This is a VITAL thread

28 yards on this one with the .20 shooting the 14.9gr NSA. Shoulder & quartering towards the left. It jumped up like 4 feet and hit the ground, I thought I had missed, but found it 3 yards behind the tree. Brutal!
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She thought she was hiding from me between the low hanging branch's but there was just the right opening too get the shot off. She ran about 31/2' after jumping up from the hit and hitting the branch above her. Only a 29yd. chip shot but it took over a month for her to make the mistake of sticking around. This one really had me pissed off. Tried to delete the second picture it was a mistake as I have posted it before but could not remove for some reason.
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Failure & redemption. Apparently I screwed up a few days ago, maybe like 2 weeks or so. But more on that in a second.

I just got in from work and saw this here customer lurking in the “store” I offered a .20 NSA slug in 14.9gr out of the Regal & to the vitals. It scurried off about 3 yards and promptly decided to take an extended dirt nap.
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As I was looking for a possible spent slug under the hide, and thinking I had found it, is when I saw my huge mistake. I found the spent ammo alright, a pellet, very likely from an attempted head shot from my HW30. Huge knot in my stomach, and lesson learned. Nothing but vitals for the HW30.
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A tale of two tails. Early morning, as usual when I’m not at work, while having my coffee I serviced 2 bushy tailed customers. This time it was the @BRK-BROCOCK Sahara Sniper in .177. Sweet little rig by the way, although that trigger will need some tweaking for sure. Anyway, the first one took it in the shoulder and it was pretty much lights out. The second one was a head shot and it did the dance, & I walked inside thinking it was all over. But much to my dismay, when I came to retrieve the later, it was walking around, somewhat dazed and confused, but with purpose. Took me some work, but I managed to put another one into it’s vitals & it was done.

Now, the gun is very accurate, but a squirrel brain is a tiny target! Lots of room for error. Ergo why I prefer Vitals. Oh yeah, the chipper took one to the vitals too. All in .177, 13gr JSBs.
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That proud moment when your new airgun achieves first blood status. Recently picked up a new Weihrauch HW50K Hunter from Atlas Airguns in .177 & took me no time to realize that it would live up to it’s name.

This is a 28 yard shot on a squirrel with the 8gr Polymag. Aimed to the vitals, center mass, but I didn’t compensate for my 20 yard zero, so it hit a little high. Nonetheless, results as noted in picture.

It jumped, tried to climb up the tree, jumped down to the ground, “ran/flopped” away for a whole 3 yards.
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Figured I'd toss this one in here. Had a rogue spring male squirrel in my tree this morning. Cleared out over 2 dozen this year, but this one is the first I've seen in my yard in weeks.

Only 15 yards, but in the thick of the tree so I tool the opportunity for a thru the front leg vital shot. He dropped out of the tree and flopped just a couple times. Obviously hit the heart due to the amount of drainage it produced, and the pellet stopped just under the skin in the other front leg.

Shot with my kral "mini" jumbo and FTTs 5.53mm doing 805 fps.
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Here is one of my favorite kills with a vital shot. Got this guy at 35 yards with my custom 25 cal Kral mega shorty named Frankie. Shooting a hades going 800 fps, took him DRT. These tree rats sure do home in on tomatoes.
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The rifle has since been upgraded to an athlon scope which blows the westhunter ot was wearing out of the water. I also switched to JTS dead center 25.4s and they are superbly according in this gun. One hole groups off a bipod at 35. It's almost boring to shoot lol.
 
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Another grey taken with the mini mega. I prefer the vital shots on tree rats, I have less of a dance with it. I think it's due to them thinking if they just lay down the threat won't see them so they don't run and just give a few flops at the very end. Head shots on them almost always produce a break dance.
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With a .22 pellet, good pellet, I usually expect a 20 yards dash after a vital hit. If they are in a tree I just wait for the skydiver without a parachute.

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Hi Vetmx,
That’s impressive
With a .22 pellet, good pellet, I usually expect a 20 yards dash after a vital hit. If they are in a tree I just wait for the skydiver without a parachute.

View attachment 306752Hi Vetmx,
That is some pretty impressive terminal performance for a .22 pellet.
Which brand, model and weight of pellet is it, and what velocity/fpe did you send it down range with?
I use the JSB .22 Hades in 15.89gr, pushing them at 850fps, but they don’t mushroom like that…. 🤔
Pete.
 
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Hi Vetmx,
That’s impressive

That is some pretty impressive terminal performance for a .22 pellet.
Which brand, model and weight of pellet is it, and what velocity/fpe did you send it down range with?
I use the JSB .22 Hades in 15.89gr, pushing them at 850fps, but they don’t mushroom like that…. 🤔
Pete.
Polymag going 935fps. But your barrel has to really like them. This is a calm day pellet, even out of a .25. They hate any type of breeze.
 
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That's ENORMOUS....😂👍. Those norway rats are on my bucket list of pests to snipe someday! That one is guinea pig size...😳😂
Yeah, when I first got my NV scope, I was shooting them every night. After killing about 30, I never see them anymore, but started seeing mice, shot them out as well. Now all I see is possum and I leave them alone.