Shooting Bench Pigeons

[longislandhunter]

Had nothin to do this afternoon so grabbed my R-9 .22 Goldfinger and went huntin.  Spent 3 hours stalking the woods at 3 different locations and never even saw one critter.  Gave up the ghost and went home. Got home and decided to finish fine tuning the scope on my Winchester 1000 XS .177.

I got the shooting bench all set up in the backyard, put up my targets and got down to the job at hand.  This gun shoots the Crosman Premier Hollow Points really well and since I have several tins of the CPHP's lying around not being used by my other guns I decided to fine tune the gun/scope for these pellets.  Anyway,  after about an hour of slow relaxed shooting I had the scope/gun shooting those CPHP's into nice tight bulls eye groups.  

As I was getting ready to call it quites I suddenly saw a couple of pigeons swoop in and land in the top of one of my trees above the bird feeders.  Here I was sitting there with the Winchester 1000 in my hands, a perfectly sighted in scope and an open tin of CPHP's in front of me.  Does life get any better??? I think not !!!!  :)

I haven't shot any game or pests yet with this particular gun but I've been aching to do just that because this gun really packs a wallop.  It's crude, and the trigger is a bear, but this gun, and the synthetic stocked 1000 in my safe which has already accounted for several squirrel kills, really does hit with a wallop.  Anyway, stood up from the shooting bench, put the crosshairs on the chest of the closest pigeon, squeeeezed the trigger ever so slowly and at the sound of the gun firing I heard the CPHP slam home with a smack and the bird simply fell like a stone.  No twitching, no flopping, just a dead pigeon lying on the lawn.   I looked up and yup, you guessed it,,,, bird #2 was still sittin in the top of the tree.  Loaded another pellet, aimed, squeezed,,,,  WHAP...... direct hit and pigeon #2 fell just like the first one.  

I stayed outside for about another 30 minutes hoping another pigeon might arrive, but it just got to cold so I went back in the basement and stored my stuff.  I'm lookin forward to using this gun/pellet combo at the duck farm this spring when the starling return in numbers.  The way this thing shoots those CPHP's, and as hard as this gun shoots, it should do a number on those pesky starlings............

Jeff

[shadow]

Very nice, dem birds just dont know when to get amoving. Been out doing some tracking,seen plenty of rabbits, tree rats but just getting some frozen air and keeping my tracking skills sharp. No need to kill for a thrill, freezers still full. I just picked up some of those CPHP's also, the shadow sport likes em but the CFX LOVES EM. :) Hunting, Ed

[USNCop]

I can relate to an odd situation like that.
One morning, as I was coming home from work, I pull up in front of the driveway.  I look up on the edge of the front of the garage and there sits 1 pidgeon all by himself.
I thought to myself as I'm backing my Bronco intp it's parking spot," Boy are you in the wrong place at the wrong time."
I look up as I'm walking under him to get to my front door.  Yep, still there.
I set my bag down and reach into the garage to open the overhead door.  I walk around my wifes SUV and grab my Beeman Bearcub from it's case and load a JSB wadcutter.  As I walk out toward the front of the driveway I am turning down the yardage on the AO.
The flying rat is still there so I take a quick glance up/down the neighbor hood, place the crosshair on his chest and stroke the trigger.
He pitches forward and lands at my feet.  I grab him by the tail and dispose of the body.
It felt very surreal, almost like it was choreographed!