I got a second hare on Saturday night, near where I got the first. I spotted him about 17yds from my shooting position, munchin' on the garden's first tender sprouts. They seem to love crocuses, too bad for them, the wife does too. I chambered a CPHP, set the crosshairs on the bridge of his nose (he was facing me, but oblivious, it seems). Breathed, squeezed and PFWOCK! the hare did a 3' high back flip and began the most violent death boogie I've ever seen.
I chambered another round, took aim, waited for a pause in the action, and squeezed another round, this time aiming for the vitals. I was rewarded with another PWOCK, but the boogie continued. I walked over to where it was. He didn't react to me at all, just continued to throw himself about with alarming violence. When I arrived there, his flailings threw his head into a log repeatedly, making an absolutely sickening crunching noise. I put another hp into the base of his skull, and finally it was over.
I cleaned him and harvested the meat for the stew pot. Then I went about performing something of an amature necropsy on him. The first shot had entered his left eye, at the inside edge, and lodged in the back of his skull. Much brain was destroyed by that first shot. The cranium had been broken into 3 major pieces, and they'd slide against each other in a rather disturbing way. That damage was done by the hare itself in it's flails. It had also broken it's front leg in 2 locations (no pellet struck it's leg). The second went in just behind his shoulder, about mid chest, just above the heart, doing no immediately lethal damage. It was interesting to not that while that pellet didn't hit any significant bone, it penetrated about 1.5" of rabbit (mostly muscle), and had expanded to a bit over .20" I was mildly surprised to see that level of expansion. The third pellet had severed the spinal cord and other vital systems, gone thru-and-thru.
So what went wrong here? I placed a .177 hp in his fuse box, but it seams instead of instant death, it caused violent convulsions, lasting probably 30-40 seconds. I felt quite bad for the fellow, but at least I know he didn't "feel" much, as the grey matter was pulverized by the first shot. I suspect somehow a massive dose of adrenaline was released into his bloodstream when I first shot him. That fueled his convulsive and suicidal death boogie, I guess.
Has anyone else experienced this? I had once before in the past but then I was using a sub 500fps gun. I had expected (and up to now experienced) instant or near instant (say less than a few seconds of the ole' flip/flop) expiration of hares when using this 900+fps rifle. It was somewhat disturbing.
Well, here's hoping the next one goes better.
J
