Need Help on a Beaver gun?

Longwalker said:
.22 Hornet is about ideal, and .22 RF mag is very close 2nd best, but I have shot beavers with everything from .22LR ( inadequate for anything but a perfect head shot ) to .308. A varmint bullet is safer than a big game bullet because they will likely open up and fragment even when hitting water. A ricochet from a big game bullet might go 4KM and is too dangerous even in sparsely populated country in my opinion. I believe that the 22-250 that you do not want to use is a better choice than a 30-30.
Accuracy is very important, since a beavers head is very small and only half of it is above water when they are swimming. I want a beaver rifle to group less than 1.5" at 100 yds, I think that would leave out most SKS and similar surplus rifles.
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Spoken from experience

Accuracy is extremely important, every miss makes them more wary. IMHO the best rifle would be an AR15, but we live in the land of idiot laws and fudds who say "why would anyone need that?", but I digress. A semi auto is a benefit as beavers that have not been hunted may not dive after the first shot. I got a young one this year that refused to dive after the first two misses, the third found it's mark.

Optics are a good idea as well, even a large beaver only presents a small moving target. While I don't have a picture one of my nieghbors shot a large one west of my place and he weighed in at a staggering 92 lbs:eek:

Beavers are a solid animal with a thick skull. 22lr head shot will not usually kill a large beaver outright and follow up shots are necessary after they inevitably resurface.

I plan on purchasing a mini14 target model with my beaver bounty money. 223 is a good varmint round and the mini14 target is said to be AR15 kind of accurate. As I said every miss will decrease your chances for sighting them. It is very important to make every shot count is you plan on hunting at the same time of evening. Beavers will change thier habits and activity times to protect themselves from being shot. Generally they become very active just before dark. I find a few hours before sunset is a good time to get them at the dam, then just before dark I head to the lodge and paste them as they "leave for work".:D

According to local expertise, though I have no experience with this, is beavers will become much less wary of humans in a boat thant if you are onshore.

YMMV
 
We have a beaver issue with the creek that runs through where I work. We have averaged about 100 - 120 beavers a year for the last 5 years or so. We now have a trapper contracted so no more shooting them:(

I found the easiest way to get them, was to go in the morning just after sunrise or just before sunset, and damage their dams so that there is water runing over it. There is just something about the sound of running water that drives a beaver crazy, they will come out of the wood work to repair it.

Don't go far after you do it, they can have it fixed super fast if you are not right there. We wrecked one and then moved about a km down the road to wreck another, by the time we got back to the first it was already fixed. Total time was about 20 min.

We usually used .308 rifles the beaver we have run large. It is not unusual to get ones in the 80 - 95lbs range here.

Shawn
 
Whenever I shoot beavers these days it is with whatever is in hand. More of a target of opportunity sort of thing. Have shot more than I can think of with a .22. I've had better luck keeping them floating with a .22 as well. That would be my # 1 vote. Just make it count.

I used to have a dog that would dive for them after the shot....I miss Charlie.
 
.22lr should do good with a hart/lung shot on land not much fur damage

i use it for every thing up to wolf/coyote here in southern ontario(becuse i mostly spot them when i hunting small game) chest shot has not failed yet
 
I have shot a lot of beavers in the past and I find you can not beat the 12 gauge 3" mag full of a bigger size lead shot. I find that beavers sometimes come out very late in the evening and with a rifle the sights can be difficult to use with such low light conditions. With a shotgun I never have to worry about missing and the situations always ends with a floating dead beaver.
 
Like the earlier poster. Beavers HATE the sound of running water. You pull the damn apart a bit, and we just stand on the damn dam after and shoot them with OO buck as they swim toward the noise. We've shot 13 on one damn in the space of 10 minutes. OO buck is good as the earlier posted said you don't have to aim perfect every time.

Beavers are just large rats of the water really. As a national symbol it's actually embarrassing once you know beavers.....
 
CreamySmooth said:
Like the earlier poster. Beavers HATE the sound of running water. You pull the damn apart a bit, and we just stand on the damn dam after and shoot them with OO buck as they swim toward the noise. We've shot 13 on one damn in the space of 10 minutes. OO buck is good as the earlier posted said you don't have to aim perfect every time.

Beavers are just large rats of the water really. As a national symbol it's actually embarrassing once you know beavers.....
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I have used the same method with a .17hmr. Quite effective.
 
I was talking with 1 guy who told me his buddy would hunt beavers with a 45/70 he would aim in front of them and let the shock wave in the water kill them.. Not sure if it works though..
 
haha49 said:
I was talking with 1 guy who told me his buddy would hunt beavers with a 45/70 he would aim in front of them and let the shock wave in the water kill them.. Not sure if it works though..
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I am sure it is possible but I doubt it would be effective.

I missed beaver on more than one occasion by less than an inch while snap shooting with .308 win. And the beaver did not die and was not even bothered, just dived and resurfaced 10m down the creek and continued on as if nothing happened.

Shawn
 
Beaver Gun??

On reading the thread title I thought, wow, like a potato gun, but bigger, because beavers can be pretty fat. And once you have a beaver loaded, what are you going to shoot it at? Has anyone ever cronoed a beaver, what kind of ballistics are we talking here? Is there any plans for a "magnum" beaver caliber? Maybe an over/under or side by side because a repeater might present beaver wrangling difficulties... Is this going to be a crew served weapon? Keep in mind that considering the outcry over the raccoon incident in T.O. this might get prohib. status quick; 12.7 maybe, so order yours right away to get grandfathered. How many rounds of "beaver" in one box?

Ok, I'm done.
 
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