Chipmunk No. 17: No second thoughts

[Mole2017]

Ok, this one is a little more graphic than usual. It is interesting for what it does say about head shots...

I knew the shipmunks were out there still...I have seen them just over the fence in the neighbor's yard and spooked one down by the shed last night. It was only a matter of time. This guy was all the way up to rock wall by the patio this morning when I walked out the back door just 18 feet away. We both saw each other, and I was even armed, anticipating I might run into something this morning as I checked the feeders and put some items away.

Of course, he ducked out of sight. I set down the box of screws I was carrying to the shed, shoulder the Gamo and wait...he doesn't show.
Ok, so I pick up the screws from the cat door stoop (big window sill) behind me and turn to head out...just in time to see him duck out of sight again. He had stuck his head up while I had my back turned. I again set down the screws, shoulder the Gamo and wait...

He sticks his head up a second time and gets it. This is much closer than I usually use the Gamo and I almost held over too much, but when a target blocks the 4 to 6 mil dots in the scope view, you do have some wiggle room...

Over he goes and kicks for quite a long time, but it wasn't until I picked him up and looked around a little that I saw what had happened. Impact was above the right eye, into the right side of the brain. Between trajectory and hydrostatics, the impact opened the top right side of the skull and flipped what was left of the brain onto a leaf behind him, including a mostly intact left cerebral cortex.

So, with no brain left except maybe the brain stem, this one kicked longer than any of them so far this year. He was dead, for sure. Any last thoughts in his mind? Probably not. An out of body experience? Maybe.

[Backyard Airgunner]

Nice shooting.  That is well... just... wow.  You literally blew his brains away. 

[Tater]

Nice job David. He felt no pain.

[aluminumfetish]

WOW !

[dk1677]

Nice shot David!

[shadow]

Cleaning the clock for sure good shooting and pics. Ed

[only1harry]

Nice shot!  This is up there with Sparrows I have shot that were cut in half and their insides were splattered on the leaves or tree trunks.  Same with some Starlings I shot with .25.  The pellet will carry entrails and organs to my backstop a few feet back from the bait.

I 'd say this is probably the most graphic one so far this year if we were having a competition   The smaller the critter the more damage a pellet gun can inflict.

Harry

[Mole2017]

If I had been thinking I should have tried to dump some of the pooled blood in the head just to see how clean it was in there. Looking at the body (still behind the wood pile until the night clean up crew finds it), that is a pretty big skull fragment. It's dried and cleaned some now by the ants and clearly shows the ridges at the back and along the midline of the skull.

A closer look at the rock wall found two items of interest: the impact on the rock behind the chipmunk and, on the ground below that, a fragment of the splattered pellet. In the pellet picture, I've circled the rifling mark seen on what remains of the skirt. The arrows are pointing at the ends of an arc you can make out on the other end. It is actually a distinct ridge: the edge of the pellet head. It looks as though the pellet was turned enough by the time it hit the rock that the pellet turned further and splattered like we see it. It's hard to show in a picture, but that smashed head of the pellet is now big enough to totally cover the pellet shown in the picture. The back of the fragment is badly gouged and scraped--no original surfaces remain.

[Wayne52]

I recently shot a chipmunk in the state land that I've been hunting, it was facing me about 20 yards away, I shot dead at his head (so I thought) and the shot was a little low, it opened him up like like a zipper down his chest cavity and belly, litterally gutted him with the shot.  I didn't post the video because it's really gross with all the guts hanging out. I could do a pic if you like

[Mole2017]

Posting pictures like this is a balancing act. Sure, we warn the viewers here, but we don't want to focus on the gore like bloodthirsty jerks. Yet on the other hand, shooters starting out thinking they're just going to take care of some pests around the yard have to be ready for this.

It's a rare instance the quarry falls over dead without bleeding; blood and motion are more likely than not, and sometimes a follow up is required at close ranges. Don't want to do a head shot at point blank range? Do you know your alternatives, legally and ethically?  I think we can agree that this guy deserved his punishment: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2263806/The-Verminator-Pensioner-hauled-court-taking-air-rifle-squirrel.html. Don't do it if you can't do it right. I read elsewhere that the part about humanely killing a captured squirrel in parts of the UK required bludgeoning it in a sack. I don't recommend that method myself--it isn't easy either physically or mentally. I also read and have tried the way falconers will finish a squirrel barehanded so their birds don't get hurt by a feisty squirrel. That works, though a glove on the killing hand is recommended. It is less brutal than a club, though still more of an "intimate" moment with your quarry than most would prefer.