might as well tell a few stories and I have to stop taking Sunday morning shots

[dk1677]

I hadn't posted on these as they were not good shots and had no pictures but as I like to hear your stories I thought I might as well tell you some ( also Harry's pool pole idea gave me one too) First, a week ago Sunday I saw a gray out my back window and as I was 4 for 4 on sparrows with the RS3 from 20 to 25 yards) I felt lucky. It was out at 25 yards in the same place I had taken a sparrow the week before, I loaded a crow mag and took aim , pulled the trigger and he ran. I assumed  I had missed and got ready for church , later in the afternoon I went out to feed the birds and saw a small blood trail where I had taken the shot at him and followed it to my neighbor's fence, I could see he had gone off in to some bushes. I looked as best I could but didn't see him. Fast froward to last Friday and I see 2 crows in the back of my neighbors property   feeding on something , ( never get them in on my property  where I can get a shot) so I go and get the RS3 in case they came over but when I get back they are gone and it hits me that maybe it was the tree rat from Sunday  they had.  So I go out  to look and sure enough at the back of the neighbors there's the gray he had gone at least 40 yards from where he was shot. Its a good 7 or 8 feet inside the fence  so I am thinking how to get it and then Harry posted on the pool pole idea and I think that will work with a net. ( when some snow melts) Now the second story this past Sunday  I see another and its a clever devil its running along the top of my pool fence I pick the 850 this time ,when I get to the window and I don't see him, gone so soon? then I see him on the back of an apple tree (he had jumped about 4 feet to it ) that's why I had seen tracks at the base of the tree going away but none up to the tree before. He's now going down the tree but he doesn't stop at the base but goes a little further and finds bird seed ( about a 22 yard shot)and sits up nice and as I now have him in the cross hairs I let the CPCHP go, he jumps back about 6ft twisting and turning I though that was it and he would go down but he lands and runs off I cant get a bead on him and hes gone. Again I figured a miss but after the last one I wanted to check and I had time  , when I got to where he was  I didn't see any blood where he was eating  but where he landed and at every spot he landed as he bounded away there were blood spots . I followed the trail but he went into some brush and lost it , I expect when the snow melts I will find him. Hate to have runners but it happens.

[Furseeker]

Dave, your right a few runners and flyers are part of the game, but it doesn't make it any easier when it happens. I've had a few Starlings fly, hop or run off on me lately. Lucky for me the stray cats and hawks are usually there to clean up after me when this happens. On a different topic how does you RS3 handle the Crow Mags? Mine doesn't like them at all, mine seems to have cheap taste and does best with cheap Daisy wad cutters, but it's not a real good long range pellet. I've done some work on mine and haven't spend much time with it lately. One more question, do you have any chronograph numbers on yours?

[dk1677]

No no Chronograph, It seems to love the crow mags, Had 4 sparrows in row on in the same spot.  it was just a bad hit I must have moved or the rat did. You have an RS3? Heavy son of gun LOL l I took one last fall  about 4 yards further that that one and it was a bad shot with a predator in the back it did go down after 6 ft or so,  but I have found the crow mags seem more accurate in it.

[atchman2]

I'm not sure why some guns like the Daisy Wadcutters?  My Air Hawk is that way.  Mike M. told me to try them in it and it has worked.  I've tried all sorts of pellets in it, but the Daisy's are the key if you want to hit anything.  

I'm not so sure too that the harder crossman pellets don't cause it to happen more.  The stuff I hit it seems to scream right through them.  I'd almost like to make some cheap ballastic gelatin to try and see what is the best damage.  For hunting I've always used Predators.  I found one the other day on the ground in my shooting area.  It was all nice and mushroomed up from the 350.  Not sure what I hit with it (probably the ground), but the shape was encouraging.  

Sorry about the runners, they do happen.  Sometimes though I think it is a grazing hit that causes them not a dead-on shot.  Squirrels are tough critters, but they are nothing compared to a possum when it comes to taking a hit and then standing up and walking off!

[Mebits]

You know that I've had a problem with runners too, if only on starlings. I'm sure I'd have them if I was shooting squirrels these days too.

