They're dropping like rocks....

[eekjellander]

I’m acquainted with an older gentleman in Oklahoma that’s kind of developed a new sport and is killing crows at close to 100 yards with a shotgun. His handloaded ammo uses #2 shot, and the barrel on his gun is 34”. He uses a .675 extended turkey choke.

I‘ve gathered the components to reproduce his ammo and have a .675 turkey choke, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

100 yds? I think at that distance that shot would bounce off or tickle , wonder how many get hit and die later /much later ? Must suck to get shot and get away and then die knowing some cowboy is getting his giggles off and wounding / crippling just because ./sorry Ed

 

[brad502a]

Tom, you should never dry fire a springer. It could rupture the piston seals. FYI
PS As far as I am concerned crows should have an open season.

 

[eekjellander]

100 yds? I think at that distance that shot would bounce off or tickle , wonder how many get hit and die later /much later ? Must suck to get shot and get away and then die knowing some cowboy is getting his giggles off and wounding / crippling just because ./sorry Ed

But then again some would find gut shooting deer funny too/Ed

 

[MrTom]

Love it retrieverman! There's nothing like a big ole black poof. My late season pheasant gun was an 870 with a 34" trap-full barrel on it and I shot 3" deuces. 80-90 yard shots were a snap and I never had a runner.

 

[Bphunter1974]

In the early '80s there was a crow roost at Ft. Cobb, Oklahoma, that attracted literally millions of crows. They roosted on a peninsula that juts out into Ft. Cobb Reservoir, and there were so many of the dang things that they literally broke the branches off all the oak trees on that peninsula, as well as on neighboring farms all around there. A bunch of my artillery school buddies and I found a farmer who was happy to have us come and hunt them because they were destroying his woodlots and fields, and we had a great time shooting them on the wing in the evenings as they returned to the roost. On a good evening each of us would shoot around 50 birds.







As far as I know nobody ever figured out why the crows gathered there, and I don't know whether or not they still They do. I've seen piles of dead crows 10 ft high there.

 

[Bphunter1974]

22/250 with sierra 52 gr hpbt they look like black dandelions poof and its everywhere

 

[WP79Vet]

I’m acquainted with an older gentleman in Oklahoma that’s kind of developed a new sport and is killing crows at close to 100 yards with a shotgun. His handloaded ammo uses #2 shot, and the barrel on his gun is 34”. He uses a .675 extended turkey choke.

I‘ve gathered the components to reproduce his ammo and have a .675 turkey choke, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

I'm willing to bet that a lead #2 pellet will kill a crow at 100 yards.

#2 shot is effective on geese out to about 65 or 70 yards, and if you've ever plucked a goose, their outer feathers, down, and the thick layer of fat on their breasts add up to about an inch that the pellet has to penetrate before it does any damage. I've seen a #2 pellet go through all of that plus maybe 1 1/2 half or more inches of breast muscle, then the breastbone, and into the lungs at 65 yards or so.

So... I'm thinking that a #2 would go all the way through a crow, even out to 100 yards. A crow is mostly feathers, so if the pellet hits anything solid, it's gonna kill the crow in fairly short order. The big problem is gonna be getting a dense enough pattern to have a reasonable chance of getting even a single hit at 100 yards.

 

[WP79Vet]

Here's a link to an article on the Ft. Cobb crow roost. Fort Cobb Reservoir Offers Stiff Test to Crow Hunters

 

[kerryman71]

Not only that, it sounds like the shells were handloaded. Gives you some room to tweak it to your needs.

 

[GLenn]

Interesting article WP79Vet. It reminded me of when I was a kid growing up in the country of eastern Virginia. Wow, that was over 50 years ago!! There were a few of us who would get together to crow hunt. I had a crow call but wasn't very good with it but could manage to get a few to come and with any luck we could get one or two. Then we would move a mile or so and set up in the next likely looking spot. If we were lucky we would cripple one with a broken wing. Then that one would make a racket flapping around on the ground trying to escape and all his buddies would be "dive bombing" him trying to help him out. That's when the shooting got intense!! Then one day one of my buddies ran down the cripple "decoy" and we carried that one to the next likely looking spot. That live decoy made a world of difference!!

 

[bronko220002]

Rochester NY? Auburn had/has a big problem and the had competition with prizes for a few years. People from out of the area got bent and put a stop to it, locals loved it. Brought money into the area and reduced the problem.

Sounds like MA. There used to be coyote hunting competitions here until people got all upset over it, now there are coyotes frolicking in backyard playgrounds and tearing Fifi to shreds!

That's the trouble with this world. People can't mind their own business. If your mayor had a set he would have told those whiners that its our town so go pound sand.

 

[TransYank]

YEP, back in the stone age of the 1970's once a year the local horse farms (Think Kentucky Derby) Would invite a bunch of us on their farms for a Pigeon shoot. They were considered pest. You would get assigned a spot at a feed lot or a stock tank. Take a 20ga or a 12 and given as many free shells as you wanted and shoot all day birds would keep flying from 1 area to another. Because of new people from city moving into area was stopped because of animal rights groups. Now they just put poison out and it kills all birds but know body hears shooting...

 

[snapbang]

I was watching a movie the other night. THE MOTHER I think. In it the daughter didnt want to eat venison because of the violence she witnessed in its death. The mother told her if she eats today there has been some sort of violence in bringing that food to the table. Bravo. Surprised me.

 

[Okie Hog]

Grew up in West Virginia in the 40s and 50s. Every year we re-planted the field corn, sometimes more than once, because of crows.

For years the crows hung around on trees just outside .22 Hornet range. Then i inherited a scoped Winchester model 70 in .220 Swift from an uncle killed in a logging accident.: The crows moved way out.

 

[MrTom]

Gotta love the long arms of a 220 Swift.