Favorite squirrel rifle?

It was an old Remington 341, boogered up with a Weaver side mount and a K3. That little gun taught me a lot.
It has a great system for raising the cartridge into position and sliding it forward into the chamber. That elevator looked like it was designed by a munitions engineer for handling heavy shells aboard a great battle-ship. But it delivered shorts, longs, and long rifles to the chamber without making a mark on the soft lead.
The side mount allowed the line of sight to maintain a consistent, constant parallel with the bullet's flight. Wherever I held, the bullet would strike 3/4" right of the crosshairs. Handy, predictable, very useful. The 1" crosshairs did not obscure the target.
The old K3 was correctable for parallax by sliding my face back along the stock until it vignetted.
The old gun taught me how to get the most out of a crappy trigger many years before I ever felt a good one.
For many years it was my one gun. With one dog as my witness; many squirrels could attest to the old saw about the boy with one gun. It burned an awful lot of Remington "Target" standard velocity ammo when I could get the stuff. Other kids had plainer or fancier guns; but mine would shoot. So I bought ammo with my earnings, instead of other guns. There was something about those times I could afford two bricks a week that just seemed to make it shoot better.
It was all the gun though, not me. The really good shooters wrote stories in American Rifleman, Sports Afield, and Field & Stream. Sometimes I could buy those magazines second-hand for a dime. Otherwise, every cent I could cage went down that barrel of that old gun.
It stayed with me through college, through girlfriends, through cars, motorcycles, jobs, through success and failure. It was more faithful and honest than many of the people I have known. It always represented to me a personal best. With that same faithful, honest dog as my unimpeachable witness, it fired a single 5-shot group that I eventually learned not to talk about.
Half a century later, it is within reach as I type this. I wish another kid could learn from it those lessons of restraint, respect, control; to experience the keen, intense observations of the hunt, the confidence, the wonder, and the years of exploration and discovery that shooting it initiated for me. The certain knowledge that all our words and actions bear consequences; that once a word or a bullet is released, you can never call it back.
But no, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Chucky Schumer, and hundreds of 'wiser' men than me will keep our youth "safe" from learning those lessons. Maybe I'm all wet. Maybe our high-priced specialists in childhood education can teach a distant biology, a canned botany and consequences of "inappropriate behavior" far better than a kid can learn from a dog, a patch of woodland, some orchards, and one of those awful guns. Sorry; whatever I start turns into something like this. Corey Ford, Russell Annabel, Rudyard Kipling, J.M.Pyne, Chas Dickins, Minutes of The Lower Forty, The Road to Tinkhamtown; Other folks have said it better. Exit, Laughing. Old men ramble too much. I'll shut up.
 
Village lights, I have to agree with TnTnTn great read and I would love to see a pic of that straight shooter!

I wish times were different ...I wish my children could enjoy the the outdoors as I did as a child, but times are different now we must watch everyone and guard our children...I still try to keep good family values and teach my children right from wrong and also how to fish/shoot and fend for them selvs!

again Sir, a great read
Jonathan
 
I've been using a 10/22 with bull barrel and Vortex Diamondback scope for the past couple of years. Before that I was using an old Marlin Gleenfield that was passed down to me. It looks like I am really missing on some other rifles [beeep].
 
remington model 5 here. looking at getting a H&R sportster in 17 hmr. gotta tell ya its kinda tough to find one. love my model 5 though. absolute tack driver
 
Originally Posted By: JonathanVillage lights, I have to agree with TnTnTn great read and I would love to see a pic of that straight shooter!


Indeed.

I wish more posters would use a tenth of the "thought" used in that post! Great read.
 
Winchester m75 target
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I haven't hunted bushytails in a number of years.
However, between my early-teens & my late 30s, I loved to hunt them.

I used a variety of .22LR revolvers, semi-auto pistols, .22LR pump rifles, single-shots, semi-auto rifles & single shot .410s.

But, I'd have to say I put more squirrel in the frying pan with a Marlin Model 60 than any other.
Sweet guns, & I never had a jamming issue.
One I had, only had open sights.
One had a el-cheapo 4x32 scope.
The other had a cheap Tasco 3x9x32 on it.
 
Growing up my grandparents bought me a Savage Mark II and it has been a great shooter. I added a 3-9x30mm scope to it and its taken plenty of squirrels, rabbits and prairie dogs. Now I have a Smith and Wesson 22A that I have been taking for small game lately. While trapping with my dad in high school him and I would take turns at squirrels and rabbits with his Iver Johnson .22 break over revolver.


I know that this isn't a gun but Kodiak Magnum slinging flu flu's with judo points are pretty fun for squirrels.
 
Here is my second favorite Rifle it's a Remington 40x USMC with a aftermarket bolt and a jewel trigger. The gun is heavy for a 22 rimfire and with a 2oz trigger 75 yard head shots are not usually a problem. The target below is typical ten shot group shot at 50 yards.



 
I've followed this thread as it progresses along and today gave it a little thought. I have, and have owned over the years, all sorts of candidates for a "favorite squirrel rifle." At this point in my life I get more pleasure from a nice autumn squirrel hunt with a slim and comfortable old Marlin M39A cradled in the crook of my arm. This rifle wears a Williams’s receiver sight and is deadly in the woods.

 
Well, I have used a number of good guns over the years. Winchester Mod 37 in .410ga, my great granddads single shot 16ga and later my grandpa's Mod 37 in 12ga. Light, handy, effective. My first rifle was an Ithaca lever action, single shot. I shot it so much that I hardly missed anything within 100yds. When I was 10, I could walk into the local dime store and buy a box of Remington .22LR for cheap and hunt all season with it. The boys in our grade school class would hunt early before school and stroll into the classroom right before the bell rang with the gun over one shoulder and the squirrels over the other. The teacher would remind us all to be sure our guns were all unloaded and leaned in the rear corner of the room out of the way and to put the squirrels away until time to go home. Different times. Try that today and a kid would end up with SWAT in his face and would be on the 6 o'clock news.

Today, I am using the new .17 WSM in the Savage B-mag. Nice shooter. Very effective but a little too much for squirrels. But fun. I guess my favorite is the one that works.

Irish

 
Over the years I've popped a lot of Squirrels and Rabbits with my old Springfield/Savage model 39 that I earned when I was the ripe age of 10...



While my step dad and other family members have had, and I've shot on occasion, fancier and possibly nicer, firearms in the .22 gender, this is the one that I have the fondest memories of carrying and shooting...

I have a couple of .22s that would possibly do as well and I enjoy shooting almost as much, none have the memories that time has given this one..

Those being my Walther Sportmodel V single shot..

and the old Remington 121 pump that I picked up from another member here..
 
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