Suppressed 10/22 at 309 yards...

[AJMD429]

.
My Ruger 96/22 is quieter but dunno if it is as accurate...!

https://youtu.be/o5MEeAzOn0Y

Long range 22 LR always seems fun.

[GunnyMack]

When I lived out in the high mountain desert I kept my 77/22 sighted in at 100, I would shoot out to 250+ on the prairie dog towns. Sure the wind played havoc but boy it was fun!

[JimT]

In the fallow ground in Eastern Washington we had a 200 yard range for the "short" one. We shot a quarter mile with our .22's shooting tumbleweeds. The .22 LR would kick up a dust cloud about 6 feet high and you could just walk your shots onto whatever you were shooting at.

ranch.jpg

We had some Plow Discs my Dad put across the coulee where the middle yellow X is.
There was a .41 Ford Coupe body about where the right side yellow X is.
I shot those with my .22 rifle.
Where the red x is was where .. when I was older .. I shot my 1886 Winchester .45-70 with 400 gr. bullets ... out close to half a mile.

[Gobblerforge]

When I lived out in the high mountain desert I kept my 77/22 sighted in at 100, I would shoot out to 250+ on the prairie dog towns. Sure the wind played havoc but boy it was fun!

Do I read this right that you just threw bullets at live animals without knowing where it would hit? How many suffering wounded animals did you create? Pretty shitty hunting.

[GunnyMack]

Umm LANGUAGE!
No that was not my point, we shot our small guns out to those distances and IF we hit a dog it was dead, we shot our big guns( centerfire) to long range. Face it a pasture poodle doesn't take much killing. Besides being shot was a better outcome for a dog town than being poisoned, eaten alive by fleas or dug up and consumed alive by a badger or black tailed ferret or tagged by a prarie rattler...

[ndcowboy]

Gunnymack,
You did nothing wrong. Pretty easy to spot an internet complainer who has never shot prairie dogs before...

[1894cfan]

Gunnymack,
You did nothing wrong. Pretty easy to spot an internet complainer who has never shot prairie dogs before...

Or anything else?

[AJMD429]

.
Thread drifting, but the topic of long-range shooting at living things is similar to using under-powered cartridges or weapons; the idea of wounding versus a 'humane' kill is something most feel strongly about.

However it really is something to consider that we should compare to the other likely fates for the animal, and put our actions in perspective.

For instance, most animals die of either disease, starvation, or predation. When we are one of the predation alternatives, for the game animals most of us hunt, the others are typically carnivores that won't lead to a very humane death. Rarely are the prey actually killed before the eating starts, and if the prey escapes, there is often lingering pain and eventual death from terrible wounds.

So as I explain to my non-hunting friends, that instant pneumothorax with great vessel or heart perforation, leads to one of the most humane deaths possible, with panic likely overriding pain, until consciousness is gone a few seconds later. We KNOW the animal, even with a 'perfect shot', and all the adrenaline, has some pain, and surely moments of intense fear, but the only faster or 'more humane' means would be brain destruction with the initial shot, but on large game the risk of a jaw-shot that would cause prolonged pain and suffering, is not worth the few seconds less of panic that a through-and-through thoracic shot would cause....or so we think...

The point is, that as humans, we DO think, and we generally try to minimize suffering of something we shoot to kill. The exception would be if shooting something attacking a person, such as a wild dog, bear, or homicidal human; in those cases any shot that stops the attack is considered legitimate.

The thresholds of defining an acceptable 'humane' shot versus an inhumane one are going to be matters of differing opinion, depending on circumstances, and sometimes include (but shouldn't) how cute and fuzzy the animal is. Whether or not a given animal should even be shot depends on it's population, environmental impact, economic impact,and so on, again with varied opinions, typically affected by how the person behind the trigger fits into that scenario; old farmers are much more pragmatic and 'heartless' than young city-kids.

Personally I wouldn't take a 500 yard shot at a standing deer, even if shooting a 1/4 MOA 338 Lapua off a bench on a windless day, because the flight time of even a half-second is enough that a sudden jump from a horsefly-bite could turn that perfect shot into a gut shot, although I realize you'd have to get super close to totally eliminate that kind of risk. Hunting is never without the risk of an inhumane kill.

Now if the target were a camp of terrorists, I'd happily shoot my 22 LR with 45 degrees of elevation, just hoping some sort of hit would cause a wound, even if not a fatality. I'd not care if it were a painful wound, and might at some level hope it would be, if the terrorists had harmed friends or family.

Prairie dog colonies aren't terrorist camps, but some farmers view them similarly enough that they just care about the end results, and will employ dynamite, poison, and any other means needed. So to them the idea that a less than ideal, inhumane, kill may happen doesn't bother them. Logically, they reason, the ends are met, even if the death is slow, or the animal is just wounded enough that infection wins, or the animal is slowed down enough a predator more easily gets it. Again, the 'natural' alternatives should be the baseline to compare to.

I can't fault that logic, even though the 'humane' side of me tends to TRY for the most humane death practical. However....it would be hypocritical of me to criticize using long-range 22LR on a dog-town, if I enjoy muzzleloader hunting, where a bad shot is impossible to follow up with a rapid second shot, or if I decide to see if I can harvest my deer this year with a 357 Mag load from my Taurus Tracker, when I can instead have a far more assured and humane kill by using my 444 Marlin.

Now if a person INTENTIONALLY tries to wound instead of kill, and does it because they somehow ENJOY the thought of the target being in pain or suffering or frightened, I think that is different.

Sorry to feed the thread-drift, but those are my thoughts....

