Guns and bullets for rats

[earlmck]

Friend Butch has us lined up for a rat shoot on an alfalfa field near here. These are not the good old rats you find at the garbage dump but rather the Belding ground squirrel, locally known as the "sage rat". They make their little mounds all over the farmer's field and can make short work of a sickle bar when you mow. Impossible to exterminate by shooting -- kill one and two take its place. Al Capp probably had these in mind when he wrote of the lovable Schmoo.

I hadn't shot my "rat" guns in several years, so dug them out and ran some patches through the barrels just for grins. Here they are: Hornet on Sharps-Borchardt action and K-Hornet on low-wall. These are not photo-bucket files so you need to click on them to see full-size.

Hornet6297.jpg

KHornet6307.jpg

A couple months ago I noticed I was running low on my .22 cast bullets (Lyman 225415 and 225462). These are both single-cavity molds in my case, and I had noted that Lee was now producing a 55 grain .22 cal bullet in their wonderful 6-cavity mold. So I acquired one and a short session resulted in five or six hundred bullets of 56 grain persuasion lubed and checked. Similar to the 225415 but with a longer nose and shorter base section: here they are side-by side with the Lee on the left.

55GrainBullets6310.jpg

22CalMold6302.jpg

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And here is ammo loaded with the new bullet. You can see that even with the short neck of the K-Hornet this new bullet fits inside the neck.

HornetAndKHornetShells.jpg

[Blaine]

Sounds like too much fun for a mere human rifleman....

[Nath]

Neat, what powder?

Take your camera with you Earl.

N.

[jnyork]

Hey, Earl, that Sharps looks pretty old and might not be in good enough condition to shoot. Tell you what, just send it on out to me and I'll check it out for you for a few years, if I find anything wrong I'll let you know.

Fine pair of rifles there, terror of the sage rat fields. Too bad so many of the younger generation never get a chance to shoot real guns like that.

[Pete44ru]

.

The rat-shooting we had on a friend's deep-woods hog farm was fast/furious, so I had a .22 Remington Nylon 66 that I set up for a 10yd zero, and used it exclusively for rat-shooting.

It was so much fun, it shoulda been illegal - which disappeared when the friend sold his farm/acreage to a housing developer, and my state made sanitary landfills mandatory, which killed the dump-rat shooting.

.

[2ndovc]

Cool!! That should be a hoot!

Love the K-Hornet! I had one in a Martini for years. I'll never know why I sold that one!

jb

[sore shoulder]

With the current scarcity and cost of decent .22 RF I'm looking more and more at a little center fire option such as that. Pretty little shooter for sure.

[Sixgun]

Ain't that somethin'! Learn somethin' new everyday.

Earl, those rifles just scream 1930's-40's-50's when destroying good ole single shots was the thing to do. Tell us about that long tube on the Sharps...Unertl?

Now, on to that Lee 6 cavity...I like that. Like you, my 22 mounds are all single cavity. I'm gonna get me one of those babies. Leave off the check and tumble lube then load with a mild dose of Unique for quantity shooting up to a 100 meters.------6

[jdad]

Earl,

You shooting in Christmas Valley? Someone I used to work with just came back from a jack rabbit hunt about an hour SE near the hot springs.

[earlmck]

Nath, I'm loading with 10.5 grains of WW680 which isn't made any more. Gives a bit over 2400 fps in the hornet, and I have never chronographed it in the K. I'm about out and will need a replacement before long and will try Lil' Gun when that happens, but have also had decent results with H4227 and H4198 in the past, albeit lower velocities.

Six, I should try some shooting without the gas check and report back. I wonder if the design of the bullet, with that long nose and short driving bands doesn't need the gas check just for additional support. Or something. What load of Unique would you use, in either Hornet or Bee? Yes, if that shoots decent with tumble lube and no gc, that would be a fine way to pile up a batch of bullets in a hurry.
And the scope is elderly Lyman. I got both rifles as used guns in gun stores in the mid-sixties. Obviously put together many years previous to that.

jdad, this sage-rat field is near Prineville, but I also have heard that Christmas Valley might have some jack rabbits. I have good intentions of making a run down that way to see. They are by far my favorite target but seem to be an endangered species in this part of the world and I haven't shot at one in years. I like to shoot them when there are waaay to many of them, which I haven't seen around here in this decade. I did get some nice shooting around McDermitt a few years ago, but those were the last jacks I shot, and they seemed to have died off when I went back the next year.

[gamekeeper]

I had to Google Beldings ground squirrel, I've never heard of them my "rat" gun would be totally useless on them. I use a Anschutz 1365 in 9mm flobert with an effective range marginally better than spiting distance
Your choice of weapons however seems about perfect in every way.....

[M. M. Wright]

Nice rifles Earl. I sure like the look of that old Lyman scope. That 6 cavity mould looks really good. Hope it shoots well for you.

[Sixgun]

Earl...just thinking off the top here........for a very pleasant 100 yard load....as you know...it's best to keep the velocity under the speed of sound....so I'm thinking about 3-4 grains of Unique..loose in the case with an unsized, ungas checked tumble lubed bullet........probably closer to 3 grains as 6 grains nets 1800 according to the Lyman manual.-----6

[jnyork]

Nath, I'm loading with 10.5 grains of WW680 which isn't made any more. Gives a bit over 2400 fps in the hornet, and I have never chronographed it in the K. I'm about out and will need a replacement before long and will try Lil' Gun when that happens, but have also had decent results with H4227 and H4198 in the past, albeit lower velocities.

.

Earl, after you try Lil Gun in your Hornet, you'll throw rocks at all the rest.

[Malamute]

Really liking your old single shots Earl. Very classy, even if they are ruined old guns.

Been eyeballing the Browning/Winchester single shots. Could be a nice mild shooter there. One in something like 25-06 could also be fun for extended ranges and larger stuff without breaking the bank or shoulder.

This geezer stuff with messed up bodies and not able to take much recoil has me looking at many things very differently.

[marlinman93]

Earl, we used to go over to Long Creek near Monument, Or. every Memorial day for sage rats. That seemed to be a prime month, with thousands of rats to choose from! Haven't been over East in many years to shoot them. We usually took 3-4 guns for various distances. I took a .22LR for up to 100 yds. Then a .218 Mashburn Bee for 100-200 yds., and a .22-250 for anything over 200 yds. Sure was a lot of fun, and plenty of shooting too!
PS-I love both of your rat guns. Two great looking single shots!

[Canuck Bob]

I have been considering cast in my hornet. This is a revelation. Many folks have advised to not bother. The rifle is a Handi with the 1-9 twist.