Squirrel Problems?

[Crippled Caddis]

brownieman wrote:

<My old M-1 is all original, wooden stock and the original clip...pretty darn good shape considering the age and nothing on the gun has ever been refurbished...have considered refinishing the stock several times but have been hesitant to do so just because I like the idea of the old gun being in original condition.>

Resist the urge to refinish---for several reasons. By so doing you steal the honest patina it has earned in serving you well over the years. Your heirs will value it more for the traces of your love it bears. Collectors abhor refinishes!;o)

Better to protect it with a few coats of a hard Carnauba floor wax applied and buffed off with a soft cloth. My can of Johnson Floor Wax is older than many board members here, shows no sign of ever coming to an end and has maintained the finish (and value!) of many guns over many decades at this point. Any GOOD wax that doen't contain abrasives but IS heavy in Carnauba will serve, but watch out for automotive waxes which often DO contain abrasives.

[strangercreek]

my dad has a Ben Franklin (I will have to check the model now that you have my interest). It is a pump with a single bolt action .22 caliber. It is fun to shoot, not very acturate though. The barrel and pump are all brass (except the wood ribbed pump handle)

[denjac]

Best thing I have found for squirrels is paprika. Sprinkle it on plants or whatever they are chewing on. Had a squirrel that was chewing my grill cover last year. I put paprika on it. Two days later I found a dead squirrel 10 ft away from it. I didnt know it would kill them but I guess it did.

[Crippled Caddis]

<my dad has a Ben Franklin (I will have to check the model now that you have my interest). It is a pump with a single bolt action .22 caliber. It is fun to shoot, not very acturate though. The barrel and pump are all brass (except the wood ribbed pump handle)>

By your description it is a 312 or early 342 model. Accuracy is normally pretty good with the Benjis unless someone (kids) tries to run something thru the soft brass barrels that ruins the rifling. On a gun of the age you are talking about it might simply be a decades old accumulation of dust and dirt. Back up to the the post that tells how to make a cleaning pull-thru with monofilament line and try cleaning it as recommended. Don't try to use aggressive firearms cleaners or you will surely melt the seals! The Goo-be-gone used VERY sparingly is the best thing I've found to date for airgun barrels.

The other thing that inhibits accuracy with all domestically built airguns are the crude sights they are equipped with as standard equipment. Even young eyes can only do so much with very course open sights and aging eyes much less. Often replacing the rear sight with a peep will bring the real accuracy to the fore. Bryan & Assoc., mentioned in an earlier post, can supply the Benjamin 'Bar-O' rear sight that should fit your Dad' gun. My own preference for both Benjis and Sheridans however is the Williams peepsight made for them. On an older gun like we're discussing it would have to be drilled and tapped (a very simple job) but they are 'plug & play' on late models. A good sighting system and trying out different pellets until you discover what the gun WANTS is the key to extracting accuracy barring damaged rifling. CC

[Bill Anderson]

Before I moved to Florida, I had two story house on a lake. Squirrels chewed thru my eaves and got into my attic and made a mess of the unsulation. So I went to war. I used to buy .22 CB caps by the carton, and with my trusty Browning Lever Action .22, I made it rain squirrels out of the oaks and hickories in my back yard. But it's like shooting rats at the dump...you can hardly put a dent into the population. Here is south Florida, we are also overrun with squirrels, but fortunately, my house is all concrete block and has no exposed wood, and the squirrels can't gnaw thru metal flashing. So at least, here, it's live and let live. But I still have my trusty Browning .22, and plenty of ammo left over. It's still a novelty to me to see a squirrel scamper up a palm tree...just seems out of place. The critters don't seem to be as fat here as they are in Tennessee, but there are plenty of them and they are healthy, as long as they don't try to eat my house like they did in Tennessee. I can still dot a squirrel's eye at 40 yards with my Browning. But it sure kept me in squirrel tails for fly tying....

[strangercreek]

good info CC, Thanks

Jason

[jjtroutbum]

Picked up the Kodiacs (sp?) today. They are differently heavier than the ones I was using before. But I also picked up a 100round pack of WWB in 45 for the Glock so went and burned through half of thos shooting up a couple of old Pc monitors at a buddies place. And thats really a fun way to blow off some shack nasties.

[Larry Richards]

So what does this all have to do with Angling ?????????

[brownieman]

Absolutaly nothing...read the original post by CC...just talking about air guns...something interesting for some of us to talk about, lol.

bm

[MOFishwater]

i dispatched a problematic squirrel (well, one of them) in my yard yesterday when I got home. He was sitting on my "squirrel proof bird feeder" (yeah right) and there was a pile of bird seed below him that poured out of the hole he was working on as I spotted him. Grabbed the trusty Daisy w/ the scope that hasnt been dusted off in 10 yrs and gave him a taste of BB. It sucessfully stopped him with one shot, still got it I guess. I then learned a valuable lesson about Instant Karma. As I bent over to put him in a plastic bag to toss in the dumpster I was hit squarely on the left shoulder by a starling's poop! I looked up in the tree, it looked down at me and most likely laughed, then it just flew away smugly. Another life lesson to put in the memory bank;)