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Hunting Maybe a daft question but I need to get it out of my head…..

Lurker said:
Ive had small rabbits which are lightning fast duck down and pellets which over their head when using a .177. I cant imagine its even half a second from trigger pull to pellet impact but they are so quick.

Are you shooting the squirrels when they are relaxed and feeding?

Ive had the odd time where I get excited and snatch the trigger. This for me always results in the barrel coming up and resulting in a miss.
Click to expand...
Good point my last few have been youngsters, very wary away from the feeder, would be better hitting them whilst they are happily sitting in the feeder with a peanut in there mouth.
 
A severe angle up into the trees (or down into a valley) will require some cosine mathematics as it won’t shoot the same POA as the distance suggests.
There is a formula, but if you’re not using a cosine angle meter it won’t help you.
So as others have said….aim lower 👍
 
Audi Swift said:
If that's the case, I say that the greys are some how reacting to the shot and moving out the way just enough for the big ass pellet to miss it...
I take it you fire a couple of practice shots off beforehand, and all is OK with you're rig.
Click to expand...
Yep. Gun ii on the money,
 
PistolDan said:
A severe angle up into the trees (or down into a valley) will require some cosine mathematics as it won’t shoot the same POA as the distance suggests.
There is a formula, but if you’re not using a cosine angle meter it won’t help you.
So as others have said….aim lower 👍
Click to expand...
It’s on the level and gun zeroed on feeder distance
 
I’m sure this has been dispelled on here previously.

Assuming a pellet has a muzzle velocity of 500 ft/s (20 grains at 11.1 ft/lb) it takes 0.15 seconds to reach a target at 25 yards/75 ft.

Can an animal react that quickly? I’ve been convinced a rat has moved previously, but slow motion replay of the video (Zulus) has shown my shot to be the problem.
 
Hi, could it be your snatching at the target…? Trying to get the shot in quick etc before it goes? I’m no air rifle expert but shot the odd SA80 & the lads use to snatch at the trigger during range days & lose points? Marksmanship principles? 👍🏻
 
You're looking at an ( optimum) reaction time of a squirrel at ~ 0.04 seconds; figure your pellet is muzzle to target ( 25 yards) in ~0.16 seconds. Combine this with a dose of shooter adrenaline / increased heart rate ( buck fever), possible wind ( slightest of breeze), a critter who is fidgety & a less than perfect trigger pull execution...voila ! Small sums add to big sums in a hurry.
 
Ok, no science here and no way (today) of measuring these theories, but loads of field experience !

Can a crow or magpie jump a pellet ? I’d say 100% (or do they see you move as well), what if you compared .177, .22, .25 and had camera set up to record xx,xxx frames per second ?

The same or vastly different results ?

Can a young rabbit, squirrel or fox cub scare itself (literally from seeing its own shadow or being out on its own for the first time) ?

Those young are well known for kicking about more (than an adult) after taking a pellet / bullet in the noggin ! So are they pre loaded to take off at anything new (to them), or just more nerves ready to fire off and leap about.

Thats the biology bit.

Now technology !

Ok, you need to have used some techy models to relate to some of this, but here goes……

At the basic level, a rifle & open sights (only brain to finger reaction time AND lock time AND projectile to target.

Now add a (glass / no gizmos) rifle scope, same as above ? Yes, I’d say so.

But now let’s jump way ahead
A white lamp
A red lamp (blue, green, orange)
Pulsar (first ones out - the Brick) was it N455 and similar ?
Infiray early NV
Drone Pro

ALSO NOW REMEMBER we only ever used upto here at night as daytime image quality was poor.

But now we move to daytime use too !

Pard 008
Pard 007 (click / click / click)
Alpex Lite !!!!
DNT Zulus

Has anyone noticed with pard 007 especially (but other models too) the recordings on YouTube sometimes the audio clicks like hell and is really annoying…..but not always apparent to the user at the time.

What’s going on there, and how is it fixed ?
A new battery !

But what is going on with the unit ? I’d say it’s struggling with sub optimal battery power) and some performance is compromised. Does that happen at 75% 50% 25% or with cheap batteries always ? Is the audio recording the only thing to suffer, I doubt it !

Who’s ever put a new battery in a NV unit, IR torch, or thermal, and immediately thought “Wow, that’s better”

No doubt varies unit to unit and although manufacturers publish every known (marketing !) number known to man, they don’t publish the delay from reality or actual time. Or the “refresh rate”. Is that always as published, or dependant on battery levels, what if you add WiFi, link the image to a mobile unit, use, ballistics, rangefinder, what temperature was it all at. Do we instinctively like warm or cold batteries ?

Winding back a few years (to older technology) some people (not all) didn’t like certain units as they “didn’t hold zero” at night, but what if really they didn’t process the image (be it at 25, 100, 200, 350 yards) quick enough to still be shooting at what was there a milli second ago !

Compromised batteries, cold batteries, some shooters own reaction times and the different units would all add up to image delay.

A fix for your example, is speed up the pellet, by moving to .177 OR halving the distance, and to a lesser extent using a glass scope ! (Marginal gains).

There is also, getting in tune with the quarry 🐿️ body language to time your shot, more difficult with youngsters as they are more twitchy the whole time. But once they pick up a peanut helps (which takes more bites that a grain of corn or sunflower seeds) as you get extra time to release the shot.

So, I’d say not your imagination, but a combination of the above.

Good luck, you’ll get ‘em !
 
AndyCM said:
Ok, no science here and no way (today) of measuring these theories, but loads of field experience !

