Rat Tales

[TC]

TC open a road side dhuba, cook rats as underground[subtrainian] chicken, add some Tabasco sauce. get income from the paskey rats, is what i say.lol

Naga, to do that I would have to shift base further East.... across a few borders ....

Lovely "Shikaar" stories skeetshot and TC.
You guys have made this thread truly enjoyable.

Prashant, Thanks. Suggestions from the hills in the North are always welcome



TC

[TC]

Thank you very much Kamal for the reply. Two more doubts I have.
1) Can we buy the bullets or pellets also from those gunhouses?


2) Is there a rifle which has night vision? In youtube I saw a video and in that, the guy was killing the rats with ease using the night vision and the target point + symbol (I dont know what they call it in guns terminology ). So could you please tell a model name with that facility? Also the rifle should be able to reach a target of atleast 40-50 feet.


Thanks a lot,
Ravi.

Ravi,
Welcome to IFG. I hope you introduced yourself in the Introduction section. If you didn't, then please do.
Let me answer your questions.
a) Firearms use cartridges (what you are referring to as bullets though technically speaking a bullet is actually the projectile that leaves through the barrel of a firearm and hits the target). Air rifles use pellets. Yes, gun stores that sell air rifles also sell pellets.
b) If I am not mistaken you must be referring to the video where Airgun TV host Nigel Allen shoots rats inside a barn in Britain with a Daystate PCP rifle fitted with a Night vision scope. Thats one of the most watched rat hunting videos on youtube. Let me inform you that night vision sights are banned for civilians in India and only the military can have them. And, this is just to inform you that no air rifle (or firearm) comes fitted with night vision optical sights. You have to get one separately and mount it on any weapon.
c) Air rifles made by Precihole and Indian Hum Pipe and even many other local brands can hit a target at 50-60 feet.

This thread, as the title suggests, is dedicated to Rat Tales. You can go through hundreds of threads in the Air Gun section and find answers to your queries.

Enjoy your stay on the forum.


TC

[a_kamal]

Hi Ravi,

I think TC has answered your Query in full detail , just explore the threads in airgun section and you will get answers and help to choose the right AR .

get one AR , get even with the rats and get back on this thread with the story

just remeber that AR is not a Toy but a weapon , so even being at the lowest echleon of the rifles it still needs to be treated with commendable respect.

[TC]

just remeber that AR is not a Toy but a weapon , so even being at the lowest echleon of the rifles it still needs to be treated with commendable respect

Oh yes, this is the first lesson for all beginners. Thanks a_kamal.

I will add a few more cardinal safety rules for Ravi.
Don't point any air rifle or firearm at anyone or anything that you do not intend to shoot. NEVER
Always point the barrel towards a safe direction, ideally the open sky, till you take aim at the target you intend to shoot.
Don't put your finger on the trigger unless and until you are ready to shoot.
Always carry a firearm or air rifle with an empty chamber / don't chamber a pellet till you are about to shoot.
And, always carry a firearm or air rifle with the safety on whether or not you are aware of the fact that it does not contain a pellet in the chamber because you can always be forgetful or casual. Put the safety off only when you have made up your mind to take the shot.
No point turning the thread into a rule book. Lets get back to rats.


TC


TC

[airgun_novice]

Just have one tale of a tail and neither is a big one too.

This was around 2004 when we were staying at Borivali on the fourth floor and our son was quite fresh out of hospital. The neighbors seem to be having this problem and called in a Terminator thanks to whom, one sneaked from the outer wall, digested all what he had been fed and decided to make our home his too. Maybe the Terminator hadn't done his job honestly and may have signed off with "I will be back".

Now the way my wife normally behaves with me is enough to convince each and everyone what a Rani of Jhansi she is... but for this guy who had the temerity to take a walk every now and then right in front of her whenever she would be in the kitchen. And that's when the "Parivartan" would take place.

The way my wife kept screaming was enough to tune in the population of over 18 lakhs of Borivali residents to the locale of this particular "beacon", so much so that one of our over inquisitive neighbors asked me one of the mornings if we had a tiff and I slapped her around !!! That was it - the "Man" in me was awakened (something like "Jaag uthaa insaan") and He scored over the scientist within who said, "What I don't see, I don't believe exists". So we first set up some rat cake which sorta guaranteed in its advertisement that the rat would eat it and go out of the house to die !

Till this point I still hadn't had the darshan of this heroic rat who made my wife scream. But now I had seen one bit of cake "disappear" and the other gnawed at and having changed its place. Yet my wife screamed from time to time and even if I did a Jesse Owens to the kitchen, I still did not get any glimpse. And so about 10 days passed.

