If that 22 would have been in my hands and we were planning on Squirrel for dinner , we would have been mighty hungry !:rotf:

Grandfather was right beside me the first time I plunked a deer . Had my brand new 700 BDL 243 WIN with a Frank Special Bushnell Scopechief IV 2.5-8x on top , doe was about fifty yards away and he told me shoot her a little bit above between the eyes . As he was almost finished saying it the gun boomed the deer dropped and the hole was where he told me to put it . Granted he’d carried me all over creation that summer shooting groundhogs with my nice new 243 shooting Remington 100 grain CorLokt factory loads .

This Remington always looked like the proper squirrel gun to me --

Attachment 111904

now that is a squirl gun....mighty nice....charlie

When I was a kid I'd sit on a hillside of oaks on my Pappy's farm and pick them off one-by-one with the Winchester 67A. Shoot half dozen, take them to the "skinning tree", give them to my mom and she'd quarter them and brown them in butter. I can still smell the kitchen. :)

That’s what I started with ! Winchester 67A bought the gun for $15 when I was seven , I saved up $7.50 and my pop paid the other half . My father refinished the wood and my grandfather cleaned the metal and cold blued it . As some might say , that 67A was the start of my downfall and a lifetime of ruination in guns and hunting Bwahahahahaha :rotf::rotf::rotf::rotf::rotf:

I'm teaching my oldest grandson how to shoot with the 67A and the Winchester low-wall. He's taking to it like a duck to water. He's 7 and he's already ringing steel at 50, 70, 80 and 105 yards. He's the fourth generation to use that 67A. :)

I had a single shot 20 gauge Stevens when I was a kid and I killed a lot of pheasants, bunnies and a few ducks with it but when I hunted squirrels I always used the Remington bolt-action .22 with a cheap Weaver scope that my parents gave me for Christmas in 1958 when I was 10 years old. That was a deadly little rifle and I would always try for head shots. I hate lead pellets in my meat, once having cracked a molar on one. Even when shooting grouse and woodcock I try to lead them enough to minimize shot pellets in the breast meat. I am often successful but not always.
Took the head clean off a grouse two seasons ago but this year in Maine I killed a woodcock somebody else must have peppered with lead shot as I discovered a pellet in the breast meat. It was a No. 8 Rio pellet and I was shooting RST 8's…. :whistle:

Incidentally, that woodcock breast is almost overdone!




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When I was a boy I had a JC Higgins Tenite stocked .410 S X S. My Dad owned and ran a big country store. He sold shells and cartridges, and I'd use the 11/16 oz. 3 inch loads for squirrels, in size 6. I killed a lot of squirrels and rabbits with that little gun, and sold the squirrels for $.25 each. I know it was illegal to sell game, but I did. The shells cost me $.12 apiece, at the time, AIR. if I had to shoot twice I broke even ....... not good.

One CHRISTmas I asked for a .22 rifle. I was given a new Remington Nylon 11, a bolt action, clip fed gun. I could get .22 ammo from Dad for not much over a penny apiece. I reasoned that I was going to get rich market hunting squirrels, rabbits, and an occasional 'coon. I abandoned the .410 for the .22, and never looked back. Never did get rich market hunting, however ............

The lady my grandparents worked for kept race horses and fighting cocks . She also paid a bounty on hawks and groundhogs . My grandfather supplemented his income killing hawks and groundhogs . This was in the 50’s and 60’s , she paid $5.00 for a Hawk and if memory serves $3.50 for groundhog tails . At the same time or county paid a $0.50 bounty on hawks . So my grandfather would turn his hawks in to the person at the farm that handled that part of it then cut the heads off and take them to the county clerk . All he ever used were a couple 22 Hornets and a Remington Model 722 in 222 REM I still have .