What's the smallest thing you've shot?

[Spot Shooter]

Ok with a decent shot even I can hit a deer.

So fer fireside chat, what's the smallest thing you've ever shot "on-purpose".

A red squirrel comes to mind as something small I'd get ornery enough ta shoot. Dang little buggers jest won't leave ya alone sometimes. Of course it's still funner to paralyze them with fear instead of kill'n 'em.

Interest'n topic non the less.

Spot

Note from moderator:
We did this topic back on 1-11-04, see: http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=5717&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

But I'm not going to combined the two untill a later date, the different title led to believe my topic was not the SMALLEST GAME SHOT topic... So enjoy all of you new members, and for us older members, enjoy again...

MUSKETMAN

 

[roundball]

Smallest thing with flintlock rifles so far have been Deer;

Smallest thing with muzzleloaders in general has been Doves with a .12ga Navy Arms double

 

enough gray squirrels to fill a pick-up truck bed....and ate every one of 'em!! Gonna eat some more too!!

Vic

 

[Spot Shooter]

Sharps,

You hunt'n fox, or gray's? I need a good recipe fer squirrel - this is mostly 'cause Mrs. Spot ain't gonna have nothin' ta do with see'n a skinned tree crawler.

What caliber, and riflegun does ya use as well. I'm not too far from ya bein' on the eastern boarder of Kansas.

I am surprised no one's talk'd about shoot'n fly's yet.

Spot

 

[BrownBear]

Haven't tried it with a muzzleloader yet, but every few years we get a population explosion of voles here in Alaska- basically a short-tailed mouse. The last explosion was in 1999, and I killed several hundred around the yard and gardens with a single-pump pellet pistol. Couldn't do it nearer town, but out here in the boonies I'm looking forward to greeting the next population boom with my 36 caliber.

Funny story- When a boom is on, we don't have to buy much cat food. Turns out I was competing with our old tom on my "hunting" trips around the place. I'd sneak around a corner and find him staked out over a vole hole, and he would turn around real slow and give me THE LOOK. No choice but to back off and find my own vole hole.

Other than that, I would have to say smallest are ptarmigan with my old 20 gauge ML double, or snowshoe hare with the 20 and my current 36 and 54 caliber caplocks. Come to think of it, I took a couple of snipe one morning while using my 12 gauge ML on a duck hunt way back when. Won't tell you how many shots it took to hit those two!

 

Hey Spot...

Down here in the Ozarks it's mostly grays but there are a few fox squirels around, mostly in town tho. Where we used to live, about 20 miles WSW of Jefferson City, there seemed to be more fox squirrel. Young grays are the better eating in my opinion.

The wife rolls them in beaten eggs, dredges them in flour with whatever spices and herbs that strike her fancy at the moment, always some garlic, then fries them. Makes for a great meal for either breakfast or supper., just chnage the side dishes.

I've used a 32 and 36 flint but now use a 36 Ethan Allan caplock. If I sell my 375 H&H I'm going to get a TVA southern mountain in either 36 or 40 flint and use it. Head shots only with those. Other than that I use my Ruger 77-22. I grew up eating tree rats and still love them...

Vic

 

[musketman]

Smallest thing shot with a muzzleloader, a snake (blew it into many snakey parts)...

Smallest thing I killed with a muzzleloader, (non-shooting) 10oz. weasel, it was in a muskrat trap and caught by it's hind leg...

I thumped it with the butt of my unprimed T/C .32 cailber Cherokee and proceeded to remove it from the small trap.

