like stew...bbq rabbit...fried rabbit..and about anything else you would like.

Nice work. Are rabbits just a varmint over in NZ or are they game animals?

Yeap. Can shoot them till you are blue in the face. My personal record for a 4 hour afternoon hunt is 161; 50 from one spot with the .223 running full house, balance with my .22RF rolling block.

Nice haul Euan. Can't remember the last time I got out after a bunny. My wee girls are using my hunting time and it is a fair swap.

[Junior1942]

....... One thing we do with rabbits to make it safe for our kids is to can them. The boys bone them out and Tina puts them up in jars with taters, onions,cellery,carrots, a bit of hot pepper garlic and salt. Then they go in the pressure cooker at 10 lbs for 90 minutes. After that they are safe and free of living paristiites. They can be shelved for years without any refrigeration until used.......

When I moved in my dad's old house in 1989 I found three qt jars of fig preserves my mother canned in 1968. They were still good!!!!

If Santa doesn't bring me a pressure cooker this year I'm buying one. I want to learn how to can meat.

[madsenshooter]

When I moved in my dad's old house in 1989 I found three qt jars of fig preserves my mother canned in 1968. They were still good!!!!

If Santa doesn't bring me a pressure cooker this year I'm buying one. I want to learn how to can meat.

Her's a good place to start learning such things: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/1983-09-01/Canning-Meat.aspx

Have fun with it, go easy on the salt, and be sure the headspace is correct!

[jackley]

When I moved in my dad's old house in 1989 I found three qt jars of fig preserves my mother canned in 1968. They were still good!!!!

If Santa doesn't bring me a pressure cooker this year I'm buying one. I want to learn how to can meat.

Junior

You don't need a pressure cooker to can meat. Have canned alot of it without one. I do admit it is alot quicker with it though. But here at this altitude I can't get the pressure up high enough, on the kitchen stove have to use the turkey cooker for canning. Just get the ball blue book and it will tell you all about it.

Jerry

[Blammer]

good rabbits!
around here they are tasty eating, if you can find em.

[LIMPINGJ]

Dan I was just thinking about one of your post on the number of rabbits your family shoots and wondering how you all fix them. Do you use them anyother way besides canning them?

[Bullshop]

LIMPINGJ
You know that here in Alaska we dont really have rabbits we have snowshoe hare. They can get a bit barky tasting in winter when all they eat is bark.
Another way we use them then is in sausage. We make up sausage in about 50 lb. batches. We mix about equal parts rabbit, red meat (moose or caribou) and fat trimmings. The fat trimmings are free for asking from the grocery in town.
The sausage can then be stuffed into skins, then put into jars and then canned.
We like to can because after that it requires no refridgeration. We did away with electric powered refridgeration and now only use a root cellar. Can you believe that cut about $50.00 a month off our power bill?
Anyway sausage is another way we like to use them. In late summer when the new young are about half grown and eating only fresh grass we do use those just as you would chicken, southern fried or however you like.
Ray I think I would have trouble using rabbits that were filled with parrisites or that just look sick. We get plenty of them that if they look sick (off colored liver) we leave them for other critters. We clean them right when we shoot them. We carry a box of the heavy duty zip-loks and skin gut and bag as soon as they are shot. We do the same with all game, get the hide off and the guts out as fast as possible.
BIC/BS

[Euan]

Giday Guys,
Catshooter; I am getting 2020 fps using that load as a fireforming charge to K hornet. The cases don't stretch any where near as much as standard 22 hornet. So the cases last much longer which is in keeping with my scots ancestery.
The young rabbits are real good eating.
These critters sure are vermin over here in NZ, They are starting to get away again. Most Farmers etc thought that the calicevirus was the silver bullet and most have not done any control work in the last 10 years sinc the virus arrived here. So rabbits are now getting out of hand.

[carpetman]

You can use rabbit to augment elephant stew. Let's say you are having a party of 10,000 people and you only have a small 4,000 pound elephant. It wont be enough to go around and feed everyone. If you secretly add some rabbit it will supplement the quanity to where you can feed all your guests. But be very careful when you do this as no one likes to find a hare in their stew.

[9.3X62AL]

Uncle Ray got started up again, I see.

I agree with ya on the jacks, Ray--vermin, pure and simple. And most have an assortment of parasites all over them. I don't know anyone who regards them as table fare, but to each his own I suppose. I haven't hunted cottontails for 20 years, due to tularemia being so prevalent hereabouts. (The illness' name recalls its original discovery site, in Tulare County CA).

The CZ rifles in 22 Hornet have almost prompted me to give that miserable caliber another test drive. Almost. One trip to the range with the Baby 223 (Ruger 77RC) drives that nonsense right outta my head, though.

[Larry Gibson]

Bullshop

"We do the same with all game, get the hide off and the guts out as fast as possible.
"

I do the same as do most everyone in my "hunting party". I shake my head when I see elk in particular with the hide still on upwards of 2-3 days after they were killed. Many do not understand how much body heat an animals winter coat retains and how quickly it will "sour" the meat. About every time I hear someone complain how "gamy" their deer or elk meat was I ask them how quickly after the kill they skinned the animal. Always the answer is quite a while after. I also am amazed at the number of nimrods who want to wrestle a whole elk still in the hide back to camp just to hang up ans smoke and joke about.

Me and my hunting partners will skin a deer, elk or other game on the spot. Elk are quartered for packing out. Sometimes the deer is too. I do the same with carabou, sheep and all other game including small game like snowshoe hares (we have them in the mountains of NE Oregon and they are "yum-yum" when taken at the first snow). I only pack some game out like pheasants and grouse whole because the game regulations require it (for identification).

Larry Gibson

[carpetman]

Al---Just today I picked up a CZ in .223 for my great nephew. Pretty nice looking gun--just under $600. Putting a Leupold 4x-12x on it. They even include a fired case I guess to prove it shoots.

[Bullshop]

Say now when you fellas down there in the tropics are talkin jacks as strickly vermin are you talkin white tail or black tail?
When I lived in Mt. we ate plenty of jacks and they was good too. Where we were the jacks were white tail and they turned white in winter just like a snowshoe.
Where I hunted in the Big Hole valley there are 5 kinds of rabbits, cotton tails, pigmies, snowshoes, white tail jacks, and pika.
I have heard the black tail is not good eating but might proove that wrong if I had a chance, HA! I did read about a mex cook in a cow camp that roasted them right on top of the hot coals in an open fire and the boys enjoyed them.
Kinda like when I heard a newby ask this old fella in the big hole if them jack was good to eat. He said "during the depression we thought they was real good"
Maybe they will be real good again soon.
BIC/BS

[Heavy lead]

Al---Just today I picked up a CZ in .223 for my great nephew. Pretty nice looking gun--just under $600. Putting a Leupold 4x-12x on it. They even include a fired case I guess to prove it shoots.

What model is it Carpetman? I picked one up last year and it is a peach.

[9.3X62AL]

I'm pretty sure they are blacktail jacks out here in the Mojave Desert. TROPICS??!! It ain't real darn "tropical" here at present.

I think a Victory Garden would be a MUCH BETTER response to economic distress than jackrabbits as table fare. The "Mojave Hasenpfeffer" you suggest would be more suited to a post-apocalyptic scenario like a Mel Gibson movie with Tina Turner.

Of course, a couple nearby towns have a well-developed "Road Warrior" ambiance to them already.

[Slowpoke]

Some parts of the SW are bad for the plague, lost a good a friend around 1990 to the plague from cottontails, left a wife and two young boys.

S AZ they have two varieties of Jack's the blacktail and the Whiteside or Antelope Jack as we called them, the antelope jacks get a lot bigger than the blacktail, I have killed some that would go 12-15 lbs.

I would rather eat jackrabbit any day than Javelina or a Buck Pronghorn.

good luck

[MT Gianni]

I ate a few jacks while growing up and single. The younger ones aren't bad if you are raised on sage fed Mule deer. If they don't run when you get within 50 yards I always assumed there was something wrong with them. Check the liver for spots but I have never seen boils or worms on a winter killed northern bunny.

[carpetman]

Heavy Lead---It's the 527 American.

[Heavy lead]

I got the 527 Euro, like it a lot, trigger is sweet, adjusted so nice for the single stage I do not even use the single set trigger on it. I'm sure he'll love it. Nice rifles, I'd like one in a 6x45.

[chaos]

Yes, Dan Tularemia fever. I've heard the danger is not from eating,but from cleaning rabbits. Wear rubber gloves while cleaning I've been told. But I dont want to mess with them. I've heard an active rabbit when weather is real cold is a good sign it's healthy. But we have a lot of hot weather and I've seen rabbits that were parasite infested and I just dont want to eat them.

