Need recommendations for quiet air fun for taking squirrels You can

RA40 said:

I've wanted one of these for the rat issues. As much as I'd like an air gun, I don't have the devoted time to wait and the critters that pass through are night opportunists so that definitely has some limitations. This is ready 24/7 and for multiple resets after being triggered.

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I liked the video. Enough to even google the device but $200 buys a lot of poison.

And a lot of pellets. And so long as my rodent problem remains relatively modest (only see the odd one, no significant damage to home nor garden so long as I shoot about 30 or 40 per year), staying up late the odd night is actually a fun shooting opportunity. Some of the reviews of that rather clever captive piston trap (Anton Chigur anyone?) are fairly negative as well.

I can tell you what not to use. While of it's possible to use a .177 pellet to kill a squirrel, there is also a good chance of losing the animal too. As a kid a few wounded, suffering squirrels escaped me and I regretted it. .177 is for the birds (pun intended).

I'll also add that suppressors really do make a big difference even on air guns, if you need quiet I recommend you get an airgun that has one.

My friend uses Benjamin Marauder as he have the same problem in his farm not with squirrels but with poisonous snakes. Not pretty sure why the snakes love their but the rifle help them get rid around 5 snakes and not his farm is clear from them. He chose silent rifle not to disturb his farm animals that living there.

Quiet is a relative term. Good luck .

Quiet is relative. My crossbow is much louder than an air rifle.

Sav .250 said:

Quiet is a relative term. Good luck .

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pert near said:

Quiet is relative. My crossbow is much louder than an air rifle.

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Depends on the air rifle

Kaybee said:

I can tell you what not to use. While of it's possible to use a .177 pellet to kill a squirrel, there is also a good chance of losing the animal too. As a kid a few wounded, suffering squirrels escaped me and I regretted it. .177 is for the birds (pun intended).

I'll also add that suppressors really do make a big difference even on air guns, if you need quiet I recommend you get an airgun that has one.

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I agree you ought to use at least a 22 cal. air gun for squirrels. They're tough and pumping multiple shots into a wounded squirrel isn't something I want to do even though they're pests. I've shot a lot of squirrels and rabbits with 22 cal rifle and they were quick kills with head shots. A wounded squirrel dragging itself across my neighbor's lawn is likely to result in the law showing up and possible loss of my pistol permit and firearms. I know a lot depends on where you live and local laws but in my neck of the "woods" air guns are subject to the same laws as regular firearms. I'm hoping to relocate to a more rural, gun friendly state before long.

When I was shopping for my first air gun 3 years ago I heard advice to go with a .22 if squirrels were on the agenda. Even wound up squirrel hunting with it just because it's legal and I wanted to try it. Managed to get one at about 20 yards and it wound up on the ground but needed a finishing shot. So about 20 yards is my limit, (maybe 25 if a good shot presents itself). My Benjamin Trail doesn't seem to be anything I'd worry about noise-wise but I'm not familiar with other air guns and noise so I couldn't make comparisons, ( seems awful quiet to me). If it gets used on squirrels again I should concentrate on head shots; which I haven't tried yet with that.

22250Rem said:

When I was shopping for my first air gun 3 years ago I heard advice to go with a .22 if squirrels were on the agenda. Even wound up squirrel hunting with it just because it's legal and I wanted to try it. Managed to get one at about 20 yards and it wound up on the ground but needed a finishing shot. So about 20 yards is my limit, (maybe 25 if a good shot presents itself). My Benjamin Trail doesn't seem to be anything I'd worry about noise-wise but I'm not familiar with other air guns and noise so I couldn't make comparisons, ( seems awful quiet to me). If it gets used on squirrels again I should concentrate on head shots; which I haven't tried yet with that.

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This is a good post, and gives me an excuse to climb up on my soap box again (a gasp can be felt across the internets)

When hunting tree rats...or anything really applicable to air guns (i am not talking big bore air rifles here sticking .25 or under) is you have to know that an air rifle kills by hitting something that will kill the animal. Nothing gets my hackles up more then an unethical kill (and it is not my intent to call out the guy I quoted)

Your kill area on most of these critters is around the size of a quarter...the distance you can put a pellet in a quarter is the distance you need to hunt at.

Also remember the BC on a pellet is very different from that of a normal bullet...pellets just flat suck and slow down REALLY fast. For a fun test if you have a chrono test it a foot from the muzzle and then a foot from the target...you will see an amazing drop....and remember it is the energy at the target that counts not the energy at the muzzle end.

Tree rats are also pretty tough critters....much tougher then birds....so remember shot placement counts.

When hunting tree rats...or anything really applicable to air guns (i am not talking big bore air rifles here sticking .25 or under) is you have to know that an air rifle kills by hitting something that will kill the animal.

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Doesn’t matter what you shoot them with really if it’s a bad shot. I remember when I was 12-13 and shot a squirrel with an 8mm Mauser my Grandmother kept in the kitchen closet, the first shot blew its left front leg over so it was next to the right one as it ran away. Finished it off with a much weaker .22 pellet pistol, in the right spot.

