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Rogerflat · Silver Status Member

Today I saw a bird out my window about ten yards up at a steep angle. He was pruning his feathers and oblivious to me setting my sights on him with the hammerli .22, but as is often the case, the limb he was sitting on was blocking my shot. I had a simliar shot on a bird the other day and opted to go for the back half of it to not damge the breast meat, and I got lucky with that one because the pellet went right up its leg and out its back, killing it and leaving the meat unscathed.

I didn't quite have the right angle today and a shot at the back side would've resulted in a crippled bird flying off. So I sighted in on the head, chest area. There was a couple limbs criss-crossing which REALLY made this shot difficult, but I could just make out the birds right eye when it turned its head, but the bulk of the exposed area was the upper corner of its shoulder.

I fired and it came spiraling down, grazing the cinderblock fence as it hit the ground, just missing falling over the other side into my neighbor's yard. I went out and collected the kill and was amazed by the wound. The pellet (a .22 bearcub) had deflected off its wing/shoulder and bounced off the back of the bird's head. Both wounds were deflections!

Since the pellet is round nosed it probably had just enough on it to not penetrate. The wound to the wing looked pretty bad and the wound to the head was not opened up much, but it caused a massive hemotoma and cracked open the base of the skull. Never in all my hunts have I ever ricocheted a pellet off the same animal into itself creating two separate wounds.

cw · Banned

My only comment is, TALON!!!!

yourdaddyjoe · Supporting Member

Too noisy...

Rogerflat · Silver Status Member

I'm just cycling through my arsenal just to keep all my guns in working order. Although admittidly, my Hammerli .22 is the best at window shooting because the barrel can be stuck out the window and levered around at wierd angles. The bullpup design of my talon makes it really awkward for me to shoot with out the window.

I broke out my rws 5g pistol yesterday too. I had one brazen bird that was coming in to feed on the ground and I kept missing him with the pistol, though he didn't seem too bothered by the shots. I am a good shot with it, but the bird was small and kept moving unpredictably. It came back a while later and was in an ideal spot. I took aim at its head, since I normally hit a little low, but the pellet went true. It was not a direct hit but it did a number on it similar to the dove I got the ricochet shot on the day before. For good measure, I got out my techforce and put a .177 pba round through it to finish it off. Now that's how you keep your guns from getting jealous of one another.

cw · Banned

How come a PBA intead of a Laser.

Rogerflat · Silver Status Member

I've had those pba's for a while now and hadn't used them in any of my other springers cuz I didn't want to wear out the pistons. But my techforce is pretty much a piece of crap anyway so I don't really care. It's 750 fps normally, so I figure it's shooting 850 fps or so with the pba. They're still pretty lethal, even being as light as they are. I've never used lasers though.