Ray, as you know, I grew up in the northern part of the state. We ate cottontail and jacks (Chili meat) by the droves without ever a problem. Never knew what a glove was.............

I mentioned that I was going to take some rabbits this fall to a guy at work the other day. He told me the same thing you said......... Full of worms etc.

Maybe it just doesn't get cold enough down here?!?

I've decided not to take any rabbits in this locale becuase all the locals tell it like you do.

[Nardoo]

Like the Kiwis, I shoot plenty of these pests. This one was shot from the front door with my airgun. Great fun for Nell and good tucker too.
Nardoo
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p317/nardoo/100_0913-1.jpg

[carpetman]

The cz got christened yesterday. The youngster took a whitetail doe with it. I told him the great reloaded ammo and the great job of getting it sighted in was the reason----I sure didint want to take any credit you understand.

[9.3X62AL]

Ray, that is EXCELLENT! I was pretty sure the youngster would love that rifle, and there's nothing like making venison with it right at the gate to seal that bond. Good news all around.

[Urny]

In the northern part of Elko County we have the whitetail jack and blacktail. We've killed and eaten many of the whitetails, can't imagine eating those nasty blacktails. Never have gotten one in the high pound range, but many of them, drawn and skinned, have been in the three to four pound area. Mighty tasty eating, and almost free, since they are nearly always taken with the deer rifle as targets of opportunity when after mule deer. If I ever go after them just for themselves, it'll be the No 3 Hornet or A-bolt .222.

Thanks for the pictures of the southren rabbits and dogs. Enjoyed that.

[SPRINGFIELDM141972]

Sure would be sad day in my life, if I ever had to give up my love of rabbit meat. Granted I have never eaten a jack, but if I am ever killed by a rabbit it will be poetic justice seeing how many I have eaten.

Regards,
Everett

[DanWalker]

but if I am ever killed by a rabbit it will be poetic justice seeing how many I have eaten.

Regards,
Everett
Death by rabbit?
GRUESOME!!!
It chills the blood to even imagine the horror of such an event.
I envision a Clive Barker remake of the classic Monty Python skit where the rabbits attack.

[MT Gianni]

Death by rabbit?
GRUESOME!!!
It chills the blood to even imagine the horror of such an event.
I envision a Clive Barker remake of the classic Monty Python skit where the rabbits attack.

Or a remake of Jimmy Stewarts HARVEY, with the rabbit as a stone cold killer. Probably get the Coen brothers to do it.

[Bullshop]

They do eat meat ya know. We tossed some moose bones out after butchering and each morning that they were there we would watch rabbits (snowshoe hare) eating on them bones. They will clean them down to white bone.
Maybe they dont do the killin but they sure help with clean up.
We have lots a them here but on the top end of a cycle theres scarry lots of um.
I was out on a walk about lookin for good trap locations and not paying much attention.
I had a Ruger mk1 with me and stopped to shoot a rabbit. The gun jamed so I had to stop for a minute to clear it. In just a couple minutes of being still I began to notice the brush arround me beginning to move. Once I got my eyes to focus I realised there were rabbits all arround me. Without ever moving my feet from the spot they were in I emptied two clips and still the brush seemed alive. It was givin me the creeps so I gathered up what I just shot and left.
If they had enough brain power to realise how out numbered I was and that they could have over powered me I woulda been in trouble.
Kinda like the way our country is now only we iz the rabbits and the gov the rabbit hunter.
BIC/BS

[Four Fingers of Death]

I usually only use the hindquarters, wrap them in bacon and cook them over the coals in the camp oven.

Butttttttttttt, if i'm using the 220 Swift with J word bulllets (and I just bought a brand new delivered Ruger No1 Varmint with a select stock that a dealer bought for his 50th birthday 10 years ago and never got around to firing :) ) I don't bother as there ain't generally a lot left, especially if'n yer waits till they are looking staright at ya! Plumb vaporises em'

Thanks for the head up on that boolit mould, I have been angusihing about a mould for my BRNO Fox Hornet. It looks like that one may get the nod. I'll give Jim a ring, I need a mould for the Lebel as well.

Thanks for the link to the preserving site. I am getting back into preserving, left my run a bit a bit late this year, but managed to get tomatoes chillies and a few strawberries planted. better than nothing.