Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Small Game If you ever have need of really quiet squirrel hunting, try CB caps, shorts or longs

More than enough power for squirrel, and plenty accurate. Out of a rifle, it sounds like you're using an air gun. Try it.

Used to keep a single shot .22 rifle in my deer stand to take squirrels, rabbits and the occational coon that came to the feeder. Used CCI Mini-caps and shot several times with deer feeding nearby (less than 25 yards away). The deer would sometimes not even look up when the rifle fired unless a falling squirrel landed too near them.

Some "kentucky windage" was nessisary on shots much over 20 yards due to the rainbow trajectory of the slow-moving bullets, but they were deadly up to 40 yards if you could hit the target. At longer range the bullet seldom exited even a small animal like a squirrel and the squirrel would sometimes run 15-20 feet before keeling over, but many a stew was had at the deer camp without disturbing the surrounding country.

My preferred squirrel getter is a .22 CB Short. Friggin' awesome, and I've been touting them here (and elsewhere) for years.

I have been 'harvesting' squirrels in my back yard. I use CCI CB longs. One shot kill every time, at no more than 25 yards.

When I lived in NY, I had a pretty big wood behind our house. It was totally natural woods, and it was somewhere between five and ten acres. I did a lot of squirrel hunting in there when I was kid. Where I am now, though, although I have 3/4ths of an acre, I have no wood plot adjacent to the property. It's houses in every direction, so don't feel totally comfortable doing it, but when I see all those squirrels in my oak trees, I am sorely tempted to get my rifle and harvest myself some squirrels. I'm sure, though, that I could do it from just inside the car port, and shoot up into the trees from there with a CB round in a scoped .22, and I'm sure no one would be the wiser. Might consider it, if I could get a shot where, if I missed, it would just lodge in the thick part of the tree trunk.

TRH-

I live on an acre with many pines but some tall ash trees and I have used CBs - both longs and shorts - for a long time out of my Anchutz. Mostly I have shot starlings and black birds when they migrate through in both the fall and spring but they will kill rabbits easily with a body hit and squirrels too with a torso/head hit. They are remarkably effective, are quiet, but must still be used with care. They are the only reason I haven't sprung (no pun intended) for a good airgun.

Gdv

I also used to use BB caps which is a very short case - shorter than the 22 Short's - with a 22 BB placed in the case with just primer for the charge. These also work although at lesser ranges but the main problem as you can imagine is the BB often falls out of the case there just being too little purchase on it. They also are so short and small it's difficult to load them into the chamber if you have big mitts.

I went to the CBs exclusively and they aren't any louder to my ears.

gdv

Exactly. In fact, I did most of my squirrel hunting with a Beeman .22 scoped air rifle back in the old days. I think the CBs are just as quiet, though (out of a rifle), and probably just as effective. One day, I've got to get a place with some woodland acreage again.

You mean like these? They work in my bolt action rifles too, but you have to load them directly into the chamber, i.e., they will not feed from the mag.

Well, yea, except I've never seen "BB caps" with anything other than a BB loaded in them, hence the name. I've not seen the cone-shaped projeciles loaded like that; I would think that those would be better all the way around than the "BBs". Yes, you need to load them individually directly into the chamber - makes it difficult to sort out a charge.

Gdv

That wasn't my experience. I shot a good sized cottontail pretty solidly in the torso with a CB short. The gun was a K-22 with a six inch barrel. I heard the pthunk as the round hit. The range was about 20 yards, from a secure seated position. The rabbit jumped straight up in the air, did a full flip, and landed "dead" on his back. As I approached the "dead" cottontail, it suddenly wasn't so dead anymore, and flipped back around to his feet, and darted off. I hit it again on the run. He kept running. Finally, he forced his way deep into some brush, where I had to plug him three more times before he was dead. I never tried CBs on cottontails again after that. I would only use them for squirrels, and then with head shots only.

Yes, indeed. Nothing more dangerous than a wounded squirrel.

