best all around groundhog caliber???

[myronman3]

seeing how its groundhogs day i figured something topical should be thrown out there.  i know that they can be aggresive when cornered, and tough to anchor.   god help you if you encounter  a sow protecting her young;  a charging silver tip woodchuck will make the most seasoned hunter quake.   so if you had a charging groundhog,  what would you want in your hands to save yourself?

[Old Cane]

About a 400 yard headstart!

I think I'd want a 257 Weatherby, but then, I want that for almost all situations. A bit much?

[Bugflipper]

A knife and a fork mmm mmm mmm.

[jd3430]

seeing how its groundhogs day i figured something topical should be thrown out there.  i know that they can be aggresive when cornered, and tough to anchor.   god help you if you encounter  a sow protecting her young;  a charging silver tip woodchuck will make the most seasoned hunter quake.   so if you had a charging groundhog,  what



would you want in your hands to save yourself?

a 50 cal.mag. desert eagle

[bigbore442001]

To me it is a toss up between the .22 Hornet and the .223 Rem. in the Contender. If your shots are mostly under 150 yards, I'd go with the .22 Hornet. A good 40 gr Nosler BT or Hornady SST will do well. If you have a lot of 200+ yard shots, go with the .223.

If you intend to use them for culinary purposes, make sure to trim the scent glands off the woodchuck. This will add an bad flavor to the meat. The glands look like little fat BB's off the back legs and under the armpits.

Put it in a crockpot with a can of mushroom soup or BBQ sauce. It flings a craving on you.

[Mikey]

Oh myronman3, that's a stretch fer ya.  Hoooboy, I gotta run this one past the guyz at the gun club to see if any of them have ever faced a charging silvertip chuck.  I knew a guy once who missed two point blank 30-30 Contender shots at a chipmunk, which then got confused and ran between his legs, but I have never (yet) heard of a charging woodchuck.  

Well, I'm just going to have to wait until the snow melts enough to find some woodchuck dens, arm myself to the tooth with eveything I would need for CQC - close quarters chuckin', and see if they are up to the charge, so to speak.  

But, I'll have to be well prepared - I usually just bring along a 22 handgun for woodchuck but I may have to rethink my strategy.  

Heretofore and formerly underchucked Mikey.

[Old Syko]

Believe it or not, a whistle pig can be more than a handfull if cornered or cut off from his hole.  Many, many years ago while bringin in tobacco from the field to hang in the barn, we had a city boy on the wagon that didn't know better.  We spotted a ground hog about 75yds. from his hole.  This city boy says WATCH THIS!  He bails off the wagon and runs for the hole down in the flat.  When he got to the hole first he thought he won, then the hog got there.  Long story short, many stitches and an operation to repair his achilles tendon in 1 leg.  

Whatever you do, know that they can and will become dangerous if they feel threatened but a 22LR is all you need to calm them down.

[Double D]

Best Chuck calliber?  Can't tell you yet, haven't shoot all the calibers out there on chucks.

Tell ya one that isn't that great, 50 BMG.  22-250 AI with V-max bullets works better.

[jhalcott]

I usually lie in wait and kill them with a 6.5jdj with 85 or 120grain bullets from about 200 yards away.I have also been known to shoot them with a 44 mag from on top off a hay wagon.A 22 Ruger works good as a walk around gun though!  jh

[myronman3]

the canon below double d's title could be about right.   i like the post about the 50bmg.    anyhow,  i was just funning anyway.  trying to liven things up as i was stuck in the house with junior(and it is cold as hell up here lately).    catch you all later!

[S.B.]

Mine would be a hybrid S&W that I built a few years back. It's a model 15 frame with a K22 barrel and cylinder reamed to .224 Harvey Kay Chuck. I mounted a Leopold 4x scope for best accuarcy. The more I shoot this thing the better I like it.

[MonteSS]

I just bought a 22-250 15" SS Encore barrel that I plan on using I am going to mount a Burris 3x-12x scope on it after I send it back to the factory to have the balisti-plex installed on it. They only make that in the matte scope not the nickel one which is the one I wanted.

[volshooter]

Since we hillbillies eat every groundhog we can get nothing more than a .22LR is used. Half the fun is sneaking close and putting a .22 through the head.
Rick

BTW they taste like roast beef when treated like any good eating meat should.

[Double D]

myronman3,

That 50BMG vs 22-250 AI was real test we did on Montana rock chucks

We sat up a bench about 250 yards from this old derilect homestead and were shooting chucks off the roof and out of the windows.  My buddy decide he wanted to shoot one with his 50 BMG single shoot.  He told  me I would have to call the shoot because he hadn't sighted the gun in for a couple of years.  

My friend fired and I called his shot about 4 inches high. The other guy with us said "how do you know, I didn't see anything."  I told him to look at the wall behind the chuck right over his shoulders and he would see the hole through the wall and the mountains behind the house through the hole,  He paused and said "yep, see it, 4 inches"

My friend adjusted his sight picture and shot again.  Got him I said.  The other guy said "no he didn't, the 50 cal would have blown it ot smithereens. How do you know?"  

"I heard the whop".

My friend put the 50 down and picked up the 22-250 Ai and popped a chuck of the ridge line of the roof. Pieces and parts rained for about 5 minutes.

We walked up and checked the 50 chuck.  It was dead. Looked like somebody wacked it in the neck with a shovel.  Ho-hum.

[myronman3]

i needed to hear!  it is cold again today and that story brought a bit of warmth to me.    i wouldnt expect a woodchuck to cause much expansion of the 50 cal.   but i would expect that woodchuck to die.   thanks for a great post! :-D    :-D  :-D

[HBL]

I'd have to go with the 6mm-223 or the comparable 6mmTCU.

Bob Milek used the 6mm-223 for a pretty much all around caliber. Reading his articles back in the 1980's is what turned me on to Contenders and the 6mm-223.

[Bowhunter57]

Since this is a handgun forum, I'd have to say that a .357 Mag. is very good at stopping g-hogs. It's easy to control, accurate and with the proper reloads it has excellent stopping power.

I used to reload some "hot" 125gr. Jacketed Hollow Points at over 1500 f.p.s. that did pretty good at "thumping" those g-hogs. However, a buddy of mine showed me a load with a 158gr. Jacketed Hollow Point loaded at 1300 f.p.s., but he used a Jeweler's saw to cut an X across the hollow cavity that cut into the jacket approximately 1/16". This load would nearly cut a g-hog in half.  :grin:

Good hunting, Bowhunter57