This squirrel was nailed at 54 yards with the GSG 1911 Green model (SKU: GERG2210M1911G). The grips are late 1980s NOS grips from Editor-in-Chief Vincent DeNiro’s retail gun shop and were made by Pachmayr.
November 18, 2022
By Firearms News Staff
Squirrel season began on September first in Ohio, and in late October, the son of Editor-in-Chief Vincent DeNiro, Matthew DeNiro, made an incredible shot with a .22 LR handgun.
“I was standing in the foyer of my house when my younger son Matthew said, ‘I see a squirrel.’ He stepped out onto our front porch, GSG 1911 .22 pistol in hand. Once the door shut, I peered out of the window to see exactly where this squirrel was. I looked all over the front yard, and trees out to about 30 yards. No squirrel. As he took aim, I then saw a large brown squirrel at about 50 yards which just ran up a good-sized tree and it stopped about five feet up. I didn’t think he was going to hit it at that distance, but he did on the second shot! I measured the distance, and it was 162 feet or 54 yards. Wow.”
The GSG 1911 has the same feel and footprint as any full-size 1911 .45 ACP pistol. DeNiro stated that the ammunition used was 40-grain Winchester Wildcat Copper Plated Dynapoint . He continued, “I would use CCI Stingers for small game hunting and even used ELEY competition ammunition sometimes, but this Winchester ammunition is very impressive coming out of bulk packaging.”
Matthew started shooting when he was around three-years old and according to his father, has always been a natural Marksman. DeNiro elaborates, “I started him off with a .22 LR bolt action, like most kids do, and it was with a .22 LR rifle that was my grandfather’s, but he got a DelTon AR-15 at about five years old. He mainly shot it with a .22 LR conversion, but also fired it with 5.56mm back then. Matthew was the first in the family to get deer on our property, which we purchased in 2008, and that was with another ATI-imported product in the form of an AR-15 .410 conversion.
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The pistol features a set of three-dot sights, and both are dovetailed. There are also two additional front sights included, besides the one installed (low, medium, high). But Matthew isn’t the only one shooting at small game with .22 rimfire handguns, DeNiro continues, “I started squirrel hunting in the early 1980s with a Hi-Standard Model GD I inherited from my maternal grandfather. Shooting squirrels with rifles since the mid-1970s got to be a bit boring, so I wanted more of a challenge. I’m happy to see that handgun hunting has been successfully passed down to my younger son who is 18 now. I will say that with all the squirrels I have shot since the 1970s, I have never hit one that far away with a handgun. I am really proud of him!”
Editor-in-Chief Vincent DeNiro inherited this Hi-Standard Model GD pistol. Hi-Standard was one of the top Olympic-grade pistol companies back in the 1950s. DeNiro has used it for small-game handgun hunting for over 40 years. Matthew DeNiro not only has shot a squirrel with the GSG 1911 .22 LR , but also a rabbit. And you can see a photo of that rabbit, plus a full review of this accurate and reliable handgun, via this article link: GSG 1911 in .22LR: An ATI Offering .
If you have any thoughts or comments on this article, we’d love to hear them. Email us at FirearmsNews@Outdoorsg.com .
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