How to stop a 22LR

[jim Glass]

I have some kind of animal that visits the crawl space of my cottage. I'll know for sure when I check my trail camera. Once I know what the animal is and what time he goes in and out I plan on an ambush. It will be kinda like a scaled down wild hog hunt. I plan to set up my 223 AR to shoot 22LR and mount my night vision scope on the AR. I have some 22 cal Cebees but that will make the AR a single shot because they won't cycle although one shot should do the job.

I'm thinking about standing up some sheets of plywood down range from the ambush. How many sheets will it take to stop a 22LR. Are there other materials I can easily obtain for a bullet stop? A sheet of steel laminated between sheets of plywood would do the job but there are expense and handling issues with that. I'll plan the ambush on a weekday so there won't be people around but still don't want bullets flying around the neighborhood damaging property.

I'm also going to borrow a trap and plan on buying some snares at Cabela's . The ambush sounds like more fun though.

I'm thinking the animal is either a raccoon or a woodchuck. A neighbor feels woodchucks are moving into the neighborhood. The cottage is just over 100 yards from the Mississippi River.
Thanks, Jim

[kyratshooter]

Best thing to do might be get a tender trap at Tractor Supply and live catch the beast. You can dispose of him as you please after catching it. Having one of those traps on hand in rural areas is always a good idea. I bought mine for the Great Raccoon War of 2013. I still use if for the same thing you are dealing with, uninvited stuff under the house.

.22LR can be stopped by 1/8" plate if it at a good angle. I have a commercial made .22 trap on the back porch and it is 1/8". My bullet stop in the back yard is 1/4" plate angled at 45% and it stops 9mm-.44mag without even making a dent.

Plywood I am not sure about. It would be easy enough to nail a few pieces of scrap together and find out what will stop a .22.

Those guys at the "box of truth" would probably know if you googled them.

[hunter63]

For a backstop in the back of my garage....I used a 4x8 sheet of 1/2 plywood with phone books maybe 1" thick, held on by deck screws.

Shot air rifles and "22 Shorts" ...never went thru....
For arrows added 6" dense foam.

Then they built up around us....that ended that.

How about a curd side single mattress ?

PS.
What ever you do...only take one shot....won't cause much of any interest...most people will just say, "Huh? What was that?"

More than one, they listen to see what it was....

Not saying how I know this.....

[kyratshooter]

OK I went over to the Box of Truth and their testing showed that a .22lr will penetrate 4 thicknesses of 3/4" ponderosa pine and bounced off the 5th board.

That would total to 3.75" of whatever plywood you can scrape up.

Hunter is correct about the one shot deal. Combine that with late night when others are asleep and a single pop is generally ignored. That or throw a string of firecrackers out immediately after you shoot. I would not reduce the load to a CB cap. Use a standard velocity .22lr or get one of the heavy bullet sub-sonic loads. I keep some Fiocchi subsonic .22 around so I won't wake up the Judge that lives around the corner.

Be careful and get a killing shot. Most of the time a .22LR is not going to anchor a critter as big as a ground hog or coon and the thing will crawl under the house and die. That creates a whole other problem! That is why I recommended the trap.

I finally went to a .357 rifle for varminting around the house. A .410 is also good if you can get close.

[Wildthang]

I thought he said he was going to use CB caps? Those hardly shoot any harder than a pellet rifle. I think 1, 3/4" piece of plywood would stop a CB cap with no problem, 1/2" may do it!

[kyratshooter]

It might stop the CB cap but the CB cap is not going to do the job on a ground hog or coon.

[hunter63]

It might stop the CB cap but the CB cap is not going to do the job on a ground hog or coon.

It's all about shot placement.....

[kyratshooter]

Yea, good luck with that!

Those coons are like freekin' zombies. Perfect shot placement on a brain the size of a walnut, in the dark, on a moving target.

[edr730]

If you don't know what kind of animal it is, then it would be wise to plan on it being possibly a skunk. A long rope on the live trap would be a good idea. Drag him under water if possible. On the average, shot placement doesn't work on skunks either no matter how close you are.

[rebel]

You could go caveman. A club and a dog. It worked as a kid. Took a skunk hit once that almost made me pass out.

[kyratshooter]

So that's what that smell is!

