Gearing up for Coon Armageddon

Here’s how it is.

Florida allows shooting coyotes, coons, possums, and a few other revolting creatures all year long. But there are rules (crazy!). You can shoot a coyote with just about anything, including a submachine gun, but if you want to shoot coons at night with a rifle, you have to use a .22. It can’t be a .22 WMR, either. A plain old .22.

I have a .22. Nice, dependable, accurate rifle. Problem: it won’t take a scope. It’s a Remington Nylon 66, and you pretty much have to take it apart and build a new one to make it hold a zero. The receiver cover flexes, and the scope mounts on it, so you can imagine the problems.

I need a .22 that will take a scope. Like, NOW.

I want a semiauto. Why? Because .22’s aren’t accurate, as firearms go. In better calibers, such as .270 or whatever, bolt action guns are more accurate than semiautos. In a .22, they probably aren’t. Guns are limited by ammunition, and .22 ammunition is not that great, so if you buy a well-made .22, you’re not going to get better performance. I think.

I can’t make .22 ammunition. Come to think of it, that’s one of its big limitations. Preppers think a .22 is the main thing a person will need when the world ends, but they won’t be able to get new ammunition after the apocalypse. Hmm.

I guess the same problem applies to other calibers. I can make my own .45 shells all day, and I can find a way to make bullets, but I still have to buy primers and powder, and eventually, I would need new brass.

Anyway, it’s not practical to create your own accurate .22 LR ammo.

The convenience and low cost of a semiauto outweigh whatever tiny increase in accuracy a bolt gun would provide. This is my opinion, and it could be wrong. I believe I would never be able to shoot at anything over 50 yards away (ethically) with a .22, regardless of how good the gun was, so might as well go semiauto.

I looked at .22’s, and I found three contenders stood out. The Ruger 10/22, the CZ something or other, and the Marlin 60. The CZ costs too much. The Ruger is super popular. It’s the AR15 of rimfires. There are a ton of accessories and so on for it. But the Marlin is supposedly a superior gun with a better barrel crown. The crown of a barrel determines how accurate a gun is. It’s the last thing a bullet sees on its way downrange.

Problem: the Marlin 60 is hard to find right now. Luckily, a retailer near me has some, so I plan to get in the car and snap one up.

I looked around and found that there are some above-average .22 loads out there. Norma makes one. Big surprise. It’s probably two dollars a round. Checking. No, it’s reasonable, but it’s not for hunting. Wolf makes very accurate .22 ammo, but it’s not for hunting, either. CCI has the one I want to try. Hollow points with high velocity. The high velocity means it will cycle in a semiauto (I hope), and the hollow points are good for inflicting tissue damage. They call these bullets “Stingers,” And they cost about 13 cents each. I am hoping this will turn out to be a suitable coyote round. It would solve all my varmint problems.

Gander Outdoors (formerly Gander Mountain) sells the Marlin 60 for $169, and they reopened their store here. They sell Stingers, so I will drop by and see what I can get.

Once I have this thing, I can move my UTG BugBuster scope to it, and God help the coons after that. I won’t be much use for anything far away, but I should be able to crack coon skulls at 50 yards like shelling peanuts.

I really want a night scope. If I get an ATN scope with an infrared illuminator, I’ll be able to annihilate coons and coyotes at night, record video, and post it on Youtube.

I’m thinking I should get a portable blind and a lawn chair. I can sit a ways off from the place where critters cross my fence, and I can pop them in the head in comfort.

In other news, I learned that Florida law has changed. Up until 2016, it was legal to go out in your backyard and shoot at cans, even if you had a quarter of an acre in Miami Beach. I’m sure this made for some hilarious interactions between fun-loving gun enthusiasts and incontinent, shrieking leftists who KNEW they were witnessing felonies. There must have been a lot of unproductive narking to the cops. “Wait; we have to stop calling you pigs for a minute so we can squeal on our neighbors.”

Now the law has changed. If your house is in an area which is primarily residential AND AND AND (not OR) has a residential density of over one dwelling unit per acre, you can’t just walk outside and shoot. There is a release valve, though. You can still have a home gun lane if you take reasonable precautions.

I suppose that’s okay. It appears to be a largely toothless way of telling shooters, “Don’t be an idiot.” Take precautions, and you can still exercise a remarkable degree of freedom.

The FWC site discourages people from shooting anywhere except at gun ranges. Unacceptable and fatuous. Gun ranges are expensive. They have rules that make certain types of practice impossible. They usually don’t have facilities that let you go beyond 100 yards. I don’t know why they would cause problems by telling people to go to ranges. It’s not practical, and when the government isn’t practical in its guidance, it foments disobedience.

They discourage practicing on public land where hunting is allowed. I can’t begin to say how stupid that is.

I used to shoot at Trail Glades, near Miami. It was crowded. It was a long distance from my house. I could not shoot at over 100 yards. I had to pay almost 10 bucks every time. I could not practice rapid fire, which is essential for self-defense (one of the two primary reasons for the Second Amendment). I was around people who made scary safety errors because they were sans clue. Sometimes I had to wait in line for a station. It was bad, and I didn’t go often. It adversely affected my skills and discouraged me from improving myself and from participating in shooting, which benefits the economy and makes us stronger as a nation.

No, sorry. I will not be going to a range any time soon, unless I need facilities I can’t create in my backyard.

It won’t be long before I’m on a bigger piece of land, and after that, everyone can kiss my…can do as they please without worrying about my pleasant shooting exploits.

I learned something else about the law in Florida. It’s a felony to shoot from a vehicle within 1000 feet of any person. I’m really glad I’ve never done that here, as far as anyone will ever know. I don’t really understand it. If I want to shoot targets from the shade of my truck, I don’t see what the problem is. But I’m all about respect for the law, no matter how ill-conceived and silly it is, so I won’t be doing it. As far as anyone will ever know.

I am off to buy another firearm and add to America’s gun woes. Stop me before I plink again.

More

I had to change the name of this entry. I somehow got it into my head that the Marlin .22 people recommend is the Marlin 66, but it’s actually the Marlin 60. I picked one up today. The name of the entry had “66” in it, and that made no sense, so I changed it.