Predators

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JimT
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Predators

Post by JimT »

We have been having issues with raccoons getting into the chicken feed and the dog food, tearing stuff up and generally being a nuisance. There are several large families of them living on the river and they raid like a pack of bandits most every night. Desiring to put a stop to them, I checked over the armory to see what would be a good weapon to use to discourage their depredation.

Thinking of how Sixgun liked the idea of the Bersa for gangsters and hoodlums, and since I was dealing with the animal equivalent of that, I chose the Bersa Thunderer in .22 Long Rifle. Amazingly, in a couple weeks I shot 5 raccoons with the Bersa at distances from 76 all the way out to 304 mm! One-shot kills! This is an amazing little machine. Made in Argentina, it seems to work very well. The only thing I did to it was remove the awful magazine safety that would not allow the gun to fire if the magazine was removed. Oh, I cut off about 10 pounds of recoil spring so it functions reliably with most any ammo. It was certainly picky before that.

Accuracy? You bet. I can keep them inside an inch at 450 cm easily, most going inside a half inch. That's inside the shop, shooting in bad light where I can only see the white dot on the front sight kind of fuzzily.

This Bersa has got to be a Pocket Rocket! :lol:
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Scott Tschirhart
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Re: Predators

Post by Scott Tschirhart »

Big Dave has killed 11 of these critters with my old Ruger this month. One shot apiece. These were from today.
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Scott Tschirhart
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Re: Predators

Post by Scott Tschirhart »

But your story is more impressive!
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JimT
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Re: Predators

Post by JimT »

Scott Tschirhart wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 5:36 pm But your story is more impressive!
Not if you translate the distances. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Predators

Post by jeepnik »

While my dedicated bunny gun, this works very well on everything up to and including yotes.
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Re: Predators

Post by junkbug »

Three inches to 12 inches. Are you finishing them off in traps? Your mixing of metric and SAE in the same sentence is interesting.
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JimT
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Re: Predators

Post by JimT »

junkbug wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 6:01 pm Three inches to 12 inches. Are you finishing them off in traps? Your mixing of metric and SAE in the same sentence is interesting.
It was intentional ... :D
Yes ... been trapping them. Caught possums also but let them go. They are not destructive on the feed like the coons.
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Re: Predators

Post by piller »

The raccoons are raiding. It is also skunk mating season. Between the two, I would rather have the raccoons. Those dead skunks stink it up for more than a week.
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Old No7
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Re: Predators

Post by Old No7 »

And here I was, thinking this would be about "two-legged predators"....

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Re: Predators

Post by AJMD429 »

After spending several hours getting bit by mosquitoes and trying to hold still as it got dark, several days in a row, trying to shoot a raccoon that was getting into our animal feed (this was before red-dot or laser sights were readily available, too), my veterinarian friend suggested “just use a live-trap”, and I remember thinking how it always annoyed me that people would trap animals in the city and turn them loose on us in the country. So I told him I didn’t want to just relocate them somewhere else to become a problem there.

He just looked at me and said “...it’s a lot easier to shoot them in the morning when it’s light out...”

:oops:
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Re: Predators

Post by crs »

As much fun as it is to shoot them, we had the same problem on a deer lease once but we were not around all the time.

So we set leg hold traps under or around all our feeders. Before the season began, the problem was solved and we had used the dead ones to feed a lot of scavengers. No raccoons all deer season.
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44shooter
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Re: Predators

Post by 44shooter »

Just a question but are raccoons a managed and regulated game animal in your states? In North Carolina there is a season and bag limits.
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Re: Predators

Post by piller »

In Texas they are pests. Like coyotes.
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Re: Predators

Post by 33wcfshooter »

Jim might want to thin out the possums too. We had some cattle go down sick a few years ago and the vet came to the conclusion that it's something possums spread (sarco cystosis). I guess they'd seen it in horses (EPM) before but it was a first in cattle. Just my 2 cents but after loosing a few cows ever possum I see is a target of opertunity.
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Re: Predators

Post by JimT »

33wcfshooter wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 2:40 am Jim might want to thin out the possums too. We had some cattle go down sick a few years ago and the vet came to the conclusion that it's something possums spread (sarco cystosis). I guess they'd seen it in horses (EPM) before but it was a first in cattle. Just my 2 cents but after loosing a few cows ever possum I see is a target of opertunity.
Hey thanks! I did not know about that.
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JimT
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Re: Predators

Post by JimT »

44shooter wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 10:46 pm Just a question but are raccoons a managed and regulated game animal in your states? In North Carolina there is a season and bag limits.
Here in Texas landowners can take care of pests on their own. You are not allowed to harvest the fur. If your are gonna hunt or trap for fur there are seasons and licenses involved.
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Re: Predators

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Jim....the raccoons are hungry!...they don't have reasoning powers and as a farmer/rancher you should know better that to leave food where animals can get to it.....for over 40 years I kept the horse feed ...whatever feed...in a little room that was even rat and mouse proof. It's called 1/4" rat wire.