I got spoiled by hunting squirrels with various firearms in 22LR and a few decades ago even used shotguns. When I got my first air rifle; I chronographed various pellets and got velocities of from 736 fps to 832 fps (near the muzzle) depending on pellet weight. I could tell pellets had a poor ballistic coefficient just by looking at their shape. I knew the range better be a lot closer than my usual squirrel hunting distances. So naturally it had to be attempted just out of curiosity because it's legal in this state. Ethical kills have always been high on my priority list and if the air gun gets used again this coming season it's only gonna be used if there's an easy close shot. But the more I think of it the more I want to use my CZ-455 in 22LR which I got in 2017 and it hasn't taken a tree rat yet. The OP in this thread mentioned no close neighbors and something quiet and using it at close range....... In that situation I'd use my 22 cal. Benjamin Trail; AFAIK it's plenty quiet and as long as the targets were close and shot placement could be good it should be sufficient. (Didn't want to get too far off original topic).

I've tended to think of (and calculate for using Chairgun) a dime size group as my maximum. I don't take the shot if I can't hit a dime at that range. So my effective squirrel maximum range is about 15 metres with my little rodent gun, a .177" with 6.5fpe at the muzzle. That leaves me with 4.4fpe at the target at 15 metres. With a brain stem shot from the side that is more than enough and they drop cold every time. I don't take front-on shots at over 10 metres and in general keep those to under 7 metres, depending on the angle of presentation of the skull. If they're below me or looking down, the pellet won't glance off. If a grey is being difficult, in distance or angle presented, I get out the 19fpe .22". A nickel size group is acceptable with that one, and as it's heavier and longer I can hold a nickel to 25 metres untested.

jmorris said:

Doesn’t matter what you shoot them with really if it’s a bad shot. I remember when I was 12-13 and shot a squirrel with an 8mm Mauser my Grandmother kept in the kitchen closet, the first shot blew its left front leg over so it was next to the right one as it ran away. Finished it off with a much weaker .22 pellet pistol, in the right spot.

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very true...I blew the back half off one and he was still alive....I felt horrid. No animal (aside from some humans) deserve to crawl off into a hole coughing up blood to die a slow and painful death.

Just got yet another grey squirrel. This one at 7 metres on a nut tree, so 5.2fpe delivered with a 7.56gr wadcutter about 8mm ahead of his left ear, and since it was angled downward about 15 degrees I put the pellet exactly on a line drawn between ear hole and eye - the spot where I've found the most reliable 'lights out' with these guys from that angle. If level with me, I aim for about 1 pellet diameter below that line. If further below me I'll go a pellet diameter above. The hind brain must be intersected for a responsible dispatch. This brings it to 10 for the year, which is about on schedule - if prior years' data remains true for August there will be another 6 this month, then 15 in September. So far no need for second shots this year. I think I needed a second shot twice last year out of 45 squirrels, both times due to them twitching as I squeezed the trigger and the pellet hitting slightly too low, disabling but not ending them.

fpgt72 said:

very true...I blew the back half off one and he was still alive....I felt horrid. No animal (aside from some humans) deserve to crawl off into a hole coughing up blood to die a slow and painful death.

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I agree. While I don't have any problems with squirrels, per se, I do with chipmunks. I've had many chippies, that upon a non-killing shot, have limped toward me with what only can be described as a look of "Please, help me!" God, how I hate that. Causes me to put the gun up for the day, and for a while, til I see they're getting out of hand again. Haven't yet tried out the Fire at chippies, though it's now sighted in and is accurate at 60 or so feet.

That's awful and one reason I've shunned airguns for hunting for some time now. Perhaps one of those repeating CO2 pelletguns might be a better choice for those little guys? Only drawback is some look too much like real firearms and in city limits might cause trouble.

Guys. Enough with wounding critters already. If you can't reliably hit a brain-sized target (considering the brain size of whatever rodent you're shooting at) from the range at which you're actually hunting them, don't take the damned shot. Practice on mints. Rolaids. Around a nickel to dime size target. Put it at 60 feet if that's your typical pest range, and when you can shoot 5 in a row from a position exactly like what you'll be using for hunting - ie: NOT benchrest, but standing or kneeling or however you typically shoot a pest - then maybe you're ready for live quarry. Not before.

Even the best flub shots, you know that, and the critters in question tend to move fast as it is. I've had them twitch during my squeeze and end up missing them totally. It's not hard for them to move enough during the projectiles flight for a kill shot to become a wounding shot.

It was just Stevie-Ray's use of the word "many" which upset me a bit. Triggered my empathy for the poor little buggers. I'm just saying we need to be responsible about this stuff. Learn not to take the shot if the critter is on the move. I generally wait for them to be munching something. Then they're extremely unlikely to move. But even then I observe carefully and try to shoot just as they settle into a chewing pattern. Between rotations of a nut for example.

