EDgun .22 and squirrels **graphic**
As some of you may know I love EDguns. My love of the Matador came long before I started selling them. I have tried other brands (almost all of them) and I just like the Eddie the best. The only real conundrum I have is choosing calibers. California ground squirrels are gnarly zombie creatures who will come back to life and crawl 200 yards to a waiting hole in the ground. They will attack and eat wounded squirrels, drink blood and eat exposed brains. For the most part even raptors don’t bother them. They really different than squirrels most of you may shoot and eat. These nasty critters serve only as coyote bait. The easy choice is the .25 because of the higher energy and as a result cleaner kills. Today I wanted to try the .22 again on the four legged zombies. I left the .25 at home and headed out to shoot some squirrels with the Eddie in .22. My ammo is as always the 18.1 JSB shooting a velocity of 915 FPS.
I have shot 1000’s of squirrels with the .25 Matador. My experience level with the .25 matador and squirrels has gotten to a point that I don’t really use the range finder or Strelok anymore. I know from how many Mrad the critter takes up in my scope reticle for ranging and I know how many mils holdover is required from memory. The margin of error is pretty forgiving with the .25. The day started out rough for me. I hadn’t taken a squirrel with the .22 in quite some time. The first 5 shots resulted in wounded squirrels. I didn’t bear tooth a single zombie squirrel. At this point had I brought the .25 along with me the .22 would have gone back into the green case and I would not have had a story to tell. I had to make it work.
With my rangefinder in hand and Strelok open on my phone I went back to basics being careful on each shot and making sure I was choosing the right anatomical location to place my shot. Basics led to success and success bred the opinion that the .22 when properly used can be just as effective as the .25 caliber Killing squirrels with the .22 caliber forces the hunter to be more precise. Precision that includes proper technique, an accurate gun, understanding of external ballistics and trajectory validation beyond standard figures published from JSB or Hawke optics. After today I believe more than ever if an airgunner wants to effectively use a smaller caliber on fur game he must put in the work before hunting. The investment of time, equipment and practical practice (chronographs,rangefinders, a computer and shooting from various positions ) will pay dividends in the long run. Because I knew the exact BC of the JSB 18.1 in my gun at various ranges I was able to still edge out long range kills with the .22 caliber. The .22 caliber EDgun always does it’s job. A marksman equipped with quantitative and qualitative data will be in a much better position to do his job. This allowed me to focus purely on my technique (breathing, focus, grip, trigger, head position, and parallax) and not worry if my holdover was correct. Misses are now correctable because many of the potential variables have been eliminated.
So why go through all this just to shoot the .22? Well the short answer is noise, shot count, cost and of course fun. The long answer is maybe you want to have one gun, something for the backyard and the field and you may have been wondering if the .22 was effective on tough furred game. It may be a little more work but after a little bit of practice and bench work you can kill at extreme ranges. It wasn’t that long ago that the .25 was an oddity. Airgun authors used to write the .177 was for feather and.22 was for fur. The .25 wasn’t in consideration. I am not abandoning my .25 Eddie anytime soon but it is nice to know that the .22 is still a real viable option.
Good day overall, some squirrels still lost..
Hard hit at 75 yards
Longest shot of the day, 112 yards. Still extremely effective with a properly placed shot. Notice the energy made the eyes explode.
You can see from this photo not all were head shots, if properly placed .22 can be effective in the body as well.
This puppy Coyote was following me so I felt obliged to throw him a squirrel
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Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
Ks, would the 34gr .22 work in a R3M with single shot tray installed? Is there such a thing out there?
SD on that 34gr .22 is .1(point one). WOW!
Regards,
DT
Question…do you think the pellets are too light at the larger calibers?
DT
I think they are too light and too short. Short and fat is never a good combo even with pellets :rofl: To me the shape of the new 34 grain .22 looks promising. The tough part is to find a repeater that will shoot them.
