I seldom find #4 from the 12ga either , unless it is a long shot or hits bone then it is only a few pellets, full choke for everything and aim for the head any time offered.

Boring. LOL

The old timers carried a shotgun and a pistol. Some people would be surprised how many rabbits you can shoot that are just sitting right beside you and haven't took off yet.

The rabbit thinks you can't see them if they hold still.

somehow I find all the excitement I need being boring , it just finds me no need to ever go looking for it.

Pheasants also , they duck down in the ditch like if I can't see you ,you can't see me , boom as soon as that little white line pops above the grass again for a peak

Yep for sure.

My dad would come back and kick my … if he knew I shot a rabbit with a 12 ga.

There were a lot of cottontails around my dad's place. Used a 10/22 and limiting myself to only head shots and a limit of 4 I was usually back home in 15 to 20 minutes. Limited to 4 because that was all I wanted to clean. Cooked the meat and pulled it off the bones and mixed the bits with rice and mushroom soup. Been a while, I need to go rabbit hunting again.

Rabbit breakfast sausage is the best! Deep fried back straps split down the middle are great too.

Must not be hunting in stuff like this

If you can't kill a rabbit with a 2 1/2 #4 .410 you need to practice more.

I have killed several running rabbits with the .22 when they decide to bust and run. Slowly walking and catching them setting with a .22 in hand.

my dad isn't dead , and he never said anything about not using the 12 till he bought a 20ga when I was 11 for me to use all he had was a 12.

my grandpa shot everything he ever shot with that 12ga , he was the man with one gun 60 years of farming and everything and anything needed killing on the farm got a 12ga shell. those rare cases of shooting for fun , it was still the 12ga pheasants as the combine took the final rows of corn.

my other grandpa didn't own any guns , he would have pulled an envelope out of his shirt pocket and grabbed his pen and do the math that there were 25 rounds in each box but that a box of 12ga sold for 9 dollars and a box of 410 sold for 18 dollars , that it was a 9 dollar savings and compound that with you already owned a 12 so there was no need to buy a 410 to do what the 12 would do even if it was a touch of over kill.
he didn't need the paper and pen to do the math but that was how he would do it for us kids.
he did a lot of calculations for business deals however on the back of an envelope. he would work all the numbers out on the envelope then fold it up stick it back in his pocket and make the offer.

I typically find them sitting under multifloweral rose bushes
Just gotta find that small spot where I can see an eye
And knowing the tragedy of the bullet helps

I haven't taken my shotgun off of rack but to clean it in many years
I just don't like the scatter gun, one shot one kill

Where I trap and hunt there aren't many rabbits. If there were, I'd be using the 22! Love the slow stalk.

Nice looking bunch of fox squirrels

Done it a few times with a Ruger M77/22 It is one more reason to get out and do something different And get a shot at killing a rabbit is good practice for deer hunting And no one needs an excuse for having a Ruger in your hands

When I was 18, all I had was a 22. Hunted snowshoe hares to stay alive. I slipped along the edges of bogs. Whenever I jumped one up, it would take off and stop in the alders along the edge at about 50 yards, thinking that they were now safe. Wrongo fathead. I just need to see that giant eye and Bob's your uncle.

In my early years my dad had a Winchester 74 .22lr and taught me and my kid brother how to “bark” cottontails in a circle and shoot them with the .22. It was actually quite easy if you missed them on the jump with the 22. Being that humans track slower than a dog, by the time the rabbits circled back around they’d be just hopping & sitting making for easy head shots.