Finished my yard work earlier than usual so decided to take a ride to the duck farm and do some pest control. Opened the gun cabinet and had my hand on the stock of the CFX but had a better idea so I put the CFX back in it's spot and grabbed the .22 cal. RWS 350. The other day I received a couple of tins of the .22 cal JSB Predator pellets and figured I'd give them a tryout. I hadn't fired any of them yet, so I didn't know how they'd shoot in the 350, but figured I'd do some test firing at the duck farm and see where the pellets hit.
Got to the duck farm, went inside one of the barns to eliminate the wind factor, set up a target and backed up 30 yards. My gun/scope is sighted dead on with CPHP's so I was interested to see where the predators would shoot. I wanted to make sure the gun/scope were still dialed in so I loaded a CPHP, leaned up against one of the barn support beams, took aim and squeezed the trigger. The CPHP struck dead center in the bullseye. Now for the Predator.
Loaded a predator, put the crosshair on the bullseye and fired. The predator struck the target exactly 1/2 inch below where the CPHP hit and was directly in line with the bullseye. I returned to the 30 yard mark and using the beam for support fired 5 more predators to see how they'd group. When I went to inspect the target I found a nice tight 6 hole group, about the size of a nickel, 1/2 inch below bullseye. I was impressed.
I went back to the 30 yard mark and fired a few more shots, but this time using the mildots in my scope to compensate for the 1/2 inch. After a few shots I was hitting bulleyes everytime with same nickel sized groups. Now that I had the scope aiming point for the CPHP's and the predators I departed the barn and went off on the hunt.
There were plenty of starlings around, but they wouldn't stay put long enough for me to get any shots. Then I saw a large flock of seagulls in one of the far pens attacking a couple of the ducks. The farm has a federal nuisance permit allowing us to shoot the gulls so I headed down to the pen and took up station. First bird I had a shot at was 40 yards away and standing over a duck the gulls had killed. Was loaded up with a predator, took aim and fired. I heard the pellet hit home with a thwack and the gull just fell over. I walked over and retrieved the gull to inspect the results of the shot. Hit him in the wing. Pellet blasted through the wing and entered the side of the chest area creating a large wound channel that was bleeding profusely. Again I was impressed with the predators.
Got 3 more gulls in the next hour, each shot between 30 and 40 yards, and each with the same result as the first gull. After that all the gulls departed and never returned. Each hit resulted in a large, deep wound in the body area, even after blasting through the wings of the birds. These are not small birds, built to deal with the harsh conditions of life on the sea and they are very tough. I was definately impressed with the performance of the predator pellets.
With no other targets to shoot at I packed it in for the day and headed home. Squirrel season opens here on November 1st,,, after todays shooting I can't wait to take aim at some bushytails and send one of these predator pellets zipping his way. I only bought a couple of tins (in 177 and 22) of the predators to try out, due to their higher price, but now that I've used them I will be ordering more. I still have to try the .177 predators in my rifles, might hit the duck farm again tomorrow and go throught the same routine. If I do I'll post the results.
Jeff