So you go off and kill those critters because they are hungry, want to feed themselves and their families all the while these animals do not know right from wrong.....and your baiting them!!! You are evil!!!! Would you do the same if some poor folk (people) who knew right from wrong were stealing a partially eaten bag of chips you left on the front seat of your truck?????? :D

But....and a BIG but....because I'm a devout Roman Catholic I know everyone makes mistakes, the Lord has contacted me by "Direct Access" and told me to be easy on you as you did tell the truth and it was a BIG TRUTH...VERY BIG...that the Bersa was accurate to 16 millimeters! :D .....the "300 millimeters" is a bit far fetched.

I think you made the whole story up as I'm surprised that South American j.u.n.k. even fired. Bersa! Pot metal j.u.n.k....I'd rather have a piece of 1/4" I.D.conduit, slip in a .22 CB cap and whack it with a hammer than I would a Bersa, Rossi, Taurus, anything-from-Italy. :D

Hey, ya know somethin'? We are both pretty good at telling stories.

Always great hearing from the Master.--------006
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JimT
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Re: Predators

Post by JimT »

Wow! I have been cornered by my sins!
OK Sixgun ...
I will say 3 Elmer Keith's, 2 Bill Jordan's and at least 1 Charlie Askins.
And promise not to shoot anything J.U.N.K. again, insofar as my Confessor Sixgun supplies me with at least one 1st or 2nd Generation Colt or an early Winchester 92.
.
.
.
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Or a foreign replica thereof.

:lol:
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Re: Predators

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JimT wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 12:51 pm Wow! I have been cornered by my sins!
OK Sixgun ...
I will say 3 Elmer Keith's, 2 Bill Jordan's and at least 1 Charlie Askins.
And promise not to shoot anything J.U.N.K. again, insofar as my Confessor Sixgun supplies me with at least one 1st or 2nd Generation Colt or an early Winchester 92.
.
.Or a foreign replica thereof.

:lol:

ANYBODY but Askins....from what I've read he was a person who just liked to kill people who were not up to his standards....but...I only read those things.....yes on Elmer, cool on Jordan, and my Number 2, after Elmer..Skeeter (and any old Colts you have there into the confession box). and Ill see to it that you are purified of all sins.....

On a serious note Skeeter was responsible for me scouring every area of Pa. for 44 Spl's....

Funny thing, I have no second gen Colts....I've stumbled on to a few and as usual they were rare variations such as the last one, a 7.5 nickel .357 and a first year NIB 38 Spl from '56. I sold them for about 3x what I paid for em.

I noticed you didn't ask for any 3rd gen Colts.... I don't blame you....once you get used to 1st gens anything else is "just a gun". As far as foreign j.u.n.k. Is concerned I wouldn't even use that stuff in place of rebar when building something out of cement....afraid it would taint the cement bond......

Back in the day when the state of Delaware was building the Delaware Memorial Bridge some "associates" had to get rid of a few people who didn't pay up on time. Uncle Luigi told his guys that "before you throw the stiff in the cement, make sure there's no Rossi's on them as it'll weaken the cement.
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Scott Tschirhart
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Re: Predators

Post by Scott Tschirhart »

Sixgun wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 3:20 pm ANYBODY but Askins....from what I've read he was a person who just liked to kill people who were not up to his standards....but...I only read those things.....
I knew him in his later years, and I don't think that the stories tell the whole story.

Heck, you can read things about me that would curl your hair. While there is some truth to it, much of it has been embellished for obvious reasons.
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Re: Predators

Post by Sixgun »

Hey Jim....just saw an ad for a company buying used Bersas and Rossi's.....

Just call 1-800 Sanford & Son. :D
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Re: Predators

Post by piller »

If Colts were so good, why did everyone else have to improve upon them so that they would work? All the old WWII Colt 1911s I have seen were worn out junk. Other companies made them right. In the Army, the Officers may have been on average only a 90 IQ, but even they knew to always draw from the Armory a 1911 that wasn't a Colt.
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Re: Predators

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piller wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 1:30 am If Colts were so good, why did everyone else have to improve upon them so that they would work? All the old WWII Colt 1911s I have seen were worn out junk. Other companies made them right. In the Army, the Officers may have been on average only a 90 IQ, but even they knew to always draw from the Armory a 1911 that wasn't a Colt.
Ahhhhh....your wrong.......I've been on the money end (collecting end) of good guns my whole life....and it always quality in materials, accuracy, and dependability along with rarity within each variation that brings the big money. The only difference in military 1911's that changes the status quo in money is rarity in numbers made and condition.....durability and reliability is never talked about between the different manufacturers of military 1911's as dependability was never an issue....the exact same condition or conditions governs all U.S. military guns......they are either known as good guns or the stuff Sanford & Son buys......j.u.n.k...a.k.a. Rossi and Bersa.

By the time you were involved probably every 1911 was beat up and rebuilt 20 times
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Re: Predators

Post by Griff »

"Captured" this guy on the front porch the other night!
Nocturnal Visitor.jpg
And he was back last night... but didn't make all the way to the porch... didn't catch him, except on the security video!
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Re: Predators

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Re: Predators

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It could have turned out worse.
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Re: Predators

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Re: Predators

Post by piller »

A lightning strike might even cremate Sam McGee.
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