Lucky me, I have been invited on a hunt for black grouse (Birkhahn, for you German speakers) in the spring. This is a mountain hunt in the "rut" (do birds rut? mating season, anyway).

I'm looking for a sensible bullet for my .222 Rem for this purpose. It needs to be something which does not tear the bird apart, and yet it can't be a FMJ because the grouse have been known to "sail" off (and never be found) when hit with those..

My host says he has shot grouse with a hollow point match bullet in .222, and it worked fine. Have any of you shot small game/birds with the Sierra (BT)HP Match bullets (52-53 grs), and what was your experience in terms of damage and lethality??

I have very limited experience with shooting birds with a rifle. I once shot a capercaille with a .22 Hornet using a regular soft point. There were feathers all over the place after the bird fell out of the tree, but the mount looks good. Sadly, I don't own a Hornet I would trust enough to take on a once-in-a-lifetime hunt like this. I also shot snow grouse with a rifle, and we had to use a .22 LR to ensure low damage. Sadly, the distances black grouse are hunted at, preclude the use of a .22 LR...
So I'm pretty much limited to my .222 or .223s.

- mike

(cross posted to European Forum)

keep your loads low velocity, its as much velocity as bullet construction that will blow the hell out of your birds. I found that 22 mag. with FMJ's worked really well. so the 52 gr sierra match loaded down to say 2000 FPS should work well. even lower I think would blow up less. birds are easy to kill.

mho,
Please explain how you hunt Black Grouse. Why must it be a rifle? No dogs? Do you sit on a stand and wait for them? These may seem like silly questions, but rifle hunting for grouse is new to me.

I have a friend in Finland that hunts some sort of turkey sized bird with a 243. I could understand that one because of the size of the bird.

Jason, given that this is my first hunt for black grouse, I can't really pass myself off as an expert. Still, I shall try to pass on what information I have.

The hunting in the Alps, is a little bit different to what is done in Sweden. There, I believe, the birds are hunted in late fall and winter on skis. The Alpine hunting for both capercaillie and black grouse is an early spring hunt, when the mating season is at its peak.

We hunted the capercaillie in the mountain forest by following its droppings, its flying sound and above all its mating ritual sounds. Once we found the sleeping tree of the capercaillie one late evening, we snuck up on the tree in the thick of the night, and waited till dawn. You have be ABSOLUTELY quiet, for the bird not to detect you and fly off before there is light enough to shoot. We actually sat right next to a bunch of feeding red deer for the longest time, and they did not even detect us - we were trying very hard to be quiet... Then it slowly dawned, and we managed to spot the bird in its tree. Curtain...

The hunt for black grouse is a hunt higher in the mountains. You start off more or less in the middle of the night, and hike up through the snow. Depending on the area hunted, this can be a trip of multiple hours. Your goal is normally a pre-constructed little blind situated to overlook a space, where the grouse cocks perform their mating dance. You have to get to the blind in the dark, and then wait until the grouse (hopefully) fly in with dawn.

Then you have to size up the bird(s), and if a suitable cock is among them (number of feathers in the tail is an indication of the age), then you have to see if he is in range of the blind. Shot distances can sometimes be surprisingly long, thus the need for a rifle. Sometimes, people also shoot the birds with shot (I believe there is a never ending debate about the suitability of one method vs. the other). So, often people bring along a rifle/shot combination gun. That was what I was intending to use - a Blaser BBF 95 in .222 Rem/12 Ga.

If you are successful, the bird is given a twig in its beak (the traditional "last bite" of Central European hunting), and then carried back to the hut in triumph tied to the outside of the hunters rucksack.

Supposedly hunting for black grouse can be a pretty tough hunt, primarily due to the long dark hikes up the mating places, and then the wait in the snow to cool you off (brrrr). Since there is no guarantee the birds actually turn up, or that a suitable cock is among them, or that you even hit the bird if a chance presents itself, you may need multiple days of all this before you succeed (if at all).

To help with success, the game keeper (in my case, my gracious host) will often have pre-scouted the mating places, and built a blind in advance. If that is not done, that also becomes part of the hunt.

OK, that is about as much as I know about hunting black grouse in the Alps in the spring. Maybe others will add to the story, or some of our Scandinavian friends will tell us how the birds are hunted up there...

- mike

P.S. This page contains a bunch of pics of black grouse performing their mating ritual. It is quite the spectacle...

Wow, they are pretty. How tall are they. I couldn't find anything in the pictures to scale them by. Thanks for the information,,,,I learned something today.

The match bullets you mention don't expand real fast, in fact they often ricochet off of hard ground. Load em to 2600 fps or so and you will probably be ok and have some bird to eat. Good hunting.

I agree with Rickt300. I have used the 52s in a 222 loaded to 2800-3000 fps and they do not expand. Poked many a hole in coyotes with zero expansion.

My experience indicates that for small, relatively fragile critters, (like a turkey, etc.), one must not only use tough bullets, but also slow them down considerably. Any bullet moving much over 2500 FPS will make a pretty big mess of a small creature or bird. The damage is done by the velocity, NOT expansion.