Mr Remington and friends

[branxhunter]

Results of a few hours spotlighting Friday night:
 
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The 50gn v-maxes certainly speak with authority. Both chest shot at around 150m.
 
The second one was standing on a tree trunk about 1m above the ground, and in front of another tree.  It was hit low in the chest cavity, and I only found it in the grass after I saw the impressive red mist spray on the tree trunk that had been behind it.
 
Marcus

[JaDub]

Nice work Marcus!   That`s a pretty sweet looking bull barrel.
 
   Jadub

[gitano]

Boy! You guys get great fox shooting!

Pretty animals.

Paul

[branxhunter]

JD,
 
yep, it is a nice looking heavy barrel .22-250 I bought second hand. Shoots well too. I checked the distance of the second shot using the GIS mapping at work - was closer to 250m than 150m, which tallies with the shot hitting low in the chest cavity. I have since moved the scope zero up two clicks.
 
I am not the best judge of distance during the day, but at night under a spotlight I am very poor. That is the beauty of using a flat shooting round like the .22-250 - it can somewhat cover for that weakness .
 
The combnation of the spotlight and scope also helps here - 250m would seem to be near the limit of adequate resolution for identifying the body of a fox. Much further andd all I can see is the eyes. Seems setting the magnification on 8-10 is also best. Higher magnification and the image darkens considerably, while with lower magnification it is hard to pick out the animal. Most pro fox and roo shooters here in Australia would tend to use a fixed 8x56 scope, with many opting for the excellent light transmission offered my the European scopes.
 
Paul, the foxes were very nice looking specimens - strongly built dog foxes with nice thick fur. I would have liked to show you a full body shot of them both. Unfortunately the results of a high velocity 50gn varmint projectile into the chest cavity was fairly gruesome, hence the more "tastefully" arranged photo.
 
There is quite an opportunity to knock over a few foxes at the moment. A couple of shooters spent a few hours spotlighting on my parents-in-laws property two weeks ago (with permission, of course) and bagged an even dozen. They got four in one spot. The State Government here is introducing a $AUS10 bounty on foxes in the coming months.
 
Marcus