When I was a kid I had a Daisy pump BB gun. It killed a lot of birds, which Dad made me eat. When my son was a kid I got him a Daisy Red Ryder. Still have it. That’s about all I know about air rifles, but I would like to get a decent one than can pop a squirrel or rabbit in the head at about 30 yards and kill it clean.
Any suggestions? Not needing a match grade target rifle. Just something middle of the road. Should I go with .177 or .22? CO2, pump, or spring? There seems to be a hundred models available in many brands.
Help me out. Thanks.
Cracker, I have a little experience with BB guns What I like is the ones with a nitrogen cartridge. The dont make near as much noise as the spring recoil ones. Don’t over look going to .22 cal vs .177. They now make some pretty cool hunting pellets for both.
Look up Benjamin or crossman nitro piston BB guns. Then just search nitro piston BB guns For a decent one look to spend $150-250. The extreme side will run upwards of &1500. There is some crazy high dollar bbguns out there!
I kind of lost interest when I got the .17 and now I really don’t have any since I am able to find cheap .22lr again !!
My old 10-pump crosman 760 will forever hold a special place in my heart, my proudest possession for many years of my young life!
I now have a nicer RWS that does ~1,100fps, and found as LB mentioned that the heavier pellets are necessary in .177 to stabilize at high speeds- weird fliers and keyholing with the bargain pellets. kills the crap out of squirrels, able to make head shots most of the time. I still might have considered .22cal had I known that today’s pneumo-technology has no problem propelling them at lethal speeds! mine sounds like a manual staple gun, the spring pushing the piston makes most of the noise.
also, spring-driven doesn’t compress air till you pull the trigger, making them better for “hunting” purposes where pre-cocking is prudent. goes great at dusk on the porch with a little charcoal fire, some single oysters, and a nice cold beer too.
Check YouTube. There are some serious air gun snipers there that have a lot of tutorials and reviews. If you get a scope for a Springer be sure its made for the reverse recoil of the spring, it can blowout quality rifle scopes
Question;;
I’ve been trying to get 177 to do the job on tree rats too, problem
is , can’t seem to find one that shoots consistently . Set scope/1-2
shots,reset ect,ect, hits are all over paper, thought “bad scope”
different gun and scope, Same issue, another different gun “high dollar Gamo” again same issue… Brainstorm** maybe it’s ME **,nope,
got son and son-n-law, both are nail drivers , same thing… thinking
now about 22cal instead of 177. I’m really stumped, any ideas???
What kind of projectiles are you using? If gun and shooter and scope are not the issue, the only thing left to analyze is the projectile itself.
Most cheap standard pellets are incredibly inconsistent. It is worth investing in some expensive projectiles, and necessary to get the consistency you need to do this humanely in my opinion.
If you get a break barrel, get the nitro piston and not spring operated. FOr squirrels, .177 is fine, but .22 is better and I doubt .177 would be as effective as you would want it to be on a rabbit, so I would suggest .22… Check the specs on the gun before buying it. The nitro piston models will generally give you 300-500 more fps than a spring. As for alloy pellets, I feel they are too light and lack the knock down power of a lead pellet, so I use lead. You will lose a couple hundred fps using lead over alloy, which makes to nitro piston the way to go.
Gail, different guns like different rounds. If you can, find a multi pack with copper tip, pointed, hollow point, wad cutter, and round tip. Shoot them all and see what groups the best. Sometimes you need different brands or weights.
I haven’t used my springer much in years but I bought a decent scope for it last year hoping to use it to pop squirrels while deer hunting. Its a crossman 1000 I believe, 1000fps. at one point i blew out a Bushnell scope that had been on my 25-06 for years. Thats why i know some of these thing after researching what happened. But eventually it seemed to lose its accuracy. I might just need to clean the lead out the barrel but not sure. new scope didnt fix it. :-/ when I first got it and scoped it I could consistently hit a quarter from 40 yards so it has the ability.
Thanks again. I’d never even heard of a nitro piston or knew there was more than one pellet alloy. Should have figured that. That narrows down the hunt considerably.
I have an Air Arm S400 .177 and and AirForce Condor .22 Both are pneumatic and you charge them with a scuba tank. The S400 is a true 10M match gun. The Condor is a crazy strong hunting/plinking rifle.
I still have an old Crossman springer around but never shoot it any more. In the spinger line ups, the break barrels are not as accurate as the fixed barrels with a cocking lever. Air Arms and RWS both make springers with levers. The springers are easy to use because you do not need an air source. You can get a gas shock instead of springs in these guns now. I have never shot one with a gas shock.
The pneumatic guns are much more accurate than the other power sources. But you have to charge them with a scuba tank. They are so accurate because the amount of air supplied for each shot is more precise than the other methods.
I like my Air Arms the most because it is so accurate. In a rest, it will put pellets through the same hole at 20M. But, it will not kill a squirrel. It maxes out around 600FPS.
My AirForce Condor will wear a squirrel out and pushes a .22 pellet at around 1100FPS. The Condor sounds like a .22 rimfire since the pellet is breaking the sound barrier. It acts like a rimfire for all intensive purposes. I shoot my 17HMR more than the Condor and they both make about the same amount of noise.
Good luck and have fun deciding which gun best suits your needs.
Thanks again for the ■■■■■■■■. Great thing about this forum is that somebody knows something about most everything and are willing to share information:sunglasses:
Let us know what you get and how it works out for you.
For reference my 1000 fps crossman was able to kill a fox at 40 yards with a heart shot, went 10 feet. Also killed dinner plate yellow bellied sliders, coons, and countless birds.
Recently learned that Lewis and Clark used an air gun to get all there meat on there venture into the north west! I always thought that air guns were new in the 1950’s when I was a kid, not the 1850’s
Recently learned that Lewis and Clark used an air gun to get all there meat on there venture into the north west! I always thought that air guns were new in the 1950’s when I was a kid, not the 1850’s
Cool stuff! peace through Superior fire power. Not very practical, but very impressive.
The Girandoni air rifle! Still a mystery how Lewis and Clark got one. Sure messed up Napolian. Read some of the journals it was a tool to Scare the Hel@ out of the indians, and it worked!
I use a Benjamin Titan NP with GAMO Hunter Impacts .177, had a possum show up and try to terrorize my German Shepherd two nights ago (big mistake). I shot him about 40 yards away in the head and dropped him on one shot. I love the Benjamin myself. It is a break action. It shoots 1/2" groups with match grade at 65 yards. I have a 3-9x40 on it as well.