Finally, one evening on the way back I got one of those shoe-box style trap and baited it with "sukha bombil" - dried Bombay Duck fish. Within a hour or so, we heard the trap sprung shut and there he was - absolutely not sure if he had done the right thing by nibbling the fish. Nothing sinister about him - quite a small chap really. In fact he seemed to look at me with frightened puppy eyes telepathically transmitting, "I did you a pile of favors and now what are you going to do to me ?" I slowly pressed open the trap door - partially and my friend even in that constricted space managed to turn around - a true Mumbaikar rat, I must say !

He popped his head out a bit and I brought the door down on him again, thus holding his head out but body in. Now I asked my wife for the hammer. "Why?" - prompt came her Qn. "Just gimme the hammer" - I was feeling a bit guilty for holding the dude in this suffocating manner. "Not till you tell me why !" - well, she had to put in her thoughts! Now I was darn too sure that even my daughter who was three years old then would have known that I wasn't exactly planning on building a sofa set. So I simply picked the box with its tenant and kept it on the kitchen platform, picked up the marble pestle out of marble mortar and did what I had to do.

Next I grabbed a sheet of newspaper, packed the guy nicely in it and packed the whole paper parcel in a polythene bag, knotted it and put it in the garbage can for an early morning dispatch the next day. I washed the pestle and the platform with water and disinfectant and then my own hands with Dettol and soap and water. By the time I was all done, I turned to my wife hoping for some look of approval and score a few brownie points. Instead, she had that look as if she just realized she was in fact Mrs. Jack, the Ripper.

"That (pestle-mortar) was given to me by my Mom when she returned from Mt. Abu trip. Now I have to throw it out." - tumbled out the words finally. "Why?" - I blurted and the look on her face made me realize that it was going to be another dry night. Well... the trap had already sprung.

The shoe-box trap has been left rusting ever since, in our loft(s).

[TC]

AGN, you have added a star to this thread with your wonderful narration and sense of humour ..... a great Rat Tale... the best so far.

A big thanks



TC

PS: Ever thought of becoming a writer ?

[airgun_novice]

Thanks TC. That idea does cross my mind every now and then, but does not sit in for long. regs, A.

[StampMaster]

News: Scientists have discovered that rats can grows bigger than sheep .

In that case they can be easily removed from house. And may turn them in to domestic pet

Link: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/140204/n ... roam-earth

[arayuru_rt]

just remeber that AR is not a Toy but a weapon , so even being at the lowest echleon of the rifles it still needs to be treated with commendable respect

Oh yes, this is the first lesson for all beginners. Thanks a_kamal.

I will add a few more cardinal safety rules for Ravi.
Don't point any air rifle or firearm at anyone or anything that you do not intend to shoot. NEVER
Always point the barrel towards a safe direction, ideally the open sky, till you take aim at the target you intend to shoot.
Don't put your finger on the trigger unless and until you are ready to shoot.
Always carry a firearm or air rifle with an empty chamber / don't chamber a pellet till you are about to shoot.
And, always carry a firearm or air rifle with the safety on whether or not you are aware of the fact that it does not contain a pellet in the chamber because you can always be forgetful or casual. Put the safety off only when you have made up your mind to take the shot.
No point turning the thread into a rule book. Lets get back to rats.


TC


TC

Thanks Kamal and TC for taking time to answer my questions.
Nothing much about me to introduce.
I am a software engineer working in Chennai. Completely new to guns and their terminology. My native is Andhra Pradesh.

You gave me enough info.

Thanks,
Ravi.

[nevil]

We have been troubled by the huge rats of late and could not trap them with rat traps which they had eluded. The other day my mom got to know of this trap which is a kind of glue which apparently caught the rodents with ease. She asked the sales guy as to how the rat would be removed from the board once it was caught and was told simply remove it with a stick. Well to put a long story short the traps were purchased at an exorbitant price and the trap was laid. Voila the next morning we found the huge stuck on to the glue. Now it was my job to remove the guy from the glue which had gotten all over him. Believe me it was no easy task and the amount of suffering that animal must have gone through all night must have been terrible. I got my air rifle and put an end to its misery. I don't know but i strongly believe that these kinds of traps should really be banned. I believe that even killing pests should be done humanely.

[thunderbird1]

There is another sure fire method. Put jaggery in small balls near their burrows for 3-4 days. Once they are used to eating them make jaggery - cotton wool mixture (50% each) balls and leave them in large quantities. Next day all of them will be out of their burrows and not in a state fit enough for running. Then you can have a field day with your springer or let nature take over.
Once these vermin messed up my cars wiring and in 5 days I had the entire gang in front of my 0.22....

