One other thing to consider if you are planning on hunting squirrels with a rifle is making sure of the backstop. If you are shooting up into a tree at a squirrel on a branch and miss, even a .22 Long Rifle bullet can travel a long way, well over a mile, and still damage property or injure someone. That means that you have to be very careful about making sure that if you might miss the squirrel you' ll hit the tree. A shotgun takes care of that problem because the pellets from, say, a #6 field load are only dangerous to a 150-200 yards AT MOST, which means that it' s much safer when shooting into the air.

Mike