Rick in Oregon wrote:Fred: For those flying rats with your Beeman R9, try either the pointed Silver Ace for breast penetration, or even better, the Silver Bear HP. Hit 'em in the head or neck with those, and they expand intstantly for a good feathered flop....
I'm sure the pellet I'm using now would do the trick if I were getting head shots. I usually only get crow shots at ~40 yards and up, and the head of a crow is just too small a target for me and that rifle -- especially offhand -- to consider that a high percentage shot.
Glen wrote:I've shot quite a few with the 17HMR but only 2 stand out. They were both on the ground & I was above them about 25'...
..Depending on the range I'm betting your getting the penetration you need. I'm wondering how well the pellet is performing.
I have a Marlin .17 M2 that's threaded to wear my YHM Mite suppressor. That's my "close-in" varmint gun and what I usually carry when I go for casual drives through the countryside looking for targets of opportunity. I'm sure it would have dispatched this crow but that was at my Mom's place, and she lives inside the city limits. Even suppressed, the supersonic crack of the .17-grain pill probably would have had the neighbors in a panic.
Good point about the pellet performance, though. If that had occurred to me, I'd have tracked down that second crow, finished him off and done a necropsy. I let him hop off because I figured the neighborhood cats could use the entertainment and exercise.
Judging from their responses, in both cases I probably shot them through a wing and I think their wing feathers are very stiff and strong and sucked up a lot of the pellet's energy before it entered the body cavity ...
if it entered the body cavity.