Thread: Do subsonics scare rabbits?

I've had good luck with subs. there were about 6 of them 30-40m away from me so I just rounded them up, first shot the one that was nearest to cover, then the 1 furthest away from me, then the 1 closest to me, etc.
They still heard and were spooked by the sounds but were more confused than anything. I ended up with 5 of them

had that happen in an austin1100 when i was younger .we were way out in the w hop whops up a bush road spotlighting jackos .alls on full alert round the corner and here smack between the headlights are ma &pa jacko in a furious lengthwise lambada. mate didnt hesitate pedal to the meal and what a bloody racket as possum met body pan.slid to a halt ,all piled out expecting two nearly dead jackos -zilch apart from a wobbly arse goin up the bank into the bush!
Ol jacko is a bloody tough customer at times.
actually just a word of warning .if you do nail one be bloody careful when pickin the carcasse up .I see lots of guys grab em by base of tale and hiff em onto a truck.those claws are not only to atttachh em to trees and telepho ne poles they can also inflict a nasty bloody wound to humans if the owner is in distress .had it happen to my twice when trappin em as a kid.a cowkick from an olde doe opened one of my fingers right up and it bloody hurts.brother had back of his hand ripped open by a supposedly dead possum.

Its more fun when you go out trapping with your old man giving him a hand, you have a sack pack on you back, he hits/kills them with a hammer & 5 mins later two of them decide its not happening & become very much alive on your back....

Not cool when you are 6 or 7...ask me how I know.....

Never taken a pack off quicker in my life

Ha, that reminds me of...

The time me mate was heading home on his bike in the sticks out of Napier. Comes around the corner, sees oldmate possum wandering down the side of the road - no time to slow down so lines him up and BOOM! with the big left steelcapped boot. Well, matey soon cottoned on that this was a bloody bad move - as he put the boot in he forgot that he was travelling at a quite high speed and every action has an equal and very opposite reaction. As his boot connected with the possum, the reaction was his left leg staying put while the bike kept going forwards. He was bloody lucky to A) stay on the bike, and B) not hit something coming the other way as he fought to get control back while wobbling down the road!

But this isn't where the stupid part of the story comes in... Seems me mate decided to go back and check out the cause of his near-unseating off the bike with his left leg just about ending up by the right handlebar. So he stops, turns around and goes back to check out his victim. He gets back there, hobbles off the bike (ankle already swelling up in his boot) and finds the possum on the edge of the road. Hmmm, not a bad pelt - worthwhile keeping to skin.

Being on a bike and without a pack, you know what ol' dropkick does - shoves the carcass down his jacket doesn't he. Hobbles back to the bike, and sods off down the road with his boot getting tighter by the moment. For the first bit of the trip he was mainly concerned about the state of his foot, but as he got a few km from his place his priorities suddenly changed - at about the same time as oldmate possum woke up inside his jacket and decided this was prime time to relocate. Queue attempt at falling off the bike #2 for the evening! (No he didn't end up with the pelt either).

I ran CCI Quiets through my little badger for a while, single shot, very very quiet. One times I was trying to bag a bunny at about 75m, turns out past about 50 subs get a bit of spread on as far accuracy. I musta put 5 shots in the ground around this bunny before he got tired of waiting and decided to bugger off. I could see him reacting to each impact, first shot he froze, second shot he went from crouched the lying down, etc.

I use 22 suppressed subs a lot, mainly because a fair amount of my work isn't far from town and I try to keep a low sound profile. I've tried a bunch of different suppressors but it doesn't seem to matter how quiet the rifle is they still hear it and it's about 50/50 on if they will spook or not. Some will sit there and let you dial in the range with a few misses, others will spook straight away.

When I'm working more remote areas I tend to use a well suppressed 17hmr, the sonic crack is omnidirectional and helps to conceal the muzzle report so they don't know where it's coming from or what to do. I find it confuses them more and works better to keep them still a bit longer.

Originally Posted by Mintie

I use 22 suppressed subs a lot, mainly because a fair amount of my work isn't far from town and I try to keep a low sound profile. I've tried a bunch of different suppressors but it doesn't seem to matter how quiet the rifle is they still hear it and it's about 50/50 on if they will spook or not. Some will sit there and let you dial in the range with a few misses, others will spook straight away.

When I'm working more remote areas I tend to use a well suppressed 17hmr, the sonic crack is omnidirectional and helps to conceal the muzzle report so they don't know where it's coming from or what to do. I find it confuses them more and works better to keep them still a bit longer.

This is what Im wondering too, the rabbits seem to be in groups of 3 or 4 about 1 metre apart, Im hoping I can shoot more than one in each bunch or else it will take a month of sundays but the place is full of the things, Ive said to the owner that poison may be the last resort and he agrees, but I want to see if I can get the population down first, plus we can get a bit of meat out of them too.

Find sub's in a suppressed bolt action rifle allow multiple shots, provided I don't head shot anything. Click, fall over dead works well. Click, dead while backflipping everywhere tends to scare any other rabbit nearby.
Later in this video proves the point.
https://youtu.be/r76AV3Fo62M

I shoot a lot of rabbits and for .22 work I exclusively use subs. If the population is getting regular shooting and pressure then the rabbits will still spook.
What I have found is because of the low sound report I can walk into the next gulley or over the next hill and the game are settled.
With a breeze, hunting into the wind can also carry the noise away from the next area you are heading into.

Worthwhile noting subs have one fault - the sound arrives at the same time as the pill. If you miss or there are multiple animals, the sound queues the bunnies where to look - and they have excellent eyesight for movement. Not so good for shape recognition but if you move even behind something they will see you straight off. Supersonic pills if you miss tend to not be so bad in this regard, and if you have a solid core can or a supersonic rated one (not the parker hale sprung type anyway) you might have noiser shooting but less spooked animals with the first shot.

Nah, my Badger and Browning make no sound with subs other than the click of the trigger - I've got DPT cans on both.

Originally Posted by vulcannz

Nah, my Badger and Browning make no sound with subs other than the click of the trigger - I've got DPT cans on both.

It's not the sound of the firing I'm meaning - it's the whistle of the pill travelling 'from there' and arriving with a thump that queues the bunnies where to look. I've got a bolt .22LR that's silent in operation but still gets this result with subs travelling at just below the speed of sound. The other thing subsonic projectiles are terrible for is ricochet, bloody shocking in fact. A ricochet gets everything moving as it's such an unnatural sound.

I think the subsonic ricochet thing is made worse by how quiet a sub+supressor setup is.

In my experience ,it mainly depends on how much pressure they’ve been under from hunting and lamps But their is always exceptions to the rule, a suppressed 22 is a brilliant tool, can sometimes take 2 or 3 out , but kill shots if one is thumping around the rest are gone , sometimes if they can’t see , hear, smell danger quite happy to sit whilst their friends fall over, on well hunted spots they see a lamp or hear the truck n they gone ,
I don’t go too frequently to the same farm as rabbits learn n can get easily spooked

Originally Posted by vulcannz

I think the subsonic ricochet thing is made worse by how quiet a sub+supressor setup is.

try it with something 150ish grains and its bumhole puckering