Barkin' Squirrel

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

I've successfully barked squirrel in the past with .22LR. However, these were not totally clean kills. That lil' cartridge does not produce enough energy, so I stopped.

Someone on another board bet me a handmade coonskin cap that I can't bark a squirrel off a tree with the .50 muzzleloader. I know I can, but I don't want to blow it to bits in the process.

My charge has been 20gns of FFg for squirrel hunting. Only one I've seen thus far while carrying the muzzleloader was too far out to shoot with this charge, so I passed it up.

My target load is 50gns, and I'm planning on using 70gns for deer.

But when barking squirrel, is 20gns enough to create the shock needed, or do I need to up the charge a bit?

Thanks,

Josh

 

[Vaino]

My squirrel load in my .45 is 30 grs 3f and using this load, this LR has barked 3 squirrels out of the 100s I've shot and all 3 were dead when they hit the ground and showed no wounds. All were big fox squirrels and in fact, only the ears were visible so as a last resort, they were barked. It all depends how much "tree" the ball embeds into...too deep and there's no "barking effect". Barking shouldn't be a preferred shot seeing the effective "target" is smaller than a head shot.....Fred

 

[Pete Gaimari]

Why would you need to bark a squirrel with a .22?

Just shoot it in the head.

 

[KyFlintlock]

Not sure, I shoot them in the head.

 

[Dirk Perry]

true, i just shoot their heads off.
But, if you wanna bark them, do it with a full charge. No need to be easy about it. Good Luck,

 

[Josh Smith]

Thanks folks.

Did it with the .22 just to see if I could.

Always testing my limits, ya' know?

Next up is the muzzleloader

Josh