harvesting farm sheep...subsonic ideas?

jiffydawg

jiffydawg

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not really a hunting related question but thought i would ask peoples opinions here.

friend of mine was asking my advice, he has a small hobby farm and would like a quiet rifle option as his neighbors arent that far off.

a 22LR isnt the best option he was thinking of picking up a 22mag

i said i would look into the option of using his 223 with greatly reduced or sub sonic loads. A quick google search has produced some interesting reading but figured i would ask here.

any other thoughts or suggestions? thanks
 
Use standard velocity 22lr or a 22mag, with the muzzle pressed aganst sheeps head noise will not be a concern. I would not risk trying to dispatch a living animal that size with sub sonic ammo.
 
He wants to slaughter sheep? If he has a 22LR or a 22 mag, a shot to the brain with these will work fine. Most important is that it gets hit in the correct place.

I actually prefer a 45 Colt or a 9mm for most slaughtering, especially animals larger than lambs. It may not be 100% necessary when things go correctly but it makes me feel better.
 
Yeah, I won't use .22 subsonic for dispatching anything anymore; especially 'humanely' dispatching.

Last time I used a cci quiet, was to put down one of our pet ducks. Decent backstop (or so I thought) 1/2 plywood wall into dirt berm, and standard back of, base of head shot.

Bullet bounced off the plywood (from 3' away) and slapped me on the shin, while the duck turned around and gave me a look that said, "You a$$hole! Why'd ya do that? Long story short: yellowjacket is now the bare minimum. Even trapped coons get the HV now.
Canadian_Zuk said:
Use standard velocity 22lr or a 22mag, with the muzzle pressed aganst sheeps head noise will not be a concern. I would not risk trying to dispatch a living animal that size with sub sonic ammo.
Click to expand...
 
To be quiet though when dispatching livestock, nothing beats a good blow to the back of the neck like a well weighted blade.

I've dispatched a pile critters with this one since I bought 'er in 1970 for $7.oo from Woodward's. Feral cats to 300 lb. cows. It don't go bang, but does the job well.:)

The sheep skull here being one of me early dispatches from the 70's. My wife added the paintwork.
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How many sheep at once is this guy going to process at a time? One every so often? Then I wouldn't worry about the noise from a single gunshot. It would just be another piece of ambient noise in the neighbourhood.

If a neighbour is doing a bunch of carpentry, then one more loud bang gets shrugged off as more hammering.

Now, a bunch of sheep in an afternoon might get a bit trickier. The ball pein hammer might be a better choice...once you catch them.

I saw that they were hard to catch? Maybe a subsonic centerfire might be the ticket for punching theirs. Watch the backdrop as an expanding bullet might not expand and just punch through and keep on going.

Maybe set up at the water or feed trough and wait for the appropriate candidate to present a perfect shot?
 
For sheep I would use a 22 short.
More beef cattle are killed with 22 LR than all other calibres combined.
Just hit them at the classic cross in the forehead.
 
Left ear to right eye and right ear to left eye . . . "X" marks the spot delivered at 90 degrees to the skull.
Before I even had started school, my dad and uncle slaughtered a pig. Dad held the pig's right ear with his left hand and he had a large knife in his right hand poised under the neck of the pig.
Uncle was directly in front of the pig with a .22 held obliquely to the pig's head.
On the sound of the shot dad cut the pig's throat and grandmother was there to collect the blood.
 
You know, they do actually make this thing called a "captive bolt gun" that does what you want to do quietly, reliably and safely and you don't have to worry about where the bullet is gonna end up or it hitting anything else if it ricochets or whatever...

FWIW
 
canmic said:
You know, they do actually make this thing called a "captive bolt gun" that does what you want to do quietly, reliably and safely and you don't have to worry about where the bullet is gonna end up or it hitting anything else if it ricochets or whatever...

FWIW
Click to expand...

Watch "No Country for Old Men" for reference.....man that guy was creepy!!!
 
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