mark williams 7,550 Posted May 16, 2014 Report Share Posted May 16, 2014 I was chatting to Darcy briefly on the HL forums and a little statement said to me (that i find so, so true) was this - .22 offers absolutely no benefit over .177 "unless" a person isn`t accurate. atb Quote Link to post
RemyBolt 420 Posted May 16, 2014 Report Share Posted May 16, 2014 Wow, we've gone off track here. Time to refer back to the original post. If you were to use a .22 for those same shots, you would cause more damage, break more bone fragments, and cause greater compression on the rat's brain. However, the odds of guaranteeing that it would have taken out the rats faster is ZERO. Don't forget, a rat will have it's synapse chemicals running around it's body, and when a lead pellet passes through the skull (scrambling the brain) it's going to twitch out. This is one of the reason you get the 'air running' and 'helicopter tail' when you get a clean shot. The same is true with runners. I've have .22 pellets smash a skull, perfectly, and the rat has julted and bounced in the air. It was 100% dead, but the nervous system was discharging as the brain was scrambled. Think about chopping a chicken's head off. It runs about because the nerves are discharging. The same with rats. It just so happens that you had 2 with the same response. Don't feel like the reason for the rats running off was because of a bad shot or your choice of calibre. It was simply because of the biophysiology of rats and their reaction to being smashed in the head with a high velocity lead pellet. Some drop stone dead (rare), some helicopter tail, some jump around, some run then drop, some air run, some roundabout (run in a circle a few times then drop stone cold). One of my personal reasons for preferring the .22 for ratting, my Crosman 2250 is nice and compact, so it's easily manoeverable through a barn (called a 'house' where I shoot...what the hell is that about?!?! It's a damn barn!!!) while my .177's are larger and less manoeverable, so not my choice for ratting. Quote Link to post
ghillies 209 Posted May 16, 2014 Report Share Posted May 16, 2014 ive shot loads of rats with the .177. I think im just trying to justify the fact that I fluffed 2 shots on the bounce, because the zero had crept off. sometimes your 'body' aim goes a fraction of line when your sat or stalking rats in the dark.. like that night when you realise your in the wrong feild lol. Quote Link to post
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