RATS

[Jim147]

Like every weekend I went to check the fluids on my wife's car today.  Ten pounds of gravel and a nest made of the hood and firewall insulation later I got it cleaned out and everything fixed.

I've fought pack rats for 25 years but this is a becoming a problem.

So of course the question is what caliber for rat?

I'm thinking .45 long colt.

[Snowdog]

Stick you a 6' blacksnake, a Rat Terrier and a claymore in there.  You won't have that particular trouble anymore.

Winchester's .22LR ratshot from a rifle will kill a rat within 10' with ease.  I wouldn't want to use that around a vehicle though.   

Then again, it is said rats avoid making nests in locations that are engulfed in flame....

[230RN]

Traps haven't worked for the 25 years you've been fighting them?

Of general interest and amusement:

https://youtu.be/8OuCMJDpJJg (10:09)

The revolver rat trap trapped me into watching the whole thing.

We've always had cats so rarely had problems with small vermin except in one case we had mice in the tack room where the grain was stored.  The cats could not get in there, and the inevitable spillage attracted the mice  --who could.  I finally got a multiple mouse trap where you wound it up and it would kick the mice into a chamber.  It worked OK technically, but disposal was a problem.

I note with the nail gun mouse trap in the video, he did not show the results of the kill or how he got the nailed-down critter out of the trap.  Must have been messy, but no messier than the revolver method.

[HeroHog]

Removal from the trap was easy because he used that small board under the target area for just that reason. Open side, slide board/rat/nail out, remove nail, profit!
 

[charby]

Time for some outdoor bait stations

[MechAg94]

If you know roughly where they are, those sticky traps work pretty well.  Just put them along the wall behind stuff where they are likely to move.  A couple times I have seen two mice on one trap as the 2nd one just ran over the first and stuck to the other side of the trap.  

The one time a mouse managed to get into my house (left the door to the garage open), I put a few sticky traps along the wall on either side of the hallway entry where I had seen it.  Caught it within a few hours as it tried to move around again.  

They make the large sticky traps for rats. 

[Jim147]

I'm pulling out the 20 gauge/.22 tomorrow and going hunting.

The dog did get one Tuesday morning but I know where a few more nests are.

[WLJ]

I have 10 cats. No rats

[Andiron]

I have 10 cats. No rats

10 cats?  You need a .22..

[Hawkmoon]

Henry to the rescue:

https://www.henryusa.com/shotgun/garden-gun-smoothbore-22/

I saw a video. The smoothbore patterns a LOT better than the rifled barrel.

[RoadKingLarry]

I have 10 cats. No rats

I'm not sure which would be the worse option.
 

[RoadKingLarry]

Henry to the rescue:

https://www.henryusa.com/shotgun/garden-gun-smoothbore-22/

I saw a video. The smoothbore patterns a LOT better than the rifled barrel.

Henry makes some darn good varmint control devices.

[lee n. field]

Like every weekend I went to check the fluids on my wife's car today.  Ten pounds of gravel and a nest made of the hood and firewall insulation later I got it cleaned out and everything fixed.

I've fought pack rats for 25 years but this is a becoming a problem.

So of course the question is what caliber for rat?

I'm thinking .45 long colt.

How big of rat?

Not finding anything online now, with some lackadasical g00gling, but I recollect from years back that there was a group of guys somewhere that would go around practicing for some air rifle sport (field target possibly)by rat hunting in farmers' barns.

[Fly320s]

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rat+shooting+with+pellet+gun