Most of y’all probably remember this unique set up from the post with all the Boomershoot rifle pictures
Well, yesterday the designer of the very odd looking, but apparently very effective device stopped by.
Bruce Da Squirrel Hunter
The Tripod with the polished longitudinal weight runs is correct. I developed a system to control recoil and rise of the barrel of this Rem.700 .25-06 shooting a 115 Grain Berger VLD pill. On testing it seemed that crude weight out in front of rifle worked best so I developed a sliding weight system to be able to dial in the correct weight resistance and not have the barrel rise on ignition. This rifle is shot “Free Recoil” with no hands on, simply look through the scope and squeeze the trigger with two fingers and the rifle has a recoil of a .22 long rifle without movement and without loss of sight picture so you can see the bullet impact and I can self correct without a spotter out to the 650-700 yard line.
My next step of development will be a rear micrometer adjustable windage and elevation control to put the cross hairs exactly where I want them.
This whole system was built to reduce heartbeat impulse generated by human input for exacting accuracy on squirrels out to 600-1000 yards.
It works.
I have no doubt of that, Bruce.
“exacting accuracy on squirrels out to 600-1000 yards”
‘Cause them squirrels can be darn dangerous if you get much closer! 🙂
That would be a dang long walk to retrieve your kill though.
No, this isn’t an attempt at a “Zumbo” criticism…
When it takes a precision machine to rest your rifle in in order to hit your game, you are just a bit too far away. I’ve never hunted squirrels in open country, always in the forest or the margins of the forest, but I find I can usually get to within 50-75 yards of a squirrel with a clear shot to take.
If by “squirrels”, the gentleman means ground squirrels (i.e. chipmunks), my experience tells me that if you take a stand and keep quiet, they will ignore you if you are 20 yards away.
So, IMHO, it would seem that the gentleman hunts his squirrels at this extreme range just because he wants to, not because he has to in order to fill his game bag.
A rifle fired from a machine rest of this nature is no more a hunting weapon than a Peacekeeper ICBM is, it is just an extreme extension of unlimited bench rest shooting. Very useful to determine the accuracy of bullets, charges and rifle barrels, but not much else.
At that range I’d rather hunt squirrels with a squad of Mortar tubes.
heh.
but then, I’m more of an artist than a engineer. Cool gun, my friend.
Rivrdog,
Hunting Belding’s Ground Squirrels is much like hunting prairie dogs. Ground squirrel shooters, like many varmint hunters, enjoy the sport because of the vast multitude of targets. It is, in fact, a lot like shooting boomers, with a slightly different sort of explosion. 🙂
But, as with prairie dog towns, the nearer targets quickly vanish from the vicinity of a loud rifle, and one has to proceed out to the squirrels at the longer ranges.
It’s not unusual on a good day at a good site for a pair of squirrel hunters to kill several hundred squirrels if they’re good shots. And the ranchers love them for doing it.
See here: http://www.varmintal.com/ahsto.htm#Ground_Squirrel_Shoot
Money quote: “In four days, we only hunted about 10 percent of the ranch land area that we had permission on and probably got about half of the ground squirrels on the area where we hunted. The three of us got about 1,140 total. Using that estimation, there are approximately 21,600 Belding’s ground squirrels, sage rats, or picket pins (whatever you want to call them) still running around in the alfalfa fields of those three ranches. That is a lot of squirrels and they do tremendous damage to the fields.”
As far as the usefulness of this skill set, IIRC there’s a segment in Unintended Consequences where some elderly, less-abled varmint hunters use their skills with great effect on some very distant ATF folks.
Interesting take on sage rats. I run with a gunnie crowd that is into shooting them, and their standard arm is a heavy-barrel .22WMR boltie. Most of the ranchers in E. OR do NOT want a gunner shooting at those huge ranges mentioned. The typical rat-shoot involves a shooting table, rifle rest (although no one has a micrometer rest) and a sun cover.
The average shot for sage rats is 110 yards, and sometimes, one of the guys will take a shot out to 150 to 180.
Even .223 Remington is frowned upon for carrying too far, and when I suggested .243, I was told no, because the group would have to get all their permissions renewed.
They get plenty of rats at the shorter ranges.
As for Unintended Consequences, it’s diff’rent strokes here. When the SHTF, I will want to see the faces, and I will want their last looks to be at mine…years of abuse does that to a man.