The thing that gets me is that as I remember, when I was a kid shooting my Sheridan Blue Streak, I almost never had a runner. That was 5mm, 800 (alleged) fps. Iron sights. Lots of long shots, too. We either hit them in the head or neck or we missed. And we didn't miss a lot except at longer range. I think we maxed at 40 yrd, which I'm not sure I'd try with a scope, but we would routinely try with iron sights.

Is that selective memory? I sure doesn't seem like it from here, but it doesn't seem consistent with my real life experiences here and now.

Then again, when you're shooting that way, you're a lot more intuitive. I'm pretty sure you can hit a lot of things that you didn't think you could hit if you relax and just shoot.

Anyway, I'm sympathizing on the runners even as I wonder if others share similar memories of better accuracy and more clean kills when we were (much) younger...

[Mebits]

I'm thinking similar.

Actually, I'm thinking that I need to do the Chicken Wing Test.

Basically shoot through a wing into "ballistics gel" (i.e Knorrs). That's going to be nasty, of course, but also about as realistic and CONSISTENT as we could hope for. I might test several pellets (IF I can shoot them accurately through my gun) at real life range. I have a feeling, though that I'm going to have to repeat the test several times, in case I can't get a consistent hit on the wing. I imagine that a Crow Mag is going to explode if it hits a wing joint (where I love to aim, in fact), but might hold together better if it hit the wing tip. It might only mushroom 4" into the gel if I miss bone altogether.

Still, I'll be the results would be pretty interesting.

Maybe several of us should do it with different pellets that work in our gun, all at 10yrds?

[airiscool]

When small game season started, the first five Grays I shot were all runners. Discussed, I switched pellets to one less mentioned for hunting and the next twenty all went into the freezer instead of the bushes.

Two weeks ago I shot alot of Starlings and all but 4 were runners. Not sure why. I tried switching to  heavier pellets and still most flew off after being knocked down. Switched back to what the gun liked and had fewer runners.  

Last weeked I still had the gun zeroed in at 30 yards with Jumbo heavies after testing at 30 yards to see if they would increase accuracy in the cross winds I get here in Winter. Sunday morning there's A Red out back feeding with the Gray herd. Slipped out to the Shed. It had it's back to me. Put the cross hairs in the middle of it's back, squeezed and sent a Jumbo heavy.  THWACK ! It jumped up on the stone wall, ran a couple feet and stopped with it's head up looking around. I went out to finish it and it was able to run off into the bushes. It clearly was hit. Normally they run long before I was able to get close enough to see blood on it's back.  

Everytime I try what I think may be a better pellet for hunting, it's not. When I go back to what I know works in the gun, I get fewer runners.

Pellets that other guys are dropping small game with a high percentage, I'm finding often don't work as well for me. I think "runner percentages" have more to do with the accuracy of the pellet/ gun combo than any given pellet's "kill-ability".

I'm learning that, with air rifles, shot placement is way more critical than what pellet is used. But, even hits in the perfect spot don't mean success everytime.  Runners still happen.

Paul.

[Mebits]

Paul, it may also have to do with the shots we naturally like to take.

I really try to keep my starling runners down and with a hot .177 gun at <20 yards, that's hard to do unless I can get the pellet to slow down enough to give its energy to the target, or expand enough or be accurate enough to hit a vital area. So, I like to take the longitudinal shot. It's a smaller target but it's going to do severe and lethal damage every time I hit it.

Harry likes the side shot and has great success with it. Granted, it's a bigger cal. gun. Maybe slower too. I tried another side shot (last bird and he was getting ready to fly on me). He was a runner. Of course, it's hard to go anywhere in 16" of snow. But I'm saying that there's a number of components here. Pellet is just one. Aim is another. Caliber is another. Shot placement/type of shot is another.

We love to generalize, but really there's a good bit of very context specific science we're doing here. That, or alchemy.

Now, all that said, for pigeons pellet makes all the difference in my .177's. I'll never take a shot at a pigeon again from the side or up above with out a fairly soft HP.

[dk1677]

Well  I am glad we are having a good discussion ( I was debating saying anything on the runners), there are so many variables, I for one forget follow through, that you need to hold your aim, air gun pellets travel slower than a powder burner. I have learned so much here and reading Tom Gaylord's blogs on Pyramid