It's been slow for me since squirrel season opened October 1. I've gone to a few public hunting spots and saw one, heard another, and shot none. Today my little rescue hound started going crazy and I pulled the P35-177 out of the coffee table, loaded a magazine, checked to make sure it was on 6X, flipped open the scope caps and stepped out on the back porch. My little hound raced out the door and a squirrel went racing up one of the oaks. They often start hopping tree to tree to go out of the yard but this one just went up high. The leaves are still on the oaks so they are hard to spot. I saw it move a couple times but did not get a shot. Then I saw a squirrel sized blur in the shade about 40 feet up an oak and about 20-25 yards away. I forgot the scope parallax was on 15 yards. I should have adjusted it. Instead I just took a shot when I could not clearly see which end was which on the squirrel - or it could have been a funny shaped branch or a clump of leaves. My pellet caused the blur to move a step or two and lay down on a limb looking at me. The next shot hit it in the head and went back to a back leg stopping under the skin. It dropped immediately on impact. My P35 likes H&N Baracuda Match 10.65s and shoots them at about 900 fps. When I cleaned it I found a hole a little forward of middle and low. Looked like it went through. I think that was the first shot. But there was no visible blood on the outside. My dog got there first and might have licked it off. I found the pellet near a rear leg and it's pretty chewed up. The damage to the pellet suggests to me it went through the skull.
Not proud of that first shot, I should have adjusted the parallax or turned the power up some on the scope to see better what I was shooting at. You never know when they will move out of sight, however. The second shot ended any suffering and was less than a minute later, however. It was a 12 ounce female.
Not proud of that first shot, I should have adjusted the parallax or turned the power up some on the scope to see better what I was shooting at. You never know when they will move out of sight, however. The second shot ended any suffering and was less than a minute later, however. It was a 12 ounce female.
