Well, so far the sportster is 4 shots fired, 2 kills. :cry: Last night I had 15 minutes to hunt. So I took up an elevated position on the deck. I immediately spotted a rabbit, 3 oclock, at 38 yards. I rested the reciever on the deck railing, took aim, fired.
This is where it got strange. You'd have thought I shot a muzzle loader it was so smokey. I shot the rifle last week and only ran a dry patch through it so the barrel was clean of oil and "pre-fouled" for the season opening shot. After the smoke cleared sat the rabbit, looking at me. I slowly opened the breech, looked down the barrel, lots of unburnt powder, and slid in another round. I took aim, this time resting the receiver in my hand instead of on the deck railing (incase the railing was making it bounce) and fired. There was more smoke than usual but the rabbit did a back flip. I had just enough time to skin it before I had to leave.
But I left wondering what in the world caused the first shell to be so smokey. When I got home I opened the breech to push a dry patch through it and found the bore was full of unburnt powder. These were Winchester black box supremes (not good for rabbit, tooooo destructive!) that were a year old that I was using up, only had 8 shells left in that lot, all of the others (3 50 round boxes) shot fine. For 2 in a row to shoot bad I must have gotten them wet or something. Guess I have some more shells for the colt 22 mag dispatch pistol...
This morning I was up early and reloaded the stock shell holder with winchester silver box ammo. At 7:00am a grey tree rat came to withen 15 feet of me on a low limb but I didn't have a clear shot, too many leaves. He busted me and ran to the top of the tree and started to wag his tail. He was sitting broadside to me, looking forward, not directly at me. I placed the bullet just under his ear and down he came. (lucky off hand shot!!!)
30 minutes later I caught some movement on the ground to my right. It was a rabbit around 15 feet away, broadside. I pulled up the rifle, took aim at his melon, and pulled the trigger. He ran off. I felt so stupid!!! When the shot rang out the cross airs were just ahead of his eye and down a bit. The scope is mounted 1 3/4" above the bore and is zero'd for 20 yards. At 15 feet, or 5 yards, the bullet is 1 1/3" below the cross airs so the bullet went 1 1/3" below my POA so the bullet went just under his jaw.
One of the reason I like iron sights over a scope, the sight plane and bore plane are much closer together...
But, there's meat in the fridge, marinating in steak sauce, ready to put on the grill tonight!
I can't wait for the upcoming 3 day weekend. I feel like a kid a 1/4 my age!
later,
scruffy