[Sixgun]

Doc, I agree with all of your words. "They" claim the most dangerous animal on the Earth is a 14 year old male.....0 to little empathy.......a normal person in a civilized society outgrows that thinking and it's the prime reason why many guys quit hunting deer as they age........

I was a real deal killer when I was young...blood thirsty......I gradually gave it up and by the time I was in my fifties, I gave up hunting altogether because of the pain and fear I knew I was inflicting. I've killed around 3 dozen deer, never losing a wounded animal......had a few clean misses..... all of my deer have been legal along with a truckload of small game which included lots of wild dogs and feral cats.....

Needing meat to survive does not need to be included in this conversation.

I have used the .22 rimfire extensively in long range (50, 100, 150 and 200 meters) silhouette. I've shot with the best of these guys with many having $3-5,000 wrapped up in their guns......shooting was done benchrest style. Ammo is target velocity..has to be....You don't show up with a $200 scope as you will be laughed off the line.....if anything more than a 1 mile wind is blowing you had better know where to hold as the .22 is about as worthless as they come after 100 meters.

Every human is different as to empathy. I've turned down prairie dog hunts because of the uncaring attitude towards wounded game but I'm not a rancher with thousands of dollars to lose because of these critters. These critters also carry nasty diseases so it's a necessary evil....I just let someone else do it.

Crows, rats, etc are in a different category. I have no mercy on these along with bugs, wasps, etc. but a deer is a higher life form and it's imperative that deer are humanly killed with the least amount of pain and suffering. But still, some people just don't care and will laugh at a deer running away with a blown off leg. That's not for me, any of my family members or friends. If I see that quality in a friend/acquaintance, I get rid of them instantly with no explanation.

The average hunter with a quality scoped rifle in an accurate cartridge, using the proper bullet, along with a solid rest has no business shooting at a deer past 300 yards. The expert rifleman who really knows his rifle has no business shooting at a deer past 500 yards.

You can't legislate morality, you can only distance yourself from such people and I've distanced myself from more than a few of these types.----006

[AJMD429]

.
I will admit that I do have a perverse sense of joy if I smack a horse fly and wound it enough that I don't think it can fly again. That's kind of the norm anyway because they are so hard to smash unless they land in an easy place to slap. In my teens I was building a concrete block building in the summer and had my hands all covered with mortar most of the time, so whenever I'd try to slap a horse fly on my shoulder I'd get a mortar burn. I learned to slap with a rag I kept on hand instead of my hands so I didn't get the mortar burn, but it wasn't enough to kill the horse fly. It would stun them and they would fall on the ground. If it were convenient I might step on them and put them out of their misery, but I was so irritated by them that most of the time that happened I would reach down and pick them up by a wing and roll it up so they were grounded, and toss them over to an ant hill nearby. I figured the ants were happy, and I can't say I felt empathy for the horse fly.

No horse flies in the prairie dog, but a lot of people would assert that it is still life, and I did a bad thing whenever I tossed the wounded horse fly to the ants instead of stepping on it.

I guess if we're wrong about the nature of heaven and God and man and animals, and when I get to the Pearly Gates I find out that Peter is really a horse fly... I'm gonna be on BIG trouble....!!!

[Sixgun]

Doc, That's terrible. You tortured a horse fly? Well, that leaves me no choice, I'm calling Nancy Pelosi and have her have you forced to go to anger management........and.....if you refuse to go you have to boink Nancy.......if that possible......

Horse flies are nasty. For some reason they are easy to swat ...much easier than a regular fly.....you can feel them biting so you kill them but the inevitable alway happens.....poison gets in with the itchy lump......

Let You Tube say anything they want....the .22 lead bullet has the worst ballistic coefficient, next to a round ball...of any bullet....

Even a light wind will blow it off...at 50 yards.....the silhouette game got so frustrating to me I quit it. Sometimes you have to aim a foot left to hit the 200 meter ram...next shot will be on....make your corrections, and your a foot to the right....

[Gobblerforge]

Gunnymack,
You did nothing wrong. Pretty easy to spot an internet complainer who has never shot prairie dogs before...

I didn't say what he did was wrong. I just find it hard to accept suffering as OK. Your self proclaimed gift for reading folks without a single question or any facts is overrated. At least NDCowboy used a question mark to indicate the want of information. So for him, yea a lot. I started hunting in 1969. I was president and vice president in two different hunt clubs. I was a certified hunter education instructor with the ODNR. It is from this perspective that I speak. And to Sixgun, I wish I was as articulate as you. I struggle with puting words from my head to paper.

[ndcowboy]

Gunnymack,
You did nothing wrong. Pretty easy to spot an internet complainer who has never shot prairie dogs before...

I didn't say what he did was wrong. I just find it hard to accept suffering as OK. Your self proclaimed gift for reading folks without a single question or any facts is overrated. At least NDCowboy used a question mark to indicate the want of information. So for him, yea a lot. I started hunting in 1969. I was president and vice president in two different hunt clubs. I was a certified hunter education instructor with the ODNR. It is from this perspective that I speak. And to Sixgun, I wish I was as articulate as you. I struggle with puting words from my head to paper.

I certainly didn't think I needed to ask a lot of followup questions after you said it was "Pretty sh**** hunting." If that quote of yours doesn't mean you thought he was doing it wrong, then what exactly does it mean?
Prairie dogs are a disease and plague carrying ground destroying headache for those of us in this part of the country. Shoot them with 22s or 7 mags, we don't care. They get poisoned all the time. We are grateful for those who come out and spend their own money on ammo to shoot them.