Interesting story about human ethics: There was an insane mouse problem at a remote place I once worked and people were killing them however/whenever they could. I knew a girl that said you guys are cruel and disgusting etc etc bla bla bla.... She didn't understand what it's like to have them everywhere and into everything 24/7, including in bed while you sleep, in your shoes etc. After she was there a week I saw her use a can of hair spray and bic lighter on one. I thought it interesting how drastically peoples ethics change when they have to endure the problem. Obviously she gets it now... So while most of us try not to be cruel, the more of a problem they cause the less we care about ethics. Like when a rat(s) was chewing 120V wires in my house and could've easily burned the place down, do you think I waited for an ethical shot or took the first available? When a squirrel or rat is chewing a cars wiring harness do you think the owner will do what I did, or wait for that clean shot? Even my own mother, who is a hard core animal lover, took out a squirrel that chewed on her cars wiring. She trapped it in the house and let the cat take care of it, which was a very old cat w/ only one tooth left so it was a slow death. She just watched with revenge in her eyes as it took some time to die.
The last rat I killed maybe a month or two ago was under my hood and chewing stuff. It was a clean brain shot but only bc his head was exposed, if it had been his ass I wooda taken the shot w/o question bc it would be days or weeks, if ever that I'd get another chance. I don't like unethical kills either, and do what I can when I can, but I have limits. If I were the OP I'd no doubt take any shot I could. Which is better, a suffering rat or a burned house?

Aguila Colibri: They are very weak but I've never had a head shot fail me. The only time I've seen one stick in the bore like 1KPerDay said is a friend who shot one thru a choked Anchutz barrel, which stuck in the choke of course. This is why the mfg says never to shoot them in a rifle, pistol only. You're supposed to use the "Super" Colibri in rifles but those are too loud, defeats the purpose imo. I've shot >1k plain Colibri w/o fail so I'm pretty happy with them. Most all of mine are launched thru a Marlin 925, which I actually bought for the sole purpose of shooting this ammo thanks to that micro-groove bore, its 22" and bolt feed. It's almost perfect for this ammo. I think the only better thing would be a 24" barrel, or maybe even 26 but at some point it'll be too long and slow the bullet.
If sticking in the bore is an issue, or your bore is slowing them, you can also sand the bore a bit and dry lube it to minimize friction. Also useful if you simply want some xtra fps. Or just dry lube if you don't want to sand it. I use Tungsten Disulfide but Moly works too. And/or you can dry lube the bullets. Sanding the bore sounds crazy but I have excellent luck doing it.

Since my last post a coupla months ago I made an even better suppressor for my Mrod. It is literally silent now, not counting the hammer noise. So fire an Mrod w/ zero air in it and that's what mine sounds like. I mention that for those wanting a super ultra quiet gun, and I can explain how to make said suppressor using oem Crosman parts. It looks factory, just longer. The gun itself is not modded at all so once removed, which only takes a few seconds, it's 100% oem again.
Now I'm working on how to quiet the hammer, which I also want to do to the Marlin. Not that they really need it, I just want to see how quiet I can get the guns overall.
An Mrod is $pendy but they're super cool and versatile. Extremely accurate and power is very adjustable. Excellent gun to practice with when you can't use a firearm, like in the backyard. Mine is in .22 which I prefer, but they make 25 and 177 as well. The 25 is super popular bc like w/ firearms caliber buys you free power, but I just don't have a need. Plus .25 pellets are expensive and not a lot to choose from. If anyone has a misc 177 gun they should try H&N Baracuda pellets (hollow points) which are imo more deadly than an equal powered 22, but ideally they need to be fired at ~900fps. The slower they go the less they open up so at some point the advantage is lost. I mention those specifically bc most all hollow point pellets don't actually work. My favorite fishing adage applies: There are two kinds of fishing lures; the kind that catch fish and the kind that catch fishermen. Most HP or pointed pellets are the latter.
Lastly, there's cats. I don't have squirrels but my cats get more rats than I do.
OP: I was wondering if you've tried anything so far? We like to hear successes and failures. Plus the next guy w/ the same prob wants to know...

a_canadian said:

It was just Stevie-Ray's use of the word "many" which upset me a bit. Triggered my empathy for the poor little buggers. I'm just saying we need to be responsible about this stuff. Learn not to take the shot if the critter is on the move. I generally wait for them to be munching something. Then they're extremely unlikely to move. But even then I observe carefully and try to shoot just as they settle into a chewing pattern. Between rotations of a nut for example.

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That's mostly my fault, as that was meant to say ......many chippies, and a few that upon.....shows what happens when the phone rings, you continue afterward, and don't proofread before you post. My 5mm is a normal quick-killing machine, but chippies move quickly and don't stand still very long, as they say when you look it up. (killing pests) Normally, I'd put my talent up against anybody, even off-hand, but the few times this has happened appalled me.