Well, I have had a lot of snow here this year and the rabbits are really having a tough time to find enough food. Everything is buried here under 20" of snow or more. My fruit trees are suffering as well as the garden plants my wife has planted. These buggers are chewing the bark off of all the trees and simply mowing down anything they can chew.
My TX200 is so nice I hate to drag it around in the nasty very cold weather here now. This hunting is all spot and stalk, not my typical method of hunting from the hide. I looked things over and decided that with these bunnies holding so tight in the brush believing they cannot be seen as you walk by them. I might try an alternative to my TX200.
I happen to own a Pneumatic multi-pump pistol made by an American Company called Sheridan. I bought this in 1977, it's a classic by today's standards. During all those years I have changed a couple things on this gun. I honed the trigger to perfection and added a wide ribbed trigger shoe for a better trigger pull. Then I had the back of the receiver milled to accept a Millet Click adjustable target sight. This was fantastic. No more drift adjustment and mini-set screw to hold it on zero.
It's a .20 caliber, I am using 14.3 Crossman premiers which chrony at 490-492 fps with 9 pumps. This generates the 7.62fpe mentioned in the title. Head-shots to 15- 20 meters are not all that difficult and have never failed to decide matters upon impact. On occasion in the brush, I'll miss and the bunny will duck down and flatten out but not run. This makes the wish for a barrel cocking springer huge! Instead, I must pump back up and load with my frozen finger tips to handle the tiny pellets. Surprisingly more often then not the rabbits sit frozen still, thinking they are invisible.
The extreme cold here which is below zero F, seems to keep these bunnies locked down when they hide, allowing much closer than normal approach. The snow brightens up the landscape and allows you to see the dark colored rabbits in the white background much easier as well. In any case, the background is laid out here for you to understand my conditions. I have found that using this elderly pneumatic pellet pistol is quite effective on bunnies within the ranges that are responsible. I have not calculated the FPE at 20 yards or meters, but whatever that number is, shows 100% successful disruption of the controls in a bunnies noggin.
I shot 4 yesterday, none moved more than an initial launch to the sky, and 7 today for which none moved more than a meter of spinning or instantaneous kicking for 2 seconds. I had the bulldog puppy with me on these walks too. He is never more than a meter from me when I walk, he never barks.... not ever? I'm not sure he can. When we walk up to fetch the rabbits he is amused and curious but not as interested as a terrier. A Terrier would try to shred the rabbit corpse's to tiny bits. Oh well, the Bulldog keeps me company and he is only 6 months old. Maybe in time, he will figure out what we are doing. My walks are generally short with him in these low temperatures too. I'm afraid that short hair will cause him to freeze solid if we are out too long.
