Need to practice

[Phil_B]

Well this morning,sipping on some coffee looking out my window at my bird feeders watching all the birds and pesky squirrels watching for a minute and all of a sudden I see a real funny looking squirrel poken around on the ground for seed that have ben dropped wait a minute that aint no squirrel that is a freaking rat .Man I'm ticked off now I don't want their kind around my house. So into the other room I go and grab my .177 Viper load up a pellet go back to the window open the window very quietly and wait .About 1 minute passes and there he is ,seems to be very weary not staying out in the open that long , but I got time Ill wait for the perfect shot .Oh maybe maybe he pauses for just the right amount of time I squeeze the trigger and pop pellet on its way and MISS. What the H@!! how could I have missed Then I thought about yesterday shooting dime sized groups at 30 yards. The rat was about 5 yards I'm not used to shooting this close, so I guess I need to practice more at close ranges

Heh, been there!

I'm guessing you neglected to hold-over enough.  At 5 yds, your POI will be almost as far below your POA as your scope's centre is above the center of your bore (barrel)....  For me, that's about 1.5", and my holdover would be about 1" of holdover at 5yds...  I'm sighted in for 20yds.

Better luck next time, Ratty'll be back!

J

[shadow]

You'll get em Phil and all that where to put the crosshair's will become second nature. He know's where the meal is at and we'll be looking for your rat harvest post in the Hunting Gate real soon.:) Ed

[DAMAGE]

Nice try and an honest mistake, I think that everybody has done that before Hell I'm guilty of doing it just the other night, Thats where I find HFT & FT comes in good use as it get you use to shooting like this.
Hold over has it's uses but the best thing I think is to dial your scope to that range it will be more accurate.

[London177]

I did the same thing the other week. I have concluded that for anything less than 10 yards I grab my springer with open sights to shoot the rats that sometimes show in my yard. However it will be no bad thing to learn to shoot close range with a scope. By the way I read an article that stated rats were agoraphobic hence there un-willingness to spend time out in the open.
regards,
Alan

allan,
  i think i got it................IT'S OK  IT'S JUST A BRUISE!............was it MADDEN?
               joe cuz(akita breeder)