Practical Accuracy

[Cornishman]

Most of my shooting these days is whacking bunnies with my 17 Ackley Hornet. The night before last I crawled up to a corner of a field set in a sunny dip and spotted lots of rabbits extending across maybe 50 yards of hedge line with some 20 yards into the field.

 

Now, when I started shooting rabbits the sages told me that a silenced 22LR with subs was the way to go because when you come across more than one wabbit you might be able to take one without spooking the others thereby knocking off two or possibly three. If this advice was correct then I'd stand no chance of taking more than one with the relatively barky Ackley.

 

As it turned out I got 19 in about 15 minutes, which was all of them. It reminded me of the 'stands' written about by some of the Old West buffalo hunters where the beasts unaccountably stood still to be shot one after another.

 

Anyway, a couple of questions:

 

1) If you find yourself with multiple targets what's the best tactic?

 

2) When you're shooting rabbits, how often do you miss? That is how many consecutive clean kills would you expect to achieve before a miss?

 

Cornishman

[Guest varmartin]

1.I generally shoot the largest - wisest ones first.....so ast not to spook the young ones ..then shoot as many as i can before they all leg it.

 

2.Empty the mag ...refill then fluff it on a long one ...so possably six then a miss......it all depends on how lucky I am ....its not often the same score ....

[Cornishman]

Martin

 

In the example I mentioned I took one furthest away first on the basis that the report from the rifle and the sound of the impact would confuse the bunnies. And I went for body shots on the basis that with the 17 they just flop, no bouncing around like you get with headshots. It worked for me on that occasion although I think that having a reasonable length of grass also helped because the rabbits couldn't see one another. There's also some other factor involved because you don't normally see rabbits waiting around to be shot.

 

And on the subject of consecutive kills (yeh, I know two subjects really) I really, really hate to see wounded rabbits and, like Jeff Cooper used to say, any miss needs to be explained.

 

Regards

 

Cornishman

[Vermincinerator]

The best i have done is 4 on the trot with the 10-22 before missing a long one.

 

Ian.

[Alycidon]

I have done a couple of 9s and at least two 8s with bolt and semi rimmies.

 

I normally start closest in and go for chest shots as they just roll over. I used to take the old ones first but once they have been wacked a couple of times one shot and they have gone, you might get a go at a second stupid one with a semi but thats it. When I had rabbits then I took teh ones most desirable at teh butchers and never big ones before July time as they are likely to have young.

 

These days I have no rabbits, they just seemd to vanish, I suspect we had VHD.

 

Centerfire on fox I have had 15 this year so far with one clean miss on shot number 3 or 4. Last one took a while to find mind you, shot was a bit low and it went 100 yards or so before keeling over. Blood loss on impact was major but my Lab made nothing of a blood trail next morning.

 

A