[supershaji]

There is another sure fire method. Put jaggery in small balls near their burrows for 3-4 days. Once they are used to eating them make jaggery - cotton wool mixture (50% each) balls and leave them in large quantities. Next day all of them will be out of their burrows and not in a state fit enough for running. Then you can have a field day with your springer or let nature take over.
Once these vermin messed up my cars wiring and in 5 days I had the entire gang in front of my 0.22....

Detailed Recipe please!

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

[TC]

We have been troubled by the huge rats of late and could not trap them with rat traps which they had eluded. The other day my mom got to know of this trap which is a kind of glue which apparently caught the rodents with ease. She asked the sales guy as to how the rat would be removed from the board once it was caught and was told simply remove it with a stick. Well to put a long story short the traps were purchased at an exorbitant price and the trap was laid. Voila the next morning we found the huge stuck on to the glue. Now it was my job to remove the guy from the glue which had gotten all over him. Believe me it was no easy task and the amount of suffering that animal must have gone through all night must have been terrible. I got my air rifle and put an end to its misery. I don't know but i strongly believe that these kinds of traps should really be banned. I believe that even killing pests should be done humanely.

TC

[monty3006]

Wow... Dunno how I missed this thread. I've been killing Rats in my building compound and a few times at another friend's place for the last 10 years at least. This toll on the rat population was taken only because these mighty beasts had chewed out the wires in my Bolero Jeep and I had an almost fatal accident with the same Jeep in 2003. All said and done I personally don't have count of how many I slayed but it is in the few hundreds at least. But it hardly makes any dent in their population.
My personal theory is that even though I kill 2 to 3 rats in a week or sometimes more, the rats from the surrounding buildings and a nearby rubbish dump replace them. But all I can tell you guys is its an awesome sport.
I did my share of rookie mistakes with rats. I used to ( initial days) shoot them in the center of mass. The said rodent used to run away and die in a car or burrow after a few days and only the smell would make the night watchman locate them and throw them out. Then the good Doctor YPS introduced me to the concept of putting my slug ( .177 or .22, did not really matter, I used both) behind the ear. Had fair bit of success after that. Even the neighbours and several watchmen were quite happy.
I feel the right time to take your shot is not at the instant that you see the rat but just when it scampers and stops for an instant to again survey its surroundings. Studying rat anatomy in college ( thank you Bio Practicals) did help. Head and upper torso shots only are effective. The quarry is a tenacious beast and trying to put several pellets into it ( hahahhahhaa Sorry Monya could not resist) with multishot PCPs is not the way to go.
Break barrels, Springers, Gas rams and now finally PCPs all have accounted for rats in my building. But still even if I head down just now..... there will be a few running around.
Lights are another topic. Any torch will do but I did a few experiments with yellow light and white light (LED). even tried to use red plastic covering on my maglite for the effect. But after doing all that...... my conclusion today is shoot them without any torch or artificial light. The ambient light in most compounds is enough to pick out the rats in your scope. And the torch you will use will spook the quarry for no apparent reason.
I must mention here that I shoot mostly in the dead of the night at around 3.30am to 4.30am. I have shot at other times too but over the years have found these times to be the most silent and most productive as related to bag sizes.
More later....... Need to take a small trip around the compound now. Writing all this has made me want to shoot one just now.
Fingers itching.... Hope to make my pellet count.

[xl_target]

In the 1970's my father was seconded to the Naval Dockyard in Bombay ( that's what it was called then). We lived in Navy housing on Cuffe Parade in Colaba. Across the street were all these huge high rise apartments. Most of them had garbage chutes on each floor that ended up in a room at the back of the building. This was a haven for rats.
There were a number of us with airguns and we would go to the back of the buildings after dark. I had a Diana Model 27 in .22 (oh, how I loved that diminutive little thing). It was usually pretty dark in the shadows of the buildings so we would take flashlights along and hold them against the barrel of the rifle. You would wait patiently in the dark till you heard something scurrying. When you pointed the gun in their direction, they would freeze momentarily when the light hit them. You had just a second or so to line up and fire. Since the eyes would glow, that's where we generally aimed for. A .22 caliber pellet makes for short work of a rat when hit between the eyes. If you shut off the flashlight and waited, they would begin scurrying around in a few minutes and you could start all over again.
We dispatched hordes of them but as monty says; it doesn't really make much of a dent in their population.