Well, Merry Christmas everyone!!
The family exchanges gifts on Christmas eve and does "Santa" on Christmas. I was presented with my wife's gift last night. My air rifle dreams have come true! I now "officially" have my AA-410 / .22 cal with the LH Thumbhole Walnut stock. It's the best Christmas present ever (you'll put your eye out!), and I only had to wait 55 years!
We had hoped to be in the NC mountains this Christmas, but in short, it just didn't work out that way this year. But I was not going to miss the opportunity to do a little shooting. One of the other "gifts" I ordered myself from Midway, along with a supply of Ballistol, was an "Outhouse" (see:
http://www.midwayusa.com/Search/Default.aspx#outhouse____-_1-2-4_8-16-32 ). It came yesterday, so I went ahead and set it up in the corner of the back yard next to the neatly trimmed bushes and tried it out. Yes! With my tripod and 3-legged stool, I fit perfectly! I positioned it so I could pop in the back side unseen and left the tripod and seat in over night. Good thing because it was raining this morning.
True to my Christmas tradition, I was up by 6AM and had the coffee going. Before daylight, I slipped out back with a pot of coffee and the new shooter, and was snug, dry and waiting. The first Christmas hunt was a young rabbit that appeared just after first light, at about 15 yards. PfffttT! At about 3/4th power with a 200 BAR charge, there was very little noise and the bunny was a goner. I let him lay and waited. Within 30 minutes, victim #2 appears. A nutter at about 40 yards. PffttT! Down he goes. This rifle off a rest is an absolute killer. Well, it is still barely daylight, and I thought, enough. I will clean the kill and be back inside before the rest of the family is even up.
Since it was raining, and since the AA-410 was all shiny and new, I decided to forgo a picture of her with the morning's hunt in the rain, so I laid the game at the foot of the funny looking bush and snapped a quick picture. I had the critters skinned and cleaned in short order and took 'em in to rinse them off in the sink just in time to encounter the lovely wife in her robe asking "where's the coffeepot?" In short, she wasn't thrilled about my plan to fry up some Christmas breakfast and suggested, emphatically, that I remove the "dead animals" from her kitchen. OK. So I bag them and take them out to the garage 'frig. While I am out, I peek around the corner, and there is a third squirrel who didn't get the memo about my Christmas morning hunt.
So, I grab the rifle and this time take a standing, off hand shot at about 25 yards. But this guy is hanging upside down off the side of the bird feeder with his head stuck into a hole on the back side of the feeder. Wait. . . Wait . . . So, finally he comes up for air for just a second and I have a brief shot, if not a good head profile, at least of something other than his hind quarters. PffttT! Down he falls, flopping a bit. I cock and reload, and step around the corner just in time to see him recover a bit and start a run for it. PffttT! PffttT!! Two quick shots (would have been impossible with a springer), and the second flips the wounded nutter again. This time, he doesn't go any further. It had mostly stopped raining, so I did grab a quick shot with the morning's third kill along side the AA-410. I am amazed how quiet and how deadly this PCP rifle is.
By the way, the "Outhouse" blind has two big, oval loops of spring material that can be looped onto itself and stuffed into a backpack for easy transport. Pull it out of the back pack and it pretty much pops open all by itself. There is no floor in the one-man tent. 6 small metal stakes secure the front and back. And though it was only a light rain, I was perfectly dry. Sitting with my back to the back wall and the rifle on the tripod, it is a perfect fit with about 2 inches of the rifle barrel sticking out from the front zipper slit window. There are also side and rear zipper windows, but it would be a bit tough to shoot from a tripod from more than just the front window. The height of the tent is enough to stand up in pretty easily, and this makes it pretty easy to step into and step out of the portable blind with the back flap unzipped.
This is going to be a great addition to the portable tripod and seat I use for shooting (see:
http://www.gatewaytoairguns.com/airguns/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=10006&posts=13&highlight=portable&highlightmode=1#M79947 ). It, the seat, the tripod and an air rifle, particularly with a sling, can pretty easily be carried into the woods. I could have sat quietly and popped squirrels all day from this blind. In the woods of western NC, together with the AA-410, this combo is going to be an absolute squirrel slayer!
Happy New Year, too, and happy hunting!
