Click to view attachment

I've been hunting this guy for a couple of weeks. I believe him to be the same one occupying a section of hilly dairy farm that is only occasionally used for the cows to graze on. The one or two openings are found at the base of the hill that is approximately 50- 75 yds high, the others are at mid point of the hill.

The day was partly to mostly sunny, cool and breezy in the mid 60's after four days in the 80's. I was camo'ed up after getting busted twice before by this guy. I guess I can't expect them to be stupid all season. I was able to scan the hill from a distance and could see half the hillside was clear. I walked up the hill using it as cover as much as I could while I scanned over the remaining portion of the hillside.

Suddenly, I saw some movement down on the base of the hill. I ducked down. I started crab walking, crawling, forward slowly. Eventually I saw him in the grass at the base of the hill just in front of his hole. I moved forward enough to set up my shooting sticks and sat down. Took the time to set up comfortably. Lasered the distance, just to be sure. The nearest tree was 60 yds. Good enough. Adjusted the magnification on the Zeiss Conquest 2.5-8x32mm to 6x. There didn't appear to be anything that might deflect the bullet like a fence wire or branch. Steadied up the crosshairs on his head and squeezed off a 30 gr V-Max .22 Mag CCI.

Bang, flop. Chambered a fresh round just in case I needed a follow up. As I walked down to him he disappeared. I approached the hole and he was headfirst in the hole, with just the last twitches. I poked him with the muzzle to be sure, then I pulled him out by his tail and tossed him on the grass for the post mortem photo.

Nice shot. It takes a pretty tough little varmint to make it back into the hole after taking one in the noggin.

Yep. Makes me think I was off a bit. I didn't look closely today. True enough, when things get splattered properly, there not much movement.

Hey Dog is that a Sako? How do you like it?

Yes, it is. Sako Quad Synthetic. I'm very happy with it. The only mods I've done on it are to change the firing pin springs for a more powerful set from J & P, (it was recommended by the guys at Sako forum @ Rimfire Central, I didn't have problems that required their replacement) and I had my gunsmith install a thick rubber recoil pad to increase the length of pull and to get rid of the original slick plastic butt piece.

Trigger is great. It is adjustable, but I left it just as it came from the factory. After all it is a hunting gun. Breaks clean, no creep.

If there is a problem, it was that the only ammo that I found so far that I can shoot accurately at 100 yds is the 30 gr V-Max CCI or Hornady or 33 gr Remington. I have to do some more testing with the 30 gr HP CCI "Green" which has shown enough accuracy to warrant more testing. All other ammo has shot crappy at 100 yds. I didn't test at 50 yds. I wasn't looking for a 50 yd gun.

NICE!!!!!!!!!!

NICE!!!!!