If They Could be Trained, They’d be Bringing me my Mail

Conservatives always worry about the feds making secret lists of our firearms from purchase records. Then we go on the Internet and post photos of us shooting everything we buy.

Given the competence of the feds, however, maybe we have nothing to worry about. “‘Facebook?’ There’s a book with faces in it? Why would anyone put his face in a book? Is my pension vested yet?”

Anyway, here I go, doing my part for the database. Today I picked up a Tikka T1x MTR. The last three letters stand for “Multi-Task Rimfire.” I’m not sure what those tasks are. Maybe I can find out.

It looks like the tasks are “small game hunting and training.” That’s from Sako’s website. Sako is the Finnish concern that owns Tikka.

Why would I want to train small game? I guess it would be helpful to train squirrels to quit chewing on my belongings. I don’t think it’s actually possible, however. That’s why I kill them.

Oh, wait. “Training” doesn’t refer to small game. That makes more sense. So what does it refer to? Target shooting? Why not call it “target shooting”?

Okay, on another webpage, Sako says it’s for target shooting. I guess different employees write different webpages.

They drink a lot in Finland.

This rifle is extremely cool. It’s a 16″ bolt-action .22 which is supposed to have a magnificent barrel along with a very good trigger that can be adjusted down to a 1.5-pound pull. It’s very short and handy. It could be lighter, but nothing is perfect except pizza. It’s threaded for a silencer.

The bolt has a wacky 45° throw, which is wonderful. Why can’t other guns be like that instead of making you swing the bolt up and practically hit your scope?

I have not fired the gun yet. I have to put a scope on it, because it comes without sights. It comes with a dovetail scope mount, which must give a lot of people a good laugh. I had to order a rail that attaches to the dovetail mount. It should arrive tomorrow.

Deciding which scope to use has been hard.

I went the buy-once-cry-once route with my first .22 bolt gun. I wanted something accurate and well-made in order to avoid future upgrades. So should I give it a scope of similar quality, or should I go with something cheap, given that I may never shoot at more than 50 yards?

Right now I plan to throw my idle Vortex Diamondback 4-12×42 on it. The scope already has rings on it, and I probably even lapped them. It’s not a top-quality optic, it has no reticle illumination, and it’s a second focal plane scope, so it’s not the finest product around. On the other hand, a lot of people shoot squirrels really well with scopes costing less than $100. All my existing .22 scopes came in at that price level, and they certainly work.

Once the Diamondback is on it, I can put some rounds through the gun and get used to it.

I might get fancy and put a $400+ Athlon scope on the rifle. That would be pretty ritzy for a squirrel rifle, but a lot of guys spend considerably more, and squirrel hunting is actually a serious and demanding pursuit. It may seem like a joke because grown men are shooting well-dressed rats, but I think you have to gauge hunting by the difficulty, not the weight of the prey. Squirrels are very uncooperative in addition to being hard to hit due to their size.

I feel like the worst hunter on Earth. When I tried to get into it a few years ago, I got a deer rifle, a lot of ammo for my shotgun, and some guns for varmints. Then covid ruined everything. I couldn’t buy a paid hunt if I wanted one. And it turns out my property, though rural, is blessed with a relatively low population of game animals. I’ve only seen one turkey here. The coyotes that used to be here seem to have left. I haven’t seen a coon in a you-know-what’s age. There are no hogs. I haven’t seen a bear here.

I shot quite a few squirrels, but I never got around to shooting anything large, unless you count a coon I shot in the head while it was in a trap.

I bought a crazy machine that makes noises to attract coyotes, but I got nowhere with it. I’m not completely sure it’s not a gag.

Rabbits have suddenly become abundant here, which is why I think the coyotes are gone. I hate to shoot the rabbits. They haven’t bothered me yet, and they exhibit a disturbing degree of trust. They get really close. I could shoot them with my EDC pistol.

I have foxes, but for some reason, we’re not allowed to kill them. I’ve seen red ones and black ones here. The web says we have two species: red and gray. They’re all foxes to me.

I’ve never seen a bobcat here. The state seems to want us to shoot them, because the rules are generous.

I can’t leave the property now because we’re having a son, so it looks like it’s squirrels or nothing for the near future.

Maybe once the baby is stabilized, I’ll be able to shoot something other than a squirrel.

Thank goodness Florida decided to extend the squirrel season to the entire year. In the past, I could shoot squirrels anywhere on my property during a short season, and I could shoot nuisance squirrels any time. In order to be a nuisance, a squirrel had to be near the house where it could cause problems. Now I can shoot them all over the farm at any time for no good reason at all.

Hey. How do I know a squirrel a quarter of a mile from the house isn’t planning to chew on my porch furniture? I can’t take that chance. That’s a reason.

I hope to pop some rounds off tomorrow. Maybe Saturday. I haven’t received the rail for the scope. The web thinks it will arrive tonight, but tomorrow is more likely. Once I have the scope on the rifle, I plan to blow a bunch of rounds through it to foul the barrel for precision, and then we’ll see what the gun will do with the types of ammo I have on hand.

It would be great to hand this gun off to my son when the time comes. I should learn to hunt properly for his sake, so I’ll be ready when he is.