By the way, those bullets I illustrated travel fast out of both a two inch revolver and a rifle, but a little faster out of a rifle. They go plenty deep into wet phone books. Here are some recovered bullets from those rounds. The larger bulle is a 30 grainer from a CB Long, while the other two are from the rounds in the picture, one fired from a rifle (more deformed) and the other from the two inch revolver.

Brer rabbits run with the bellows punctured just like a lot of stuff and I would bet you would have found him properly defunct had you given him a minute or two. But, yes, the CBs are not "stoppers", even on a cottontail. Actually, I think squirrels are quite a bit more tenacious of life than the bunnies.

You must be a heck of a handgun shot.

Gdv

Well, you know how shot distances tend to expand as the years go by. LOL. I remember, from landmark to landmark, exactly how far the shot was, but not the actual distance. I just tossed that out off the top of my head, without putting much thought into it. Let's just say it was a challenging distance with a six inch revolver using CB caps. I remember I was standing at the start of a fence line, and the cottontail was about five feet past the other end of the fence line, just on my side of some thick brush. Let me alter the distance estimation to about twenty paces. When I saw the rabbit, I sat down, rested my elbows on my knees, and took my time with lining up the sights on my, by that time, cocked S&W. Yes, I was pretty darn good with the gun. Shot it constantly in the basement range way back then. I was proud of the shot.

Yeah, but with squirrels, I've always aimed for the head with a scoped .22 rifle. You either kill them on the spot, or miss them entirely, that way. But, I've seen squirrels hang onto life too. One I shot in one ear and out the other, and I thought I missed because it was still hanging onto the trunk of the tree. As I approached, its grip became weaker, and it started sliding down, still sort of gripping the tree though. By the time it reached the ground, it was dead as a door nail, with a hole in his head. I was pretty amazed by that.

I use the CB Longs quite a bit in my S&W Airweight Kit Gun. Pretty quiet, even out of a revolver.

It's a crying shame Eley no longer imports the Zimmer Long Rifle load (40 grain @ 800 fps). I still have a box or two I'm hoarding. If you run across some, buy 'em.

I used CB "longs" on squirrels for a good many years when they were chewing up my bird-feeders to get at the bird-seed I feed the wild birds. Most of the time, the bullet exited the squirrels and I saw it kick up the dirt on the other side of the squirrel. The squirrels tended to die fairly quickly after being hit through the torso at 30 feet or so.

But lately, I've been having a lot of fun terrorizing the squirrels and the deer (which are eating up my landscaping) with a paint-ball gun. Now... if a squirrel sees me pass the kitchen window (on the way to the back door), they scatter like crazy... running wide open and dodging back and forth to get away. They've learned to do "broken-field-running" to escape direct hits with the paint balls which apparently "hurt" if they get hit by them (which is rare).

However, I've hit squirrels squarely with the paint-ball gun... and the paint-ball's weight and velocity (305 fps) knock the tough little "tree rats" sideways with any kind of solid hit. But the persistent little rodents always show up later or the next day for another "try" at the black oil sunflower seeds in the wild bird feeders.

And shooting them with the paint-ball gun is a LOT more fun than killing them with a .22 CB cap... so that's what I do now. But, in a way, I'm just "getting even" for all the harassment and destroyed bird feeders they've caused me over the past 25 years I've been feeding wild birds.

Revenge IS "sweet" !~!~!


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

I've not tried CB caps but did go through a brick of Aguila Colibri. I'd shot a few starlings out of the top of a 60 pine tree - no exit wound. I never really considered them for squirrels or rabbits. For that I use a Ballard in .38 Spl. With 2.8gr. Unique it is subsonic and QUIET, much like std. velocity .22LR in a long barrel. What I really like the Colibri for is quiet indoor practice. If I'm working in my shop and need a break or get a little frustrated with something, I shoot a group offhand at 25'. Groups will run 3/8" out of my Martini sporter. The backstop is a FedEx box about 3" thick and stuffed with shop cloths. The recovered bullets go into the lead pot. This thread reminds me that I need to pick up a couple more bricks...