Shotguns are OK. They are like pellet guns except the pellets are bigger and sometimes there are more of them.
Here's one!
Randy
Shotguns are OK. They are like pellet guns except the pellets are bigger and sometimes there are more of them.
Here's one!
Randy
"It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,,It's how well you do what you DON'T know how to do!"
www.buchananprecisionmachine.com
Not nearly as exciting as Larry's rat story, but I'll add to the thread...
I lived in Yellowknife NWT in the late 80's and hunted ptarmigan with a friend both using break barrel springers. Mine was a Weihrauch HW35 .177 air rifle. Don't recall what his gun was.
Winter and hunting season come early up there. Temperatures at the time were in the -20°'s C ( about 0°F). We got dressed up in our parkas, snow pants and felt pack boots, got our guns and tins of pellets and headed out hunting.
It was snowy and cold but almost always clear there and sunny for the short time the sun is up.
Neither of us had snow camo so we were pretty obvious against the white snowy background.
Ptarmigan are a little smarter and turn white in winter so blend into the snow but they have beady little black eyes we could spot if we looked carefully.
We both managed to shoot a bird or two out in the open but wound up crawling through the bush to stay more hidden.
We managed to shoot several birds each over a few trips.
I was surprised at how effective the .177 pellets were on relatively large game. Head shots were obviously effective but even body shots put the birds down with one shot.
No issues with the guns in that cold weather either... except the usual difficulties of heavy winter clothing and gloves.
The ptarmigan diet there makes for somewhat resiny tasting meat so my buddy gave me his birds because he said he'd eaten ptarmigan before and didn't like them.
I cleaned the birds and cut them up in small chunks then my wife marinated the meat for several hours then we cooked it in a fondue pot of oil. It was excellent!
We had my buddy and his wife over for the next meal and they liked it too.
Good fun, good performance from our guns/pellets and good eats.
What's not to like?
Longbow
LB: did your gun look like this? Randy
"It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,,It's how well you do what you DON'T know how to do!"
www.buchananprecisionmachine.com
Exactly like that except I put a William's Foolproof peep sight on it.
Then it would look like this with a longer barrel. This one is a HW35EB which stands for Export/ Beeman, as it was made to Beeman's Specs. IE16" bbl instead of 19" bbl and nicer wood and better finish. I added the Williams/Beeman Rear sight. The wood on the E is not all that, the EB has way better grain.
The other one (HW35E) didn't look like that when I got it for $60. I had to refinish the stock and do a deep clean on the rest of it. It shoots really smooth and I left the open sights on it so that I have a gun for practicing both styles of Iron Sight Shooting. I also have Bug Buster 3x9 Scope I can put on it, and used it for testing what pellets the gun liked best. JSB's seem to be the winner on that, although H&N's did real well too.
The EB likes H&N's better, but I am really splitting hairs when saying that. Both of these guns are super accurate.
Randy
Last edited by W.R.Buchanan; 09-30-2021 at 06:26 PM.
"It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,,It's how well you do what you DON'T know how to do!"
www.buchananprecisionmachine.com
"We take a thousand moments for granted thinking there will be a thousand more to come. Each day, each breath, each beat of your heart is a gift. Live with love & joy, tomorrow is not promised to anyone......"
unknown
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |