Rodents Will Fall Like Rain

Baby maintenance continues to be challenging, but the difficulty decreases incrementally day by day, helped along by a decrease in the mother’s conviction that I am too stupid to keep a baby alive for more than 15 minutes. Things are going well. The breastfeeding picture keeps improving, I finally got Mom to let our son go for a stroller ride today, and I’m getting way better at making up plausible reasons why I can’t change the diapers.

I’m starting to experience moments during which I think about interests other than the care and welfare of the heir apparent. Today I thought about shooting.

I got myself a Tikka T1x bolt-action .22 with a too-expensive Athlon scope, and I love it. I decided I wanted to have, finally, a very nice semi-auto as well, and I thought I would be able to make one from my Savage A22. I learned some bad things about Savage, and I eventually ordered a Ruger 10/22. My first in rifle length.

The new 10/22 has a plastic stock, a short barrel, muzzle threading, and a built-in scope rail. It’s perfect for my plans to shoot squirrels with a silencer.

I shouldn’t say “plastic.” It’s like calling a G.I. Joe or Han Solo “action figure” a doll, which it is. Okay. Polymer. The 10/22 has a polymer stock. Hope everyone feels better.

What are polymers? Plastic. Moving on…

I bought a very fancy Kidd trigger assembly for the Ruger, so now all I need is a scope. The gun has no iron sights.

I went overboard on the Tikka, blowing over $400 on a first-focal-plane Athlon Helos 2-12 something or other with a mildot reticle and internal illumination. The scope is perfect for what I plan to do with it: short-range squirrel sniping, and targets up to 100 yards.

For the Ruger, I want a cheaper scope, which will have the virtue of being cheaper and also costing less, not to mention being more economical.

I don’t plan to shoot the Ruger at 100 yards, because I would expect that to be depressing due to the low quality of rimfire ammo and the high likelihood that the Ruger will never match the Tikka. I decided I needed 9x at the top end.

I already have a very nice scope that would work. A UTG Bug Buster that cost me something like $70. This scope is ordinarily associated with airguns, but it will work on a .22. It’s illuminated. The glass quality is fine for under 100 yards. It has parallax adjustment. It can focus on things as close as 10 feet away, hence the name “Bug Buster.”

So I bought one for the 10/22.

No, I didn’t. And I didn’t move the old one to the 10/22 from my Marlin Model 60, because then the Marlin would have no scope.

The Bug Buster now runs about $160, so it’s not the bargain it used to be. It’s right up there close to scopes made by real companies. I am no longer tempted to take a chance on it. When it was $70, I could say, “Well of course they cut corners. It was cheap.” Now if I find a problem, I’ll have to say, “This thing is nearly as expensive as a real scope, and look at it.”

I am thinking of an Athlon Talos 3-12x40mm. It’s made by a real company, but it’s only around 50% more expensive than the Bug Buster. It’s illuminated. It focuses down to 45 feet, which is good enough for squirrels. It has parallax adjustment.

What is parallax? It’s complicated to explain, but basically, if a scope’s parallax setting is off, and your pupil isn’t perfectly coaxial with the scope, your round will not hit the point of aim. The error may be small, but I am planning to shoot through squirrel brains, so small is way too big.

Parallax is distance-dependent. Many scopes have fixed parallax settings. That’s fine if you’re shooting a big honking deer Ray Charles couldn’t miss, but when you’re shooting at a tiny squirrel brain, it means you can only count on hitting it when the squirrel is at the distance for which the scope’s parallax is set.

No self-respecting squirrel would make it that easy.

I was studying up on scopes, and I kept wondering why so many had no parallax adjustments, and I realized it was because deer were so big.

It was surprisingly hard to find what I wanted. A lot of scopes had everything I wanted except parallax adjustment. A lot lacked illumination. The Athlon alone had it all.

I should probably get a second Bug Buster, but I can’t make myself believe a scope that sold for $70 during Trump’s first term can suddenly be worth $160 during his second term. Maybe it is, though. Maybe it was wildly underpriced back then.

I like mildot scopes, but Athlon only puts illumination in the MOA version of the Talos I want, so I guess that’s what I’ll get. It doesn’t really matter for squirrels. If I can’t guesstimate how big an inch or half an inch on a squirrel is without subtensions, I am not likely to hit him with the finest mildot scope on Earth. I should be able to say, “The dot is on his head, at this range the POI will be half an inch low, so I put the dot a Jujube’s width above his skull.”

Guessing at holdovers should be easy, but shooting with the wrong parallax setting would cause problems.

I think.

If I can get away from the house, Walmart, Target, and the pediatrician’s office long enough, I will try the Ruger with the spare Vortex Diamondback I put on it, and I will probably order the Talos. When it arrives, maybe I can start checking various brands of ammo in the Ruger and the Tikka. Then I can spray squirrel brains all over the farm, and I will be content at last.

It doesn’t take much to make me happy. Just the simple things.