Rats!!! (off topic)

This might seem a little extreme

But I have been called an extremist. Why fool around. My neighbors don't even flinch anymore.

My first thought was .375 H&H mag, but the neighbors would certainly object....the Beeman is a .177 cal single cock that has just over 1000fps. It has a crack, but I have a muzzle break for it that helps.

Tim

glue trap with peanut butter and then hammer time.

Neighbors? What Neighbors?

They all moved....

We used to have soooooo much fun

Back in the day, all the townships used to run dumps, (now called landfills) out here in the wild lands of N Michigan. A typical evening's entertainment in the summer almost always included a trip to the dump with a .22 and a brick of shells. The rats were always there but became more bold at dusk. As we got older, the caliber of choice became larger and it became a game of marksmanship to set up on one end of the dump and plink the nasty critters on the other end of the hole.

I recall one day when a buddy "took home" an M-16 with 3-4 full cans of ammo from the National Gaurd base 30 miles N of here. Now THAT my friend was a blast. The rats would scurry through the garbage and BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPP....40 rounds in about 4 seconds. The neighbors nowadays would probably frown on that. I'm tellin' you there's nothin' like full auto for rats. Cans and junk and garbage and rat parts flyin' all over. HomeLand Security would haul us all away these days. No wonder kids get into drinkin and drugs and sex these days......... nothin' fun left to do.

Anyway, I doubt that a sticky trap will hold a rat unless you anchor it somehow. Some D-Con or the equivalent mixed in with the bird seed will probably do the trick but it's a lot more fun to bait 'em out at night and plink em'. Use a flashlight covered with red cellophane or a red lens so the light won't spook the varmints and just wait for 'em to come out. Make sure you include the kids in the hunt. Largest cartridge I ever used for rats was an 8MM Remington Magnum. You didn't have to do more than hit within a foot or so and the shrapnel would get 'em. Not very sporting plus the ricochet factor was a concern.Ahhh memories

Here I thought I was a sophisticate, but I might be a redneck

A guy I knew when I was a teenager used to have a music store. He was a great guy... a real character. One time I went in there and he was in the back room holding his finger up to his mouth for me to be quiet. I went back and he pointed to the other side of about a 14 X 14 ft room at a bag of dog food. A second later this big rat stuck his head out around the bag and the music store guy took him out with a 22 pistol. Right in the building, right in the middle of town. Durn near deafened me.

I used to have rats around my place when I first moved in.( Strangely enough, it just occured to me that it was where the music store guy grew up. ) I cleaned things up a lot... tore down some outbuildings etc. One day I saw from my bedroom window a big rat take some dogfood from my dog's dish while he slept in his doghouse. The rat would stick his head out and look around and then make about a foot and a half trip to the dog dish... get some stuff and then back under the doghouse. All I had was a deer rifle so I hiked up the bedroom window and waited... looking through the scope. After trying to follow him a couple times, I finally touched one off at the last second when he made the return leg of his trip.


The doghouse was originally a chicken house, that I made for two chickens, that was made of OSB board and had about an 8" round hole for a door that the dog just fit through. ( the chickens took some sort of mysterious "trip" the first night they were out in it )The bullet hit the doghouse perfectly on the edge of the side piece , cut about a 6 " slot in it and then went inside. My dog came diving out of the hole like he was,... well ..."shot out of a gun".

My neighbor came over with a shotgun, and we set the doghouse on fire, and stood there with guns on the ready. Once in a while a rat would come out of the fire squealin' and jabberin' and one or both of us would take him out. We got 6 or 7 of them and the doghouse was burned to the ground, but still burning. We fired up some cigarettes and stood there smoking, almost like what you would do after sex.


Yeah, killin rats is that good.

All of a sudden another one came out and went straight in my house before we could get it together to shoot him. He went under a cement block back porch with a cement slab on the top. I'm just glad he wasn't on fire. We went under the porch, picking stuff up and throwing it out, making his hiding places smaller and smaller. At one point my neighbor picked up an old potato chip bag and looked in it and the rat came out and scared the shite outta both of us.

Finally, there was only an old washing machine that some guy had pawned off on me. It never did work, but one time my dog bit through the insulation on the cord while it was plugged in. I bet that was a damn dull surprise. I could tell you some stories about that dog... but I digress.

All that was under this porch was this washing machine, a pile of boards that we had reduced to two boards resting on two bricks on each end, and a rat under the two boards.
I called my dog under the porch and tried to sic him under the boards. He was a Dalmatian and although he could and did literally bite through ham bones and eat them, he wasn't much of a hunter. He just stood there looking at my pointing hand and back at my face, wondering what the heck I wanted. After a bit, I got some dog food and threw a couple pieces under the board near the rat. The dog stuck his snoot under the boards, got the food, ate it and back to looking at me and my pointing hand. Never noticed the rat.

