6.5 Takes a Big Bobcat - video

[Double Naught Spy]

She came in at 26 lbs. I lost her twice, but eventually got a good shot on her.

http://youtu.be/0kCl9Cl6788

[montana]

Nice job, they make nice rugs. When I was 13yrs old, Bobcat hides were selling for over 300 dollars so I trapped one but couldn't bring myself to sell it and made a rug out of it. Mine wasn't as big as yours, that is one big cat. Thanks for posting ,another great vid.

[am4966]

Nice, that's a big kitty!

[Double Naught Spy]

I am leaning toward the rug/throw for my daughter, especially now that I have priced mounts. Besides, my wife isn't thrilled about the idea of mounts. She liked me hunting hogs because I wasn't inclined to bring any home to hang on the walls. :-)

[sneaky one]

nice work DNS !

[jawbone]

love these FLIR vids. you are truly one exceptional hunter/shooter and dedicated FLIR Master.

[LRRPF52]

Another great video. Have you ever tried taking a shot through light vegetation? We did some informal testing in a very high humidity environment with 5.56 shooting through some pretty thick grass and brush, since I got tired of hearing this crap about how "5.56 hits a twig and goes all over the place".

I've also seen a lot of shots through loopholes where the bullet hit small branches, with varying degrees of deviation off target at distance. It would be interesting to see how well the Grendel busts through brush. A South African friend of mine said they preferred 7.62 NATO from the FAL's since they had so much dry heavy scrub brush there, and the R4 (SADF 5.56 Galil) didn't do so well in that terrain.

[Double Naught Spy]

Oh sure. At my place I put a shot right into the head of this smaller boar on Christmas night. I was using the same Grendel upper, same ammo, but a different scope. As you can see, the head is hard to make out clearly. I had a very good idea of what the bullet was supposed to be going through and how much there was. Basically, the boar was behind/inside a patch of mostly briar vines and little stuff.

http://youtu.be/m6y2dX6IpOw

With the bobcat, especially on that closeup view of the cat walking, I knew there was a lot of heavy brush mixed in with the other stuff. I didn't want to blow the shot because of a deflection, which is something that I admittedly don't fully understand.

I do know that the greater the distance from the target, the greater the potential deflection amount. So the Xmas pig was immediately behind or inside the stuff that could potentially deflect it. The bobcat (I assumed), could have been 10 or 20 yards beyond the brush. I was hoping the bobcat would walk into a large enough gap for a shot, but as you saw, that didn't happen.

[Double Naught Spy]

Got the carcass back from the taxidermist and got a chance to look more closely at the ballistic damage. It is impressive. The bullet entered the left arm above the elbow, broke the distal end of the humerus, then (fragments?) entered the chest cavity and destroyed a section of ribs and shredded the heart/lung area, exiting on the right side at rearward portion of the ribs, drawing out a goodly amount of tissue through pingpong/golf ball-sized hole.

6.5 Grendel Hornady SST 123 gr. ammo, probably traveling at a bit over 2500 fps at impact.

I have watched the video multiple times. I have trouble seeing that my should would have traveled as it did. Apparently, the cat was sitting, slightly quartered toward my left, and the bullet impacted below my POA because the cat was much closer than I anticipated.

I am starting to believe that SST stands for "Super Shredded Tissue" because the damage seen here isn't atypical of what I have seen with the coyotes or the hogs.

[Sniper338]

What kind of flir is that and how far away is it good for?

[customcutter]

Needless to say DRT, with all that damage. Love your vids, keep up the good work. Wish I had somewhere to hunt predators or pigs, I'd consider buying some night optics.

[Double Naught Spy]

Sniper, it is a FLIR core inside of an Armasight Scope (Zeus 3, 3x {optical, but with up to 24x digital zoom}, 640x480 resolution, 75mm lens).

How far is it good for? Well, I can see a neighbor's house more than a mile from my stand, but that isn't likely the type of information you want. You want to know how far you can see to hunt, I assume. The depends on environmental conditions, but for the distances I have tested it, there is no problem identifying deer or hogs at 400 yards. It can be a little hard to tell the difference between calves/deer/hogs at 600+ yards quickly. You have to watch them move a little, first. I can tell raccoons from armadillos at 230 yards. I can ID rabbits beyond 200 yards. I can see rats and mice at 120+ yards.

In high humidity like we have been having, the trees and ground can blend into grey and the animals appear to be moving across the field of view not really attached to anything. With higher humidity/fog, you also loose detail.

Here is a link to my playlist for predators. On this first listing, the humidity was 97%, the coyote at 92 yards, at the top of a creek bank, but still on the slope, with trees behind it. You can't hardly tell any of that. In the second video, the far treeline is more than 120 yards at its closest point and the coyote was taken out in the field at about 120 yards, but you can see a lot of the plants (especially trees) quite nicely. There was a lot less humidity this evening. In the 3rd video, the coyote it taken at 85 yards, but the far distant trees are at over 250 yards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=443tzXs8dzM&index=2&list=PLRdcWtDwxcrQXsZm48GaplJI1jcKcv8_K

I haven't looked at stuff much beyond 600 yards and the place I have been hunting a lot of late mostly has views of less than 300 yards. With zoom, I would have no problem taken a deer or hog-sized animal at 300 yards.