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Squirrel hunting

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Kamu

36 Cal.
Joined
Dec 27, 2017
Messages
110
Reaction score
29
Location
Fort Jackson Columbia South Carolina
Well I slid into one of my favorite squirrel hunting spots the other day. I was enjoying the cool weather and just doing a good woods walk as I call it. I seen a nice fox squirrel(which in South Carolina they are grey and black) at about 35 yards. Settled my sights of my 36 cal and touched it off and hammered that squirrel. I eased over and quickly reloaded . I had seen several greys run away after the shot. I hunted the rest of the afternoon missing 4 more squirrels. One thing that I’m going to relook is that 40 grains of 3f might be a little hot for squirrels.
 

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I've had great luck with 30 grains of 3F in both the .32 and .36. The .36 also does extremely well with just 20 grains.
 
Kamu:

40 grains of 3Fg powder gave Lyman a muzzle velocity of 1894 fps in a .36 caliber X 28" long barrel. At 35 yards that ball would have slowed down to 1142 fps.
IMO, that's still fast enough to destroy a lot of meat.

You might want to think about dropping the powder load down to 20 or 25 grains but if you decide to do this be sure to take the gun to the range and check out what the smaller powder charge does to the accuracy. It might be worse but I'm betting it is better.
 
Kamu:

40 grains of 3Fg powder gave Lyman a muzzle velocity of 1894 fps in a .36 caliber X 28" long barrel. At 35 yards that ball would have slowed down to 1142 fps.
IMO, that's still fast enough to destroy a lot of meat.

You might want to think about dropping the powder load down to 20 or 25 grains but if you decide to do this be sure to take the gun to the range and check out what the smaller powder charge does to the accuracy. It might be worse but I'm betting it is better.

thanks for the info my barrel is 33 1/2 not sure how that affects the speed of the PRB. I’ll for sure shoot some at 25 grains and see how that works out. My thought process was just to shoot a hotter load and head shoot them. Well that isn’t working so well missing allot. Looking at it the other way shoot a lighter load and body shoot them for a bigger target hahahah any thanks again for the info
 
...shoot a lighter load and body shoot them for a bigger target hahahah any thanks again for the info

This is just my experience, others mileage may vary...but with my .36 I found body shots to be very destructive, even with as light of loads as 25 grains. I had to limit myself to head shots or lose a lot of meat.

I liked the .36, but all in all, the .32 I had was a better bore size for squirrels if I needed to take a chest shot, IMO.
 
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