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Another rabbit hunt.

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Joined
Feb 28, 2007
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England.
Keen to test the new load in my 45 smoothrifle proved productive.
Two for two shots. Ok the first was only a few yards but the second ( a doe unfortunately) was a forty yard head shot which delighted me no end.
Jess and I walked miles for these two and it was a fair workout!
The photos.
IMG_20190315_130659.jpg

IMG_20190315_135317.jpg


B.
 
Keen to test the new load in my 45 smoothrifle proved productive.
Two for two shots. Ok the first was only a few yards but the second ( a doe unfortunately) was a forty yard head shot which delighted me no end.
Jess and I walked miles for these two and it was a fair workout!
The photos.
View attachment 6635
View attachment 6636

B.

Where you hunt do you have only rabbits or are there also hare's? Nothing is more crazy than a March Hare. Glad to see Jess is back in form.
 
From the photos there doesn't appear to be too much, if any, destruction , meat wise. But isn't a 45 a bit much for rabbits? But Hey no criticism here, well done!
 
I would say...."smooth" shooting. To my mind, a .45" ball (usually smaller) is a pretty tiny pill. As long as he's not loaded for deer, powder-wise, methinks it would be a pretty good wabbit gun. Kind of a cool thing about .45's, works on everything from squirrels, to wabbits, to deer. .32's and .40's might be more ideal, in theory....but a .45 is still in the wabbit zone I would think.
 
I would say...."smooth" shooting. To my mind, a .45" ball (usually smaller) is a pretty tiny pill. As long as he's not loaded for deer, powder-wise, methinks it would be a pretty good wabbit gun. Kind of a cool thing about .45's, works on everything from squirrels, to wabbits, to deer. .32's and .40's might be more ideal, in theory....but a .45 is still in the wabbit zone I would think.
70 grain charge friend.
 
That (70grains) will kill a wabbit for sure. Still amazed at how big your bunnies are. Ours (cotton tails) are about half that size. Our snowshoe rabbits look to be about the same size as your dead bunnies. Years ago, I lived in an area where we had "white tail jack rabbits" which of course were bigger yet, and tasted great...unlike the big desert Jacks you find in the South West United States...which don't taste....so great. :)
 
Our brown hare has a strong gamey flavour that I ain't to keen on.
Our mountain hare has a slightly milder flavour.
The secret to enjoying a rabbit is making sure the two scent glands either side of the tail are removed.
I failed to do that thirty years ago as newly weds and to this day my wife will not eat another rabbit dish!
 
Looks like Jess see's bigfoot coming! Must be a flook but first thing caught my eye was here eyes!!

Brit, never been told about scent glands removal on a wabbit. How do ya do this?

And yes our girls can be finicky....my wife was pregnant when I cooked some burgers indoors in the cast iron. To date (25 yrs) I can never cook em inside and it took 15 yrs before she could eat another. Her weirdest was sending me out in the middle of the night for candy cork (that aint easy to find after Halloween!)
 
Looks like Jess see's bigfoot coming! Must be a flook but first thing caught my eye was here eyes!!

Brit, never been told about scent glands removal on a wabbit. How do ya do this?

And yes our girls can be finicky....my wife was pregnant when I cooked some burgers indoors in the cast iron. To date (25 yrs) I can never cook em inside and it took 15 yrs before she could eat another. Her weirdest was sending me out in the middle of the night for candy cork (that aint easy to find after Halloween!)
:)
The scent glands are just lower than the tail bone on both sides and are at the top of the hams or leg muscles and where the pelvis is rear most. They are also a slightly different colour.
Cutting down the sides of the tail after skinning to remove the tail and urinary tract usually gets them too. Sometimes they are missed so I check.
Google comes up with plenty images of where to look on a pet rabbit.

B.
 
70 grains? Wow! I would have guessed about 40 grains would do it.
But, if a fox came around the hedgerow, would be glad to have the 70 loaded up.
I don't know about Brit, but generally speaking, I have found that smoothbores seem to shoot more accurately loaded more towards hot, than mild. That's been my experience, but, don't know if it's true or not.
 
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