 

[bob1961]

at the end of a day for deer just to see how my eye was i unloaded my .50 cal T/C flinter with a T/C 240gr hp mag sabot on a chimpmunk at about 25 yds....boy talk about giving a new meaning to flying squirrel....took me 10 min to find the two pieces after the smoke cleared....i think i'll be trying for that fly in the spring at the range that keeps landing on the target he he...................bob

 

[TwoShadows]

Flies.....at's right flies. Ya takes yer persuckshun pistol 'n ya puts a cork inna muzzle 'n ya puts a persuckshun cap on tha nipple and ya goes hunting on tha awning uv yer camp. Iffn ya aint wantin ta hev ta hunt fer tha cork a lots...ya takes a needle 'n fixes ya a strang thru tha cork and ties hit ta tha frunt thimmel er tha trigar gard.
Iffn ya wants style points, ya dips yer pistol in Elmers glue firstest 'n then stik it inna sack uv multicolored sequins and shake hit reel gud. Whin hit gits dry yew kin start shootin......Gud weigh ta practis snap shutin, 'n heps rid tha campsite uv vermin.

 

[tucoblue]

Shot a grasshopper off the hood ornament of my '51 Chevy. Couldn't find the poor devil to analyze the shot. Not sure if the .308 bullet did him in or the muzzle blast. Range was not great. Somewhere around 21".

Can't stay young but can stay immature.....

 

[Spot Shooter]

Grasshopper shoot'n with BB gun's where a national pastime with me and my brother. They'd land on the lane, you'd take a shot,they'd fly down the lane another 20 feet, and you shoot again.

After a while your eye's get real sharp.

Fun, think I'll try it with the boy this summer. Wonder what the bag limit is around here.

Spot

 

[musketman]

Next month I'll be combinding these two "same topic" threads, (What's the smallest thing you've shot? & Muzzleloader Game Size) just to give everyone a heads up...

It'll be around the second week of March...

 

[tommy b]

Back when I was a kid in PA we used to hunt dragonflies with bb guns. They'd fly around and then hover in one spot in mid air. That's the time to pop 'em. The smallest thing, however, was a singing bug about a half inch long, perched on the outside of the window screen just above the head of my bed one evening when I was trying to sleep. Took my Crosman pellet pistol and popped him right through the screen. From the inside out, of course.

 

[nvbirdman]

Flies?? Yes!!
At the pistol range one time, I was walking up to check my target when a horsefly landed on it.
At about fifteen feet my Ruger 357 put a hole in that target with a dirty ring around it.

 

[Ohio Joe]

Always nice to find fellow grasshopper hunters out there. They're great sport. My neighbor and I bait them with cardboard backed paper targets at twenty-five yards. After the first bullet hole in the target it doesn't take those trophy grasshoppers long to find that hole and start chewing. My neighbor feels my .45 cal. Hawken is not quite powerful enough for such work. He prefers his .54 cal. Hawken...."Too much gun".... :winking:

 

[Chuck Deaton]

In the 50's every kid in my neighborhood had a Daisy, mine was a pump, and in the fall wasps would fly around the eaves of the house. Almost anybody could hit a wasp on the wing.

We would spend hours lying in the barn and shooting wasps off the nests in the rafters.

Small rocks and pennies were good targets.

 

[Bald Baron]

I had a orange extension cord going from the house to a pole mounted bug light. While shooting off the deck with a pellet pistol using BBs, a fly landed about five feet away on that electrical cord. I pumped that pistol several times, placed a BB in, and took aim. I didn't see any wings, but there was some black gue where he had been sitting.

 

[gordy]

I guess flys? I too had a daisy pumpgun,had a little more moxy than the lever guns.Out to about 15 ft. seldom missed,now I can hardly see a fly at 15 ft.As to muzzleloaders,I'd have to say cottontails and jacks.With the Ruger Old Army. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

Let's see - shot a pine squirrel(red squirrel) once, with the .69 (14bore) rifle. Killed him, too. Shot a small weazel with the same rifle - That one died from wounds received. They're considerably larger than the tacks we shoot at rendezvous or the string cut - killed them as well. I guess the string's the smallest thing I've shot. OH- nope- axe's edge - yup, that's the smallest I've shot at and hit - & with the .36 through .69 calibres. It's easier with the .69.
Daryl

 

[Spot Shooter]

I ain't never see'd a weasel sit still long enough ta shoot him with jest about anything.

You fella's must be as fast as lightn'n.

Spot