Suppressed Hunting

August 2nd, 2012 - hunting in the state of Arizona using firearms fitted with sound suppressors is now legal! There are also no longer magazine restrictions on centerfire rifles or shotguns. Woo-hoo!

To celebrate this, I went out yesterday with some fellow shooting and hunting enthusiasts to have a good time and we took along some suppressors and absolutely ZERO 'low-capacity' magazines.

I got the first kill of the day with my suppressed Remington 870 using 3" #4 buckshot on this little cottontail:

We didn't have any luck on our first few predator hunting stands, and then we got extremely sidetracked with lots of lots of prairie dogs. I didn't think shooting prairie dogs could be any more fun than it already is, but add in sound suppressors and normal capacity magazines and it's a serious recipe for awesome! We even had a chance to chase a badger around, but unfortunately he ran into his badger hole before we had the chance to turn him into a rug.

Here's just a few of our hunting tools for the day - there were several other suppressed AR-15s in use, as well:

Once we had our fill of prairie dogs (figuratively, not literally) we grabbed some lunch and then got serious about predator hunting again. On the first stand after lunch, myself and 2 other hunters were set up at the edge of a small clearing. I decided to resort back to tried-and-true handcalling and left the FoxPro turned off for this stand. Not 2 minutes into my raspy cottontail distress using a Sceery AP-6, a young coyote came busting out of the treeline and headed right for me like she was on a string. I raised my shotgun (easier said than done with that big ol' suppressor on it!) and with a near silent shot she was in the dirt. That proved to be all for that stand, so we packed up and headed to the next one. Here's a few pictures of what happened - dotted red lines is where she came in from, and the red circle is where I dropped her with a load of 3" #4 buckshot:

We started calling my shotgun "Flamethrower" due the shape of the suppressor, though we also considered calling it "Bilstein" since it also looks like some kind of vehicle part!

On the next stand I called in another coyote with the same Sceery AP-6, but the hunter who saw him only had a 2 second window to shoot, and then the coyote was gone. After that stand, the weather started blessing us with ample amounts of rain and wind, so we headed off to another location:

After one more stand in the wind and looming rain, we decided to call it an early day and headed home to a warm meal and a hot shower. It was a great day, though, with firsts for everyone involved since suppressed hunting just became legal!

I want to give a big thanks to Tim McBride from East Valley Class III for providing me with the "Flamethrower," which is actually the Mark I shotgun suppressor hand made by Tim himself. Mark II and Mark III, which are lighter and more efficient, are currently in the works, and I look forward to putting them to work in the field. And what's the official name for Tim's shotgun suppressor? The QCK - Quiet Coyote Killer. Right on, Tim!

Below is a short video of me putting some rounds through a few of the suppressed hunting tools we used to demo their very quiet nature. Notice the lack of hearing protection - with all of the shooting we did all day, not one of us had so much as an ear buzz. To me, that is one of the biggest advantages of using a suppressor while hunting, especially considering the muzzle blast from a shotgun.

Happy Hunting!