One of the benefits to a very early start are mornings like this.
Went hunting with my long term shooting buddy over the weekend at a location a few hours North West of Sydney. I bought along my recently (well a year and a bit ago) acquired 204 Ruger Remington 700 SPS Varmint and he bought along his new toy – a drilling (or dreiling in German which is translates as triplets). It consists of side by side 16 gauge shotgun barrels with a 7 x 57 rimless rifle underneath. The gun comes with an insert which fits into one of the barrels and allows him to shoot a 22WMR. Three calibres in the one gun at the one time.
My friend's toy
We were lucky enough to get a break in the afternoon rain when we arrived at the property. There are a couple of sheds and a container where the rabbits like to live and about 220m away there is a gate on a rise which overlooks the area. We parked at the gate and my friend noticed a few rabbits about 50m away. Out comes the drilling and he takes down two rabbits with the 22WMR. Excellent start. I rest over the bonnet and realise there are two rabbits past the container near the gate leading into the next paddock. Later lasered at 251m. I line up a little above one of the rabbits and a little to the left of its head to allow for the wind. Gently squeeze the trigger. Bang. Watch the rabbit get knocked over in the scope. Loving the 204 Ruger as this is the type of shooting I bought it for.
We didn’t see any more rabbits at that stage so we wandered down to the sheds via an adjacent paddock. Near the fenceline a startled rabbit races off at our feet. As we’d seen it earlier we were expecting it. My friend lines it up in the 1-4 power scope and the shotgun boomed. A cloud of fluff was left on the ground and the rabbit carried another metre or so further from momentum. Rabbit number four.
Walked into the next paddock and spot another two rabbits about 60m away. The grass was too high for me to use the bipod. We were on the wrong side of the fence for me to use it as a rest. No choice but was going to have to take the shot standing. At that range it is hard for me to keep the barrel dead still so there was going to be an element of timing and luck when I took the shot. My friend was watching through the binoculars. I took the shot and lost the sight picture. My friend makes a “huh???” comment. Turns out he’d seen a cloud of white mist when I took the shot and on top of that we couldn’t see the rabbit. As the second rabbit was still sitting there he jumped the fence so he could use it as a rest. This time I was watching the shot. I hear his gun roar and thought it was a bit louder than expected. Turns out he’d used the 7x57 (slight overkill). Rabbit was down but as it was a head shot it wasn’t quite as spectacular as it could have been. We walked over to where his rabbit was and then looked around. We have something in Oz we refer to as paddy melons (similar colour to a water melon but round and with white flesh which is apparently not very edible). There was one of about 150mm (6 inches) diameter blown apart close to where my rabbit had been sitting. I had horrible visions of never hearing the end of how I’d managed to blow a paddy melon into white mist and yet missed a rabbit. We looked at a nearby hole and realised there was some spatter around it. My friend reaches into the hole and pulls out a headshot rabbit. Felt a lot better at that stage.
Good company, beautiful scenery, some good shots resulting 6 rabbits in an hour or so – I live for days like these.
My scorecard at the end of the round
