what gun to buy for "varmints"

[LD1]

I do agree with you about them being very safe to shoot as far as ricochet's are concerned. They do break up easily. I have mised groundhogs before that I should have got, and it was because there was a blade of grass or bean stubble sticking up between me and the hog, and I didn't see it through the scope. You would be suprised at just how much a single blade a grass can throw a bullet off.

 

[J35]

OK - I've never owned a gun before - never felt I needed one.

I live in a rural area - small cluster of 10 houses on 3-6 acre lots - none closer than 400'. corn field on one side of my property.

Wife has decided that the damage the local woodchucks are doing to her vegetable garden and house plantings needs to stop - and she's none too happy with the rabbits either.

Please give me some advice on what gun to purchase for dispatching woodchucks and rabbits.

Thanks

WVBill

You would be wise to limit yourself to ground shots shooting either a air rifle or a shotgun shooting fine shot ( #6 and smaller).

All the vegetables in the world is not worth taking a chance on hurting someone , like has been stated you don't have enough safe buffer zone.

Learning to trap is worth while .

good luck

 

[AMR]

I recently had my first groundhog move into a little hill behind my house. I have a safe full of guns and a basement full of reloading stuff and a pretty rural setting but I am definately going to go the way of a trap. One in a million odds are still not good enough for me when it comes to my guns. Even hunting in the deepest woods I feel funny pulling the trigger. I use a have-a-heart for raccoons and I am deadly acurate, they can't resist marshmallows. I have a talk with them and if I feel they won't leave my garbage alone then a pellet gun does the trick with one shot every time.

This is my first groundhog experience. What do I use for bait? I read online to use a cantalope, the wife tossed one, made me mad because it was $1.88, I used that for bait and nothing so far.

I haven't seen anybody mention this. I am in the northeast so my land is some field and some woods, I have treestand set up just in the woods to practice with my bow. I had about a 35 yard shot the other night on the groundhog as it was heading back toward its hole from my treestand, I missed it just low with my bow. It was actually pretty exciting to have a shot. I can imagine that you can't get anywhere near these things, but maybe a bow from a blind near its hole would be pretty cool. The other side of this is that drilling a $12 carbon arrow into the ground with a $12 broadhead is not worth a big rat.

But like someone else mentioned, I can't afford to make a career out of killing a pest.

For me it's a trap if it works. It will take less time too I would guess.

 

[studor]

AMR -- for a connibear or leg hold I don't use bait - just put it by the hole. For live traps I just use lettuce with some peanut butter -- gets most rodents. I have stalked ground hogs and shot them with a crossbow -- fun but takes a lot of time -- good stalking skill development though.

WOLC -- having used over 50 different bullets in my two 22/250s (I went back to my log and looked) I find it hard to support your statement that I must be using the wrong bullets. I have even used bullets that created a "blue streak" when shot. (not good -- the bullet is vaporized by air friction) I guess your groundhogs must have extremely thick skins to contain all that energy -- but not thick enough for the lesser powered .223???. IMO the best rifle for non game animals is an accurate one, not a more powerful one -- otherwise switch to artillery.
Yes, varmint bullets are meant to be frangible - but you only have to hear the richochet noise once to know that there are too many variables involved to depend on it.

 

[wolc123]

Hey LD1/studor, I think the basic point that you are missing is that the bullet must not exit the animal if it is to deliver its full payload of energy. Ever hear of the depleted uranium sabot rounds that are used for tank killing? They are designed to penetrate a thick layer of armour, then release the remaining pure kinetic energy in the interior of the tank. With a proper bullet/powder combination, exactly the same effect is achieved inside a chuck. A mangled bloody mess on the outside may look impressive to you (a little sick if you ask me) but that will put you at a handicap in any chuck contest because of the lost body mass. The more energy absorbed by the chuck, the quicker he expires, it is actually as simple as that. You may be getting a bloodier mess on the outside because of reduced velocity, but not on the inside, where the real damage is done. Slowing a bullet down so that it does not fragment completely and exits is also more dangerous as others have explained. That is my biggest problem with the 223 relative to the 22/250. Those other couple you mentioned that may have a velocity edge on the 22/250 are not worth considering for the average Joe due to scarcity and high cost of ammo. The 22/250 may not be the best chuck gun, but it certainly a good one. Something I can not say for the 223. I put another plug here for the 55 grain hornady varmit express bullets for those of you having exit trouble with 22/250's. Again 99/100 inside under 100 yards aint too bad and I am not exaggerating too much with those numbers. Keeping the shot as close to centered on the body as possible helps a bit also. Good shooting everyone, this is it for me on this thread as we are starting to beat the dead horse now.

 

[two_bit_score]

OK - I've never owned a gun before - never felt I needed one.

I live in a rural area - small cluster of 10 houses on 3-6 acre lots - none closer than 400'. corn field on one side of my property.

Wife has decided that the damage the local woodchucks are doing to her vegetable garden and house plantings needs to stop - and she's none too happy with the rabbits either.

Please give me some advice on what gun to purchase for dispatching woodchucks and rabbits.

Thanks

WVBill

Please do not try to use a .22 for this in such a congested area. It's really unsafe with anything less than a 'shot shell'. And you won't kill anything with that because you can't get close enough.

I would recommend a .410 shotgun. You will still have to get close but you should be able to do it with a .410.

 

[studor]

WOLC -- I fear the weight measurement of the brown stuff being shot is not entirely composed of groundhogs. I guess I have just never figured out how to keep a couple of tons of energy inside a few inches of groundhog -- just me I guess

 

[scott_vt]

.

@100yds, pretty much the same thing

Beyond that, still pretty messy just not as bad.

If you don't believe me, I have some pretty good pics to prove it but they are very gorey so I won't post them unless someone insists.

.

Good Afternoon LD1,
I believe you !

My neighbor up the road from me shot a coyote trying to get into his hen house, he used the same gun as mine, the Ruger model #77 22-250 at 60 yds. He hit the coyote just foward of the rear legs, and the animal was split at that point severing the vertebrae !

 

[Egon]

From the days of my miss spent middle age I seem to recall a few gophers that ran into 60 grain 6mm round seemed to vaporize aside from some sections of raggedy skin that were thrown into the air.

I don't do things like that anymore.

 

[MossRoad]

Let's try to stick with the original poster's needs. The center fire .22s are probably pretty much too powerful of a firearm for a residential area. And as Dargo mentioned and no one has commented on, tragic accidents can and do happen. After reading all of the very knowledgeable posts here, it seems like the safest firearm with the most knockdown power with the least probability of the round leaving the property with lethal force would probably be the 20 gauge. The 410 is pretty whimpy once you get out a ways.

I am tending to agree that finding their holes and stuffing a kill trap down there would be the best, safest, most effective option in a residential area. Live traps would also work, but are harder to get the animal in to and then you have the live animal that you have to do something with. Releasing them somewhere else just makes them someone else's problem(we are fortunate to own 20 acres out in the county, so I move my problem to my own property). Kill traps are fast and humane, accurate, pretty species specific if placed in the hole, etc... I think that would be the best option.