Hi Guys,
My theory involves pellet sectional density and effect on target. Based on what I have been able to determine while SD is inherently low for pellets it should translate into effect on target (just like rifle projectiles) and be a good indicator of results on furry critters. The higher the SD the bigger the critter can be taken (to a point)
I calculated out the following for commonly available pellets with interesting results:
.30 50gr = .079
.30 44.75gr = .071
.25 25.39gr = .058
.25 33.95gr = .077 (better than the 44gr .30 and right there with the heavy)
.25 43.2gr = .098 (Eun Jin design velocity probably an issue at longer rangers unless driven to 850 + may not be suitable for Eds)
.22 18.1gr = .053 (very close to the standard .25)
.22 25.3gr = .075 (better than the standard .30)
.22 14.3gr = .051
.20 13.73gr = .049
.20 14.3gr = .051
If the above is a good reference then the .25 is a real killer from 33gr up to 43gr (see comments) with the 25gr .22 close behind. If you factor in the BC, ability to feed thru mags, shot count, I think the .22 and .25 are probably as good as it gets for the Matador line. If the 43gr .25 is to long and inaccurate then it can be eliminated. Curious if anyone has tried this one? Its a beast!
The 50gr .30 would hit hard but is slightly behind due to frontal area, BC, etc. Subjectively I love my .30 but it would need to weigh close to 60gr to match the SD of the 43gr .25. If the 43gr is gone then the 50gr .30 is king by a slim margin but is single shot, hard to find, somewhat range limited (not sure about real time BC), and has a lower shot count.
Question…do you think the pellets are too light at the larger calibers?
In a nutshell the .22 and .25 don’t give much up to the .30 and are still excellent choices for small to medium furry vermin
Regards,
DT
Keyser, your experience and thoughts parallel mine.
Having killed thousands of CA ground squirrels with my original .22 Edgun and thousands more with my .25 Edgun, they both get the job done but .22 is more picky when it comes to shot placement for sure. CA ground squirrels are rather tough as you noticed, and with the .22 there are more “crawlbacks” if your shot placement is off for any reason. The .25 drops more of them “right there” even if your shot was a little off, the .25 just dumps more energy into the target.
The .22 does have the noise, shot count, and cost per shot advantage though over .25, and for an “all around” caliber it’s tough to beat. My Edgun is used 75% of the time for ground squirrel eradication or hunting of other critters so I kept the .25 and sold the .22 even though the .25 isn’t as neighbor friendly in my backyard and it tears up my target backstop much quicker.
Killed about 250 ground squirrels last weekend alone at a friend’s walnut orchard, couldn’t believe how over run he was and how many times I had to go back to the car for more air and more pellets. It was the “busiest” day of air rifle ground squirrel hunting I’ve ever had! Then again, I think I only managed to make it out there only one time last year and they breed prodigiously. I’ll be back there this weekend for sure even though there aren’t nearly as many running around anymore!
Yes it is private land. Pest control for the owner. My work prevents poison from being used.
Great shooting and post. I agree with you. I started with .22 to hunt squirrels and other prey and thought I needed a .25. So, I purchased an Edgun .25 and a Cricket .25. Ended up selling both and going back to Edgun R3M .22 which is the most Accurate air rifle that I own today. The .22 is a great hunting round and shot placement is the key. I too, shot 2 gray squirrels last night, didn’t even leave my yard. :4:
RIP zyzz
Keyser, is this public or private land?
Excellent work there, a lot of dead squirrels. Wish you made some videos.
Edgun is my favorite too. Really want to get one in 25 cal but unfortunately I haven’t been able to, very few distributors and none is interested to send to my country. Got a Vulcan .25 without any issues. Vulcan also has few distributors but they are really good at it and are enthusiastic to sell the product.
G’shootin Tex!!
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A single tray R3M = an R3 :biggrinn: An R3M would be a bitch to single load. The opening is tiny and it’s only half open due to the breech design.