Can a crow or magpie jump a pellet ? I’d say 100% (or do they see you move as well), what if you compared .177, .22, .25 and had camera set up to record xx,xxx frames per second ?

The same or vastly different results ?

Can a young rabbit, squirrel or fox cub scare itself (literally from seeing its own shadow or being out on its own for the first time) ?

Those young are well known for kicking about more (than an adult) after taking a pellet / bullet in the noggin ! So are they pre loaded to take off at anything new (to them), or just more nerves ready to fire off and leap about.

Thats the biology bit.

Now technology !

Ok, you need to have used some techy models to relate to some of this, but here goes……

At the basic level, a rifle & open sights (only brain to finger reaction time AND lock time AND projectile to target.

Now add a (glass / no gizmos) rifle scope, same as above ? Yes, I’d say so.

But now let’s jump way ahead
A white lamp
A red lamp (blue, green, orange)
Pulsar (first ones out - the Brick) was it N455 and similar ?
Infiray early NV
Drone Pro

ALSO NOW REMEMBER we only ever used upto here at night as daytime image quality was poor.

But now we move to daytime use too !

Pard 008
Pard 007 (click / click / click)
Alpex Lite !!!!
DNT Zulus

Has anyone noticed with pard 007 especially (but other models too) the recordings on YouTube sometimes the audio clicks like hell and is really annoying…..but not always apparent to the user at the time.

What’s going on there, and how is it fixed ?
A new battery !

But what is going on with the unit ? I’d say it’s struggling with sub optimal battery power) and some performance is compromised. Does that happen at 75% 50% 25% or with cheap batteries always ? Is the audio recording the only thing to suffer, I doubt it !

Who’s ever put a new battery in a NV unit, IR torch, or thermal, and immediately thought “Wow, that’s better”

No doubt varies unit to unit and although manufacturers publish every known (marketing !) number known to man, they don’t publish the delay from reality or actual time. Or the “refresh rate”. Is that always as published, or dependant on battery levels, what if you add WiFi, link the image to a mobile unit, use, ballistics, rangefinder, what temperature was it all at. Do we instinctively like warm or cold batteries ?

Winding back a few years (to older technology) some people (not all) didn’t like certain units as they “didn’t hold zero” at night, but what if really they didn’t process the image (be it at 25, 100, 200, 350 yards) quick enough to still be shooting at what was there a milli second ago !

Compromised batteries, cold batteries, some shooters own reaction times and the different units would all add up to image delay.

A fix for your example, is speed up the pellet, by moving to .177 OR halving the distance, and to a lesser extent using a glass scope ! (Marginal gains).

There is also, getting in tune with the quarry 🐿️ body language to time your shot, more difficult with youngsters as they are more twitchy the whole time. But once they pick up a peanut helps (which takes more bites that a grain of corn or sunflower seeds) as you get extra time to release the shot.

So, I’d say not your imagination, but a combination of the above.

Good luck, you’ll get ‘em !
Click to expand...
How would an optical sighting system vs. an iron sighting system, present any advantage ( assuming both sights are aligned properly on target, at the shot) ? All an optic does is ( assuming parallax set correctly) is place post/ crosshair/ dot ,et al. on same focal plane as the target... I see no speed advantage to the optic. I would make an argument ( at least with a peep sight) that at closer shooting distances, and using optic vs. the peep, that the peep offers an edge in target acquisition time & shot release time, once on target.
 
I’d say iron sights, peep sight, glass scope, all have an advantage over an electronic scope, in actual image your eyes process, BUT usually too small a difference for you to notice.

Pick a poor unit (for this feature) and here how do you know !

Increase your distance.

Slow your projectile.

Pick something twitchy (a young’un)

Use old, cheap, cold, worn out batteries, turn on all scope features and the system starts to creak.

Ok, here’s a thought…..anyone seen “the table for one”, Edgun West, Edgun Leishy and the double taps (hitting a squirrel or similar with two shots !

How can he do that ? There are loads of examples !

He’s running high power, modest distance (for the kit), fast trigger, fast trigger finger, a rifle that can handle the demands. Cameras (with fast fps) set up close and at all angles. So he / we get to see the results, quite an achievement !

Trail cams list “trigger speed” at 0.4, 0.3, 0.2 seconds and help to capture the animal, rather than a blurry tail going out of the area. Does that performance hold at 20 - 40’C and new batteries or full solar charge v -4’C and batteries on the way out….. no way,

We really need zero delay (and a perfect zero), and can move closer to that point (or further away) sometimes knowingly, sometimes showing up through trial and error.

My own squirrel forays are vastly different to those initial outings, a lot of tweaks which knock off milliseconds in delivering an accurate shot.
 
There should be an old thread on here about reaction times of rats and if you can find it, some clever people posted the mathematics and the general consensus was that the rats shouldn't have time to dose the pellet. Not sure about .25 though ? 🤔
 
Sounds like you need to try a combination of slowing yourself down, reducing the distance, also try higher magnification if your scope offers it as your own movement can be masked under low mag. Record your shots and watch them, you might be surprised how skittish YOU are being during the adrenaline kick. Wait until Mr Squizzer is perched and eating if you can.
 
It's unlikely a squirrel would have time to move sufficiently out of the pellets path, (unless you are shooting at 30 yards+, in which case it become technically feasible that it could start to move before impact) most likely as other posters have said there's an elevation issue going on. (Finding safe places to practice shots with a lot of elevation can be a challenge)

If in doubt, or the range is long for a .25, drop down to a .177
 
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