Finally my neighbor goes and gets his dog. Now this dog is some kind of other species, about like a bear and hyena ... mean as the devil. Everyone around there knew it would bite you if it had the chance. It slept under an old wooden door, propped up on two stacks of three cement blocks all year long, and didn't seem to mind at all. Half the time it laid out under the snow. There were bones, cans, and even a cow's skull laying around this thing's "home". One night about 3 in the morning I heard it kill a cat that got too close... You oughta heard that. The hair on my neck is standing up just thinking about it. This cat is just making noises from hell, and every dog in the county is barking except the neighbor's. I guess it's hard to bark with a mouth full of cat.


He brings this dog over and immediately him and my dog start fighting. My dog ain't no slouch either. There were little hunks of meat with 8 or 10 strands of hair attached, hanging in several places on the cement block walls by the time we got them broke up, and one of them darn near bit my thumb off. It was scary.

Finally we get them broke up and I get my dog outta there., and my neighbor sics his dog under the boards.


Now, this dog knows the meaning of the words "sic em". He sticks his nose under there and throws the boards up and the rat runs right up the back of his neck, while he's a snappin' and his teeth are just a clackin'.

Couldn't quite get him though, and he goes in the daggone washing machine.

I decided I'd burn the darn house down before I'd let this rat in my house. So we get the washing machine out in the yard and I start flopping it end over end trying to get the rat out. Finally, I hear this deathly squeal, and we tear the thing apart and there is the rat... Dead between the tub and the outside cabinet of the washing machine.

Dunt - dunt- dunt- duhhh!... (that's dramatic music there.)

Sorry this was so long , but I got a heck of a kick out of remembering it.

Steve

17HMR with a Illuminated Mil-Dot 16 x 40

we used to do that too with 22's. It was barbaric and a heck of a lot of fun.

You know I love animals... except for rats. We feed squirrels and poison rats... Never underestimate the power of a good haircut.

I don't know if the glue traps have to hold them I think maybe they're supposed to get their nose stuck in them and suffocate.

22 cal with bird shot!

you'll have fun, I shot a mouse in my kitchen once, 22 pistol with that little birdshot in it, boy its fun to be a bachelor....

ps the shot sands right out of the floor too!

edit: I'd stay away from the poisons, unless you don't like the dogs.

I bagged a bat that way once...

About 25 years ago a bat got in our apartment. My wife at the time was freaking out, rabies and all.

(I swear she later learned to give rabies and not succumb herself, but that is another story

I look up and there is the Caped Crusader hanging upside down from the picture moulding. Perfect.

Rather than grab him in a pillow case, I grabbed my S&W Model 19 2-3/4" barrel .357 magnum. Had a .38 cal. snake load (bird shot) at two feet. OK, no fancy scope feats here, the job had to get done.

If you do go the snake load route, forget it beyond a couple of feet. The rifling will spin a patter wider than the Orion Nebula about six feet out.

Fortunately, Glen

I was renovating the place anyway!

Our tool of choice

Up here we don't have too much in the way of rats...but we've got these pesky little red squirrels...tree rats...that destroy any outbuilding they move into. My shop has no ceiling or walls or insulation anymore. My sons and I, and the occasional wife or daughter, prefer my old Ruger single six with .22 bird shot shells. We've killed most of a hundred of the buggers this year. When they get smarter, we switch the cylinder out for the 22mags and shoot shot shells with the same pistol. Very effective. The 410 is kinda noisy inside the shop...and it makes a mess!

My wife shots a pattern at 100 yards with her little glenfield 22 that I can cover with a quarter...I do not argue with her! We painted it white and stenciled flowers on it so the boys won't use it!

This should do just fine...

Thank you



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Nice

I have a Ruger with a heavy stainless barrel and a 4.5 x 14 Leupold on it and it shots very well. My favorite varmint gun though is my Anshutz .22 Hornet. Gorgeous piece of wood with a 4oz. trigger and it'll print better than I can hold all day at 100. When I get a 3 shot group that a dime won't cover at that distance, I know I've had too much coffee. Favorite load is a CCI primer lighting up 11.7 grains of IMR 4227 behind a 40grn Sierra bullet. Clocks about 2960FPS. I've had that gun since I was around maybe 18 and it cost 3 weeks wages back then. I think they sell for around $1,500+ now. It seems to get better with age.