Can't wait for squirrel season to start.

Last year I read about people down-loading their .30-30 or .30-06 for squirrel.
Most projectiles were barely making it out of the barrel of a long gun, but that .30 caliber pill is still hitting MUCH harder than any .22 projectile ever could.

Yikes! Time flies!

I've been thinking these last few years about switching to a handgun for squirrels, partly for the fun of it, but mostly due to some mobility issues that interfere with silently stalking to get close.


I think I'd be better able to negotiate through the woods on uneven ground, slowly and silently, with both my hiking poles, especially while keeping more of my attention on the treetops and less on the place to put my next step. Used to be pretty decent at sneaking up on 'em that way, but the remaining effects of my stroke nine years ago have altered my ability to feel my way through and to balance on one foot a while, while slowly and precisely finding the spot for the other one to come down, all while avoiding getting tangled up in low-growing vines and such.

Just seems like the use of both hands on hiking poles would aid my stability and allow a more deliberate approach while the gun was resting in its holster until needed.

I have an old Ruger MK I that I bought new about fifty years ago, and haven't used nearly as much as I thought I would, and I'm seriously considering trying out some sight options and a holster.

Just curious as to whether any of you have experiences with handgun squirrel hunting or sighting options for doing so, or any other related things to consider in making the switch.

TIA for any info. I better get busy on the prep!

Start practicing with the pistol. shoot a lot. Get close then get 10 yards closer. Good luck.

I know, it says right on the box that those .22 long rifles are dangerous for miles. I have learned that some claims are so exaggerated in the name of safety that they may end up being disregarded, and that could result in them being a net negative compared to an actually accurate estimation.

I remember my brother-in-law and I doing a very informal test of the actual range of our .22 long rifle ammo one sleepy day in the long ago past from the old bridge over White River on Paragon Road. We had a good view of the river for what we estimated to something close to half a mile upstream, and a day with little wind and no traffic, and from our positions about thirty feet above the water level, we shot several times at varying angles. We could see the splashes of the bullets hitting the water, and as best we could approximate, our best distance was achieved at what appeared to be something a bit less than 45 degrees elevation. His gun was a semi-auto, and mine was a lever gun, and one of the things we though we might see was a difference in maximum range due to a portion of his cartridge's power being used to cycle the action of the semi, but with our impromptu testing method we couldn't determine if there was any. Common sense would say there had to be, but it was hard to find in the results. A dozen rounds or so told us about all we could expect to find out that day.

The one thing I can clearly recall was that none of our shots were very close to reaching the bend of the river, the longest making it about three fourths of the way.

Our ammo was regular LRHP high velocity stuff, probably Winchester or Remington as that was what was available everywhere at the time and we weren't into ammo shopping at the time. If it consistently dropped squirrels and hit what we were shooting at in our informal contests, it was good.

There's "new" bridge there now, in the same place where the old one used to be, and with the aid of the computer maps now, it's easy to find the distance to that bend that's also still in the same place as it was then, about three
thousand feet upstream. So, at that time, the best our ammo was able to achieve was a distance of noticeably less than half a mile. These days, with CCI and maybe others in the standard loads for HV LRHP's doing a bit better in performance than the ammo of sixty years ago, and the hotter loads available today, those figures would probably be somewhat better, but I doubt it would be a tremendous amount.

On the other hand, some of us now use subsonic (lower velocity) ammo with the same bullet weight, and my particular anticipated usage lately was in a pistol with about a five-inch barrel and maybe one that also uses a semi-auto action, both of which would be factors that would decrease that maximum range, but I'm not sure how much.

My favorite squirrel woods is bordered on the east by an interstate highway, and the landowners house lies the same direction, so I've been in the habit for years of not shooting anything that would come down in that direction from wherever I am at the time. Doesn't take much to keep that in mind and approach the trees that have squirrel activity in them from the side I can shoot from, then make sure I'm not shooting from an angle flat enough to drop a miss or a pass-through into the yard of one of the few houses west of the place. And if I can, I try to wait for the shot that puts the target animal against a solid backstop like the side of the tree, or a hillside if it gets to the ground. With a little forethought, we can eliminate nearly all the danger from shooting up at squirrels.

I began hunting in some pretty sparsely inhabited areas where we could pretty much disregard the possibility of our bullets coming down on someone's head, but the times have changed. The population in the two counties where I grew up and where I still hunt most, has more than doubled since then, and ignoring the fact that what goes up is also going to come back down is no longer a reasonable option, if it ever was. But it's also good to know that the bullet that just missed a squirrel on that limb almost directly overhead is not going to come down in the schoolyard a mile or more down the road.

We can make responsible decisions and it's good to base them on accurate information.

Just received new glasses today. I can clearer now. The squirrels are in trouble cause I can tell which end the head is on.

Update: when it got too dark to continue yardwork, I found another u-tube video that was a little more descriptive and clear about the reassembly technique for the MK1, and my next attempt got me back to having a functioning gun, at least when loading each shot by hand. Haven't had the chance to get out to the range with it yet, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if it now loads from the mag. I doubt that it will, since my cleanup wasn't finding any evidence of dirt that would gum up the works, but time will tell.

I don't think handloading each round would actually be much of a hindrance in squirrel hunting. I was looking at some other single-shot options and the TC Contenders with the 10" barrels were looking real good, but pricey.

Russ:

Try bending the magazine leading lips up a hair to get the nose of the bullet higher.

My air rifles are itching for some tree rats. Only problem is what caliber I’ll be using opening weekend. Im thinking my new .22 bullpup or the .25 marauder or hell who knows!

Another update: My last update didn't go through, I may have forgot to send it (pretty sleepy}.

Quick trip to the range yesterday. Gun worked like new, including loading the next shot from the magazine with no failure to load and no damage to the bullet nose on my hollow points. Now if I can figure out what to do for sights, I'm good for the 15th.