Who shoots 22s up up and away

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Moose02

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I always hear squirrel & coon hunters shoot up with their rim fires. Who here will take a shot on a squirrel if its up a tree with a 22 or 17.

Personally I don't, I feel allot of my shots would be far to horizontal to the earth for a safe shot. A 410 is my tool of choice for squirrel killin business
 
For years my squirrel gun of choice was a Crosman .177 pistol pellet gun. IT provided my dog with hundreds of squirrels. One summer Itchy (brother was Scratchy) had at least one squirrel per day. Itchy had his last squirrel this year at age 19 (human years).

Now I usually shoot with 12gauge and occasionally .22 because where I hunt there is no one and no buildings within the "lethal" 1 mile radius.
 
When I was a kid I shot at a bird up in a tree. My dad was watching me though. He kicked my butt all the way home and took my .22 away for a year.

I learned that bullets are never to be fired up.
 
Moose02 said:
Haha thats pretty good i have a similar story with my dad. I learned pretty fast robins aren't a game bird
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Nice. Dad's are pretty good that way. I learnt that you don't try to impress your slightly older (cooler) cousin by shooting old miniature windows out of 100 year old sheds. Got the palm of the hand to the cheeks for that one. And the loss of the gun for a couple of months.
 
I know. We live in a world where the scare tactic is used for everything.
But I have never heard anything so ridiculous as being afraid to shoot a 22 rimfire straight up, because it might come down and hit you!
The odds would be something like one in several milion that you could drop a 22 bullet on yourself, and if you did, it would be about the same sensation as being bit by a fly. No, probably not that bad.
Go out with a boat on a glassy lake with a 22 and a box of shells. I will bet you can't drop one bullet close enough to you, to be visible when it hits the glassy water, with your fifty trys!
Years ago the US military wanted to see how long a 30-06 bullet stayed in the air. They went out to a platform on on a hight tide flood area and set up. They used scientific leveling defices and calculated any upper air wind speeds. After about three days of trying such things, and never getting one bullet to hit the water where they could see it, they gave up and went to a machine gun! With the machine gun they had success.
They also determined the damage a bullet may due on returning to the earth. They concluded that a 700 grain bullet from a 50 calibre gun could be lethal.
A normal, heavier hat, would protect a person from injury from the 150 grain fmj 30-06 bullet from a 30-06.
You people who are afraid to shoot a 22 in the air, how could you possibly stand the dangers of getting out of bed and driving to where you shoot?
 
For me the concern would that shooting at anything more than horizontal to the horizon doesn't provide me with a known backstop so to speak. If I keep my .22 roughly level, I will be able to see what I hit. If I shoot it at a 45 degree or greater angle skywards, it could actually travel that "mile" that they warn us about on the back of the box.

So, no I wouldn't shoot a squirrel in a tree with a rifle because I won't know where the devil the bullet is going to land. And even if it has zero energy when it arrives, I'd still be pissed off if an errant bullet landed in my picnic.
 
I dont think people are concerned about hitting themselves. Thanks for the fun facts tho...

I was taught that, plain and simple, if you didn't know where your shot was going to go if it a) overpenetrated or b) flat out missed, you didn't shoot. Seems to me you have no idea where the parabolic course of your shot is going to take it.

.22 or .50 cal, you're still launching a hunk of hot lead into the wild blue yonder. How would you feel if something came out of a blue sky and hit you, a window, your dog, your Mom, etc.
 
I do it all the time. Just line up the bullet path with a thick branch or trunk. Or get about 6 squirrels to line up. The 6th squirrel stops the bullet!:D

Pellet rifle...I don't worry about it.
 
No I don't do it normally, again I could if I knew I was safe for a mile. BUT I am not overly concerned about it, a 30 degree angle will give you max distance by the way (45 actually fights gravity too much)

What I often wonder about is Cougar hunters shooting their centerfires up a tree, and many people would never think twice about shooting at a ridge line with a centerfire.
 
1/2 the worlds population would be dead if this was a major concern given that 1/2 the the world celibrates by loosing off their semi auto.s full autos into the sky. And what was the death toll during the 2nd WW from .30 cal and 20 mm. spent ammo fired over the UK and Europe by aircraft.
 
When I read the posts I had no idea people were concerned about hitting anything except themselves.
I guess we are talking about two different worlds. Where I have shot at things in trees there wouldn't be one single sole within the range of a 22 rimfire. You are talking about bush. The chances of a 22 bullet from a long distance arcing through bush, then hitting someone is rediculous.
The postings talked about being under the tree and shooting nearly straight up. Completely harmless.
As has been mentioned, there were milions and milions, or hundreds of milions or thousands of milions of machine gun bullets shot in the air from aircraft dogfights in WW2. I never heard of anyone recount of even one person ever being injured from these.
Anyone returning from his hunting, or travels in the bush, is milions of times more likely to get hurt on the way home, than he was from his, or someone elses long range bullet hurting him.
 
Stats, stories and opinions aside, it is simply irresponsible (and illegal) to shoot a bullet if you don't have absolute certainty it will land safely. When you shoot it upward it gets difficult to be certain where it will land.
 
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