Bunnies & an M1 Carbine

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sixshot

Buckeye
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
1,835
Location
soda springs, idaho
About a year ago an old friend down in Utah sold me a mint, in the wooden presentation box model 27 S&W. At the same time he told me he life long buddy had a mint, all original M1 Carbine he would sell me at a very good price along with some ammo. I had wanted one for a long time so I jumped on it just to have & for the grand kids to use on our Jackrabbit hunts.
The gun hadn't been fired in over 50 years & at some point he had sent it back to Inland & had them factory mount a scope on it. He gave me over 500 rounds of ammo along with 7 mags & a military canvas carrying case also.
I fired 8 rounds through the gun last year just to see if it would cycle & it ran great. Now, this last week I decided I would work up a cast load for it & take it on a bunny hunt yesterday since I was going to a high school game in that area anyway.
I've had a #311410 mould for years that weighs about 130 grs & is a plain base RN & has worked well in several Ruger Blackhawks so that was my choice. I prepped a bunch of brass & powder coated some bullets sized to .310" & ran to the range.
The little 3/4" scope is only a 2 3/4 power so I decided to zero for 50 yds out the window of the truck (cold) I wasn't very steady with the first 5 shots but they went into about 2", a bit high & a bit left but I couldn't get the scope to adjust in any direction.
I turned the box upside down & fired 3 more rounds after turning my truck a bit so I could get more steady. That worked, I had 3 shots in about 1" at 50 yds with a plain base powder coated cast bullet using 11 grs of 2400.
So I went home & loaded up 65 "bunny busters" & grabbed my 8 shot Blackhawk 327 & me & a buddy headed out yesterday to meet 2 of his brothers for some heavy duty Jackrabbit busting.
One little trick that I do with this RN style bullet when I'm sizing the powder coated bullets is, I use a different top punch so that it puts a little bit of a flat point on the bullet making it much better when shooting ground squirrels or rock chucks. It really makes a difference, you can see in the last photo a couple of the flat nose bullets with a round nose bullet in between.
The rabbits were really wild, we probably killed a little over 30 but I'm sure we seen well over 100, perhaps 150 but they were running hard on sight & you had about a 3 second window to get off a shot, it was crazy.
The 3 guys with me were shooting AR's with the 22 conversion's & 2 of them were shooting the lead Remington ammo & it was terrible, some of those Jacks ere taking 4-5-6 hits to stop. My 327 magnum shooting 118 gr HP's was blowing them up big time, yippee!!

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Dick
 

Selena

Hunter
Joined
Sep 13, 2013
Messages
2,948
Location
A long way from heaven and far too close to Chicag
Oh, I have visions of after the carcass deliciousti being soaked in brine, the cavity stuffed with wild rice & suet then baked with potatoes & onions. Maybe even a few carrots, peas and a stalk of celery for flavor.

Gotta love the little Carbine, big enough for deer yet small enough for rabbit in a competent operator's hands.
 

contender

Ruger Guru
Joined
Sep 18, 2002
Messages
25,145
Location
Lake Lure NC USA
Too much fun,, just too much fun! :D :D

Are you using the Star sizer to get that flat point on those bullets?

(One of those bunnies is a cottontail,, not a Jack!)
 

sixshot

Buckeye
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
1,835
Location
soda springs, idaho
Actually it is a 1" scope, I was looking at the objective lens & thinking it was small but after measuring it I was surprised to see it's a 1" tube so I'm in good shape. I'll just change it out to a 4X.
Tyrone, yes one of those was a Cottontail, seen 2 all day out of a whole bunch of BIG rabbits! I used my RCBS sizer with a different top punch & it was real easy to size the powder coated bullets & put that little flat on them at the same time. Sure makes a difference when the collision happens!

Dick
 
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