When you've been asked to deal with Birds that are as canny a Corvid, you sometimes
need to adopt remote control techniques. Allowing us to keep our distance will be this Ruger
77/17. The .17 HMR has an affective range of 200-300 yards on smaller game. Where as
a calibre like the .22 rim-fire, looses trajectory, dropping off significantly beyond 50-60 yards.
Before we get started we have some crap to deal with. The field we've been watching is
being fertilised. Keeping the birds in the trees and us looking for other likely targets.
The Birds are, roughly, or exactly, 300 yards. So .17 HMR is zeroed at 200, it's got about
another 3 1/2 inches drop at 300, so, but there's a huge backdrop, a massive hill there
so it's a nice safe shot. The roads on your left hand side, we've spoken to the farmer
and he's happy for us to take some of these out for him. Now there's a big tree full of
Rooks up there that are waiting to get back on this field which has just been spread.
So let's get loaded up and take our first shot. Using the car's wing mirror I can get
a solid shooting position. As long as everyone else in the car doesn't start shifting to
get a better view. I drop the first bird of the day at over 110 yards. The others don't
hang around, so we take a drive, and now it's Keith's turn. He too uses the car to get settled.
This bird again is in the 80-90 yard zone, it flies but drops at the hedge line. We decided
to abandon the car and head out on foot. That's 325, we need to find somewhere closer. Yeah,
we'll get across to this fence, the field drops away near where those birds lifted off
where we came in. Yeah. Then get a good look at them from on top here. Maybe just have
a mooch up to this fence then have a look over, see what there is. Cool. Not only are
these birds difficult to get close to, they're continuously bobbing and weaving, making it
difficult to get a clean shot. When we do spot some more across the valley, it's pushing
the capabilities of man and machine. This is long range Corvid right. Yeah. That one
might be in a different county though, so leave that one be. Keith and I have had a
few shots with the Ruger and for me it's a Rim-Fire what has grown up and is playing
with the big boys. So, I'm really impressed with this Ruger 77/17, it's not just the fact
that the .17 HMR itself, the bullet performance is phenomenal out at 100, 150 yards. This
is a Rim-Fire that feels like a full size hunting rifle. Good solid, bolt feel in your
hands, it doesn't feel like a toy like some of the other ones do. Perfect reach to pull,
it's not too short, normally with other Rim-Fires, it doesn't tend to feel, like I'm holding
a child's gun. Full length 24 inch barrel, and I found a reasonable nozzle crack, given
a 2500 feet per second velocity. So how've you found it to shoot? I've enjoyed using
it, I wasn't sure of the trigger to start with, but after I've put a few rounds through
it, I've started to get use to that. So that's something that will come with time, and I'm
very impressed with the safety, the three position safety, so you can still cycle your
bolt and your mag and everything at the same time, it's, yeah. That's a good point, there's
a rotary magazine system in here that's very similar to the one that's used in the Ruger
10/22, the semi-automatic. Now, whereas I do have, from time to time problems with feeding
for the 10/22 unless I pick the ammunition correctly, this things absolutely spot on.
Fast cycles, no jams, no misfeeds, it's a pretty phenomenal system as well. I really
pleased with it, like you say, it's a, it feels like a full bore-rifle, but firing a
.17 grained bullet. It's been performing pretty well out to long distances and I think we
have to realise that although it may feel like the triggers heavy, we're shooting at
targets no bigger than a coke can at 150/200 yards whereas normally when your shooting
deer at those ranges you have a much larger target to aim at. So anyway it's performed
pretty well today, it's got a little more work to do tonight, so I think we're gonna
head around, give it one more head round at Rambo's and see where we go from there. Great.
We do get another couple of shots, this one is 70 yards. But the fast, flat speed of this
bullet, knocks these birds down. It's been a pretty tricky morning, we've got six in
the bag which is great, but it's been hard going, the birds has been a bit flightily,
they've not really let us get within 150, 200 yards before taking off. The great thing
we've got is they've been attracted to some fields which have been freshly spread with
some slurry, which is quite nice, obviously we're looking at undigested food, undigested
seeds in the slurry, so we're gonna head back over towards Doveridge and see if we can get
a few more there. But so far so good, but still plenty of the day left. With long range
targets we have to be 100% happy it's safe and we're confident with our position and
kit. It's a discipline that will ultimately make us better at what we do.