By Glen Wunderlich Outdoor Columnist Member Professional Outdoor Media Association
Small game season opens Wednesday, September 15th and that means it’s time to play hide and seek in the forest again. I’ll don as much camo as the law allows in an effort to discover as much as I can about deer movement, while toting a tack-driving .22 rimfire rifle for bushytails. I realize there’s a segment of outdoors enthusiasts who head north for wingshooting the likes of grouse and woodcock with the utmost of romantic flair. That’s way cool! As for me, I’ll hide and stalk.
One thing I’ve learned: To have squirrel on the Super Bowl menu, squirrels are required. And since I can’t seem to find any at the local markets, I am forced afield for them. And, if it were a matter of whacking and stacking them, I’d opt for a .12 gauge and stout shot. But chomping down on pellets is not unlike picking fish bones from one’s mouth: It’s no fun!
If ever a perfect tool was invented for squirrel hunting, it would have to be the .22 rimfire. It’s plenty potent, yet typically lightweight, has no recoil to speak of, and is relatively quiet – especially when compared to any size shotgun. Beyond that, it’s inexpensive to shoot, it can be highly accurate, and it’s just plain old fun. And instead of the run and gun shotgun style tactics some employ, it’s a sneaky way to plan a whitetail ambush for the coming season only weeks away.
Almost any .22 rimfire rifle will do, as long as it wears acceptable optics. Iron sights aren’t for me any more and at best offer limited opportunities for humane kills for just about anyone. Either a low-power variable or fixed power scope designed specifically for .22s is a must. (I’m not talking about scopes the diameter of a drinking straw, either.) Forget the notion that off-the-shelf ,1-inch tube scopes are the way to go; they’re not! Their parallax setting (focus plane) is adjusted for 100 yards or more and will cause an optical illusion called parallax: The apparent change in the position of an object (target) resulting from the change in the position from which it is viewed.
To demonstrate this phenomenon, take this test. Get your favorite deer gun with mounted scope, or your .22 rifle with deer gun scope and place it on a steady rest that will allow you to look through the scope without touching it. Look at an object at approximately 30 yards or so through the scope. Then, without moving the rifle/scope, move your head from side to side or up and down and watch as the crosshairs appear to have a mind of their own. You’ve now witnessed parallax.
Rimfire scopes, and even airgun scopes, which make fine .22 scopes, have parallax set at 50 to 60 yards – ideal for the range of most small game encounters. Note: A good one for the money is Nikon’s Pro Staff rimfire model. It has great clarity rivaling more costly models at twice the price.
As for ammo, I prefer solid bullets that travel below the speed of sound. These sub-sonic rounds possess some inherent advantages over run-of-the-mill high-velocity stuff that comes in milk cartons. They are quieter and are typically highly accurate and provide enough punch to get the job done without overkill. Even though they exit the muzzle at slower velocities than their high-stepping siblings, they retain velocity downrange far better. When a bullet is traveling at supersonic velocities (breaking the sound barrier), it’s pushing a thick wall of highly compressed air in front of it (drag). When it’s traveling at sub-sonic velocities, it’s not.
My Ruger 10-22 fires a 40-grain, sub-sonic Lapua Master L .22 round from the muzzle at a mere 998 feet-per-second. When sighted in at 50 yards, the small projectile rises only .54 inches above the line of sight at 40 yards and is .86 inches low at 60 yards. Quiet and extremely accurate all the way.
If you have a youngster, there’s no better way to become acquainted better with him or her and Mother Nature herself. In the multi-purpose mode, you might even acquire a better strategy for the coming Youth Deer Hunt, which I will cover next week.