[edr730]

haha Rebel, I can imagine a crazy kid doing such a thing. I have grabbed, messed with or picked up animals as a kid or young man just to show off, but when a dog would find a skunk and we ran to see what he had, someone would yell "skunk" and we all turned and ran....me included haha.

[Rick]

I hear you can you use a .50 cal and a book. I know a guy that is working on the process. Once he gets it down pat I'll let you know.

[rebel]

haha Rebel, I can imagine a crazy kid doing such a thing. I have grabbed, messed with or picked up animals as a kid or young man just to show off, but when a dog would find a skunk and we ran to see what he had, someone would yell "skunk" and we all turned and ran....me included haha.

Yea. Got the water hose shower before being allowed inside. That became just good training.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

I had a bunch of ducks once. The skunks got after them and would coax a duck into sticking its head through the fence then they would bite it off. I stayed in an empty water trough one night and killed 8 with a 20 ga shotgun. Not a one of them sprayed. They killed the rest of the ducks the next night. I have killed a truck load of skunks with a shotgun. It stops them cold.

We had a skunk in an outside storage closet up at the school once. We don't have an animal control officer as such so we called the Sheriffs Office. A deputy came out to deal with the skunk. At first he was going to shoot it but he was reminded that he WAS at a school, during school hours. So, he being the crime fighter that he was, he decided that this may be the only time he ever got to use us taser…. I'm quite sure that the 5000 volts squeezed every drop of skunk juice out of that skunk. It took years for the smell to go away and that deputy learned a very important lesson that day.


Alan

[Batch]

PS.
What ever you do...only take one shot....won't cause much of any interest...most people will just say, "Huh? What was that?"

More than one, they listen to see what it was....

Not saying how I know this.....

Been my experience also. I would always shoot once and be sure someone was going to call and the cops were going to come and seize all my guns. My neighbor does mag dumps in his yard. Must have been fireworks. LOL

[kyratshooter]

It sure is nice living in rural KY.

Sunday afternoon the sound of gunfire echos through the hills as families have shooting matches. If the club has open range you can hear them clearly 2 miles cross country, the steady pitter-patter of little black rifles in the distance.

Middle of the week you hear a shot and wait for the follow up, count the rounds and try to tell if Joe down the road has a new revolver or auto-pistol. If the latter how many were in the mag and if it goes more than 15 you know it is a Glock or CZ.

Only time you wonder if there is trouble is those shots in the night. They are sure fire warning of critter problems.

I don't think we have had a murder in our county since I moved here 8 years ago, and the last one was a guy that killed his parents because they cut off his supply of drug money. Meth makes you crazy.

If people around here are sane they are real polite. If you are not sane or polite you do not last long. None of this huffing, puffing, posturing and smacking people around, some old man will shoot you for sure!

[jim Glass]

It sure is nice living in rural KY.
Sunday afternoon the sound of gunfire echos through the hills as families have shooting matches. If the club has open range you can hear them clearly 2 miles cross country, the steady pitter-patter of little black rifles in the distance.
Middle of the week you hear a shot and wait for the follow up, count the rounds and try to tell if Joe down the road has a new revolver or auto-pistol. If the latter how many were in the mag and if it goes more than 15 you know it is a Glock or CZ.
Only time you wonder if there is trouble is those shots in the night. They are sure fire warning of critter problems.
I don't think we have had a murder in our county since I moved here 8 years ago, and the last one was a guy that killed his parents because they cut off his supply of drug money. Meth makes you crazy.
If people around here are sane they are real polite. If you are not sane or polite you do not last long. None of this huffing, puffing, posturing and smacking people around, some old man will shoot you for sure!

That's what I love about Florida. We can hear guns shots all hours of the day. It can be hog hunters, bank robbery, or back yard shooting. Gota love it. Of course if I lived closer to Chicago or Rockford it would be the same thing.

[jim Glass]

How effective would 22 cal bird shot be on raccoons? By the way 22 cal Cebees will penetrate a 3/4" thick board. How thick can a raccoon's head be?

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

In my experience, animals that are out in the middle of nowhere drop dead at the shot. Animals that are in town thrash around, squeal, and run off leaving a gushing blood trail from your back yard to the front porch of the nearest bunny hugger where they languish until the news media gets there to take pictures while the opossum or coon gets carted off to the vets office to be saved while the police backtrack to find out who would do such a thing.

Alan