Pest Control 35 yards

| July 30, 2016
Photo Credit: Keith Knoxsville
A Hen and a Drake Green Teal on the truck bed. Not a limit on anything, but a fun morning out.

This is pest control at 35 yards shooting in a somewhat swirling 16 mph wind. The 14.3gr pellet drop at 35 yards was taken into account, as you can see from the hold over. You can hear the muzzle rapport, and then the impact with the bird.

These birds, like the starlings are relentless, and scare tactics do very little to keep them off of feed, water, and out of the coops.

The air gun used was a Crosman 1322, shooting at 510 fps. The .22 pellet is ideal for this sort of work as you can see by the knock down energy that it has.

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Crosman 1322 at 25 yards

| July 30, 2016
Photo Credit: Keith Knoxsville
A Hen and a Drake Green Teal on the truck bed. Not a limit on anything, but a fun morning out.

This is a video of the Crosman 1322 shooting a 3″ target at 25 yards. It has a steel breech that a Simmons 4×32 scope is attached to via dovetail ring mounts.

The target stand is home made. The target is a 3″ splattering target from Birchwood Casey. It has 1/2″ increments.

The video was made with a Samsung s5, using the ‘Slow Motion Video FX’ app for android. The phone is attached via the Gosky smartphone adapter for rifle scopes.

Specifications
Camera: Samsung Galaxy S5
Camera App: Slow Motion Video FX
Camera Adapter: Gosky Smartphone Adapter for rifle scopes
Computer App: Widows Movie Maker
Pistol: Crosman 1322, shooting .22 14.3gr Crosman Premiers at 510 fps
Target: Birchwood Casey 3″ splattering target, with 1/2″ incremented rings
Target Distance: 25 yards

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Crosman 1322 for Pesting and Small Game

| July 28, 2016
crosman 1322
Photo Credit: Keith Knoxsville
A Hen and a Drake Green Teal on the truck bed. Not a limit on anything, but a fun morning out.

I purchased a Crosman 1322 pellet pistol in the .22 caliber, because I needed a small and economical pest control weapon on our homestead. I also wanted a light weapon for small game, and was especially interested in one I could fit into a backpack.

I added a 4x32 Simmons scope to my 1322. I re-crowned it, changed the breech to a steel one, and modified it to a point where it produces 8.20 foot pounds of energy, with a standard 14.3gr pellet traveling about 510 feet per second at the muzzle.

Out of the box, a brand new Crosman 1322 costs 60 dollars, and shoots at ~460 fps with about 6.4 FPE. In other words, it is good enough out of the box to handle some pests, and possibly put small game in the stew pot with quality shot placement.

Over time, I’ve modified the 1322 to produce over 12 foot pounds of energy(FPE). It adds a bit more insurance of humane small game kills, without stepping into the PCP realm of air guns.

The 1322 has already controlled a lot of the invasive starlings that were raiding our chicken feeders and defecating in their drinking water; Which I blame for the loss of a chicken this spring.

If you are wondering about small game or pests and the energy required to take them, here are some suggested energy requirements. Take these numbers as bare minimums, and assumed good shot placement. All I can say is to use your discretion when shooting any animal so that it is humanely dispatched. And all the other, blah blah blah pacifying things you can say about hunting to the less self sufficient cry babies out there.

  • Squirrel – 4.5fpe head or vitals
  • Cottontail – 4fpe head or vitals
  • Jack Rabbit – 5 fpe head or vitals
  • Pigeon, Dove – 4.5 fpe head or vitals
  • Sparrow – 2.5 fpe head or vitals
  • Starling – 3.5 fpe head or vitals
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The Ruger 10/22 – Crowning and Bedding

| July 27, 2016
Photo Credit: Keith Knoxsville
A Hen and a Drake Green Teal on the truck bed. Not a limit on anything, but a fun morning out.

Since I bought the 10/22 for hunting, and not target shooting, I did not buy a bull barrel or target version of the gun. If I wanted a target 22lr from the get go, I’d probably have looked at the CZ line of rimfire rifles, or other bolt actions.

Sticking to the original purpose and use of the gun for hunting, I did not want to invest a ton of money changing the character of the rifle. I simply wanted to increase my accuracy a bit, and take small game ethically at longer distances.

I decided to do 3 things.
1: Re-crown the barrel with a de-burring bit and clean up with polishing compound.
2: Bed the action and tip of the barrel with about $10 worth of reinforced resin and some shoe polish.
3: Swap the hammer with a Volquartsen hammer and shim kit for $35.

bedding3

bedding4

10 22 crown on std barrel

I re-finished the stock, which was purely cosmetic, to hide the scratches in the fake walnut color that had accumulated season to season. Its now a blue and ebony finish that that tries to enhance the grain of the pretty average birch stock.

The 10/22 still has its barrel band, and original character, but its a little more accurate, even with my pretty average shooting.

With the bedding of the action and barrel at the tip of the fore-end of the stock, I am able to produce 1 MOA groupings whereas before I could only consistently achieve 2.5 MOA groupings.

I haven’t used any real high-end ammo, as I don’t hunt with it. And I’ve only measured my accuracy to date with Federal Automatch 40gr lead round nose and Winchester 36gr copper coated hollow points.

Photos of the bedding.

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The Ruger 10/22

| July 27, 2016
Ruger 10/22 with a blue stock.
Photo Credit: Keith Knoxsville
A Hen and a Drake Green Teal on the truck bed. Not a limit on anything, but a fun morning out.

When I bought my first rimfire rifle, I told myself I wouldn’t drink the proverbial ‘Koolaid’, and I’d get something other than a ruger 10/22.

I did a ton of research, I really looked at my use case, and ultimately bought a Ruger 10/22. When it comes to rimfire rifles, the Ruger 10/22 is probably one of the most, if not the most, popular semiautomatic platforms, and for good reason.

Out of the box, the 10/22 is decently accurate. Its a semiautomatic with a standard 10 round magazine, which is arguable a little more fun than a bolt action. Its very affordable, and very easy to customize with a plethora of aftermarket products fitting all the variations of the 10/22.

My use case was primarily hunting small game. Out of the box with standard iron sights the 10/22 carbine served me very well with clean accurate shots up to 60 yards. For a long time I had thought I’d never leave iron sights. I grew up shooting through iron sights and had no reason to scope my 22lr.

While taking care of a starling problem, using my modified Crosman 1322 air pistol that is scoped with a Simmons 4×32 scope. I decided it was ridiculous that my air pistol had decent optics but my 10/22 did not.

So I mounted a 3-9 Simmons scope on to an EGW extended 0 MOA picatinny rail and sighted it to 50 yards.

I realized a few things pretty quickly. First, the 10/22 is not necessarily a tack driver, but its decent, and could be better with a tiny bit of work. Second, I needed to get better on the trigger, and perhaps replace it with a better one to really see how accurate I can be.

The next step was accurizing the 10/22 a bit, and sharpening my trigger skills. To which I’ve dedicated the next 2 posts.

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