It's time for my unofficial official groundhog season, the first nice day after Valintine's Day. This year it was Tuesday.
It had been a boring winter cutting trees, cleaning guns, resighting, reloading. I checked out 4 farms and saw two.
I saw the groundhog on the left a long ways off. I did a really long walk to come around and above him on his hole. I got to 15 yards when he spooked and turned towards me. Notice the blood in his left ear. I hit him there with a 310 gr. SSK cast from my .44 Ruger Redhawk. He was lifted up 6" and thrown back 15'. The bullet exited his right hip. Nice penetration! My .44 Dan wouldn't shoot this bullet. It's gone. The Ruger loves it. 3/4" at 25 yd. sight in.
I went to a second farm an did a walk around with my Quiet Gun (SSK suppressed Ruger MK III). I came upon the 'hog on the right at 58 yds cleaning out his hole. He rested quartering to me. See the blood on his neck. I hit there on purpose with a Rem. 38 gr. HP subsonic to get the big carotid artery in his neck. He ran in a 3' wide circle for 3 or 4 seconds and dropped, belly up. I like this shot a little better than a double shoulder hit because it bleeds out a little quicker.
Life is good again. Will I exceeds last year's kill of 314? Don't know, but I'll keep adding on to my total od 13,666 handgun kills. I love this stuff. Keeps me young (at heart)!
