Originally Posted By: Song Dog AssasinI have a lot of experience shooting problematic gophers with the Remington yellowjackets, and the cci stingers that you used to use. The yellowjackets do the job, but they do not do as much damage as the stingers. Stingers will literally blow a gopher out of its skin, nothing left but a head and some hide. If hit in the head there will be nothing left of it. They do more damage to than a standard hollow point .22 mag when used on critters weighing less than three pounds in my experience. I haven't tried all the rest, but I don't think you'll be disappointed just going back to stingers. They do have a draw back though. I don't use stingers for squirrels myself because they do too much damage, and are overkill in my opinion. For squirells I just use regular velocity soft points and have never had a problem with them dying, even with body shots. For squirlels I prefer heavy, slow, and expanding as opposed to light, hyper, & explosive.
I always liked Yellow Jackets too (even a bit more than Stingers) because they shot a little more accurately out of two of my bolt-actions (both Remingtons). You're definitely right about meat damage! If a hunter is not getting clean kills with regular hollowpoints (subsonic or high velocity), he just needs to practice more and/or hold off on questionable shots. Tree squirrels are delicious (I like them a little more than cottontails myself). No need to damage large amounts of meat. --- Mike