Hunting air rifles?

Check out these websites

Check out the following websites and research air rifles:

www.straightshooters.com

http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/

http://www.airguns.net/

I could write pages on the subject of air rifles but will leave you with one main piece of advice. Don't get hung up on power. Most all the fps ratings you see are bogus. To much power in a spring driven air rifle make them hard to shoot well.

Brazos

I've put more rounds through my RWS model 34 than any other gun i own - perhaps since i got it when i was ten or so - but for backyard targets the .177 pellet works fine...and the gun is so accurate that a second shot is generally not needed. I go with pointed pellets, and have taken a couple coyote with headshots, but mainly go for squirrels, and rabbits, as well as groundhogs. I hear they also work very well on canadian geese congregating on lawns.

My RWS 34 is more accurate and a lot quieter than my .22 rifles, even my pimped 10/22, but the time it takes to reload, coupled with the shorter effective range are the only limitations. I think they run a little over 200 these days, but there are a lot more options out there these days. The Whisper looks pretty good for poaching applications.

I second what desidog said about the RWS 34, i love my 34 , i hunted rabbits, squirrels ,and p-dogs , no yotes yet

I use a .177 Gamo 890S that I bought back in high school for pest control around the house. I've taken plenty of rabbits, squirrels, crows, and even the occasional opossum (from under 10yds) with it. On a calm day I can shoot the odd blackbird out at ~75yds.

I think you can find some of these for about the price range you described. Although you should be careful, Gamo at least used to have sort of a spotty reputation.

Not sure of the quality, but that Gamo Shadow Express .22/shotgun air rifle looks like it could come in real handy for small game and pest control. Anyone tried one?

There are a few of them. A few years ago there was one (maybe made by Beeman?) I heard about called the Tominator. It was advertised as a turkey hunting air-shotgun. Haven't looked to see if it's still made.

*Edit* The tominator was a .22cal air rifle made by Falcon. Still, a google search for "air shotgun" will turn up several results.

crossmam pump. best little sparrow killer that ever killed a sparrow,rabbit, treerat,musk rat,frog,tadpoles,cat,coon,rats,mice,ect hell at 10 years old i was a real modern day Teddy Roosavelt hunting extroidinair.ha ha ha

I was on trolling around a little today, and found that their ALOT of people who make these insanely powerful pellet guns, and actually hunt with them.

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:banghead:

I have taken countless squirrels and birds with my plain old Daisy 880 over the years. Pointed pellets are good. I have found that for squirrels in particular a home made expanding round works nicely. I take a normal flat headed pellet, put a dab of superglue on it, then top it off with regular BB. Roll the combo on a flat surface for a few seconds to true it up and bingo... air gun super round... penetrates and expands... great squirrel killer.

John

same principles as an airsoft gun just with metal instead of plastic and stronger springs.

PCP rifles can be charged with a hand pump. CO2 cartridges and bulk fill CO2 rifles operate at a much lower pressure than Pre Charged Pneumatics. I have found that for hunting a well made German spring piston is very quiet, powerful and self contained.

A true PCP (precharged pnuematic) is the cadillac way to go. Understand the pump air rifles, CO2 are also PCP's. The kind you charge via a scuba tank is nice. The also make high pressure bicylce style pumps you can use to charge them. If you want to see some nice PCP's look at www.daystate.com. They will blow your mind (and your wallet). Again don't get hung up on power. Air rifles fill a nitch. Don't try to make an air rifle a .22lr because they are not.

Brazos

Not sure of the quality, but that Gamo Shadow Express .22/shotgun air rifle looks like it could come in real handy for small game and pest control. Anyone tried one?

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Pretty fun but not really all that good for hunting. The shotshell is only a pinch (20 or so) of #8 shot, at 600-700 FPS.

Check out the Benjamin line (solid pumpers), RWS 34, and maybe some of the other RWS line if you got the money. Don't try to kill a coyote with a conventional air gun.

HB

I took an elephant with my .50 cal air rifle....

Isn't this in the wrong forum btw?

crossmam pump. best little sparrow killer that ever killed a sparrow

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Why would you shoot sparrows?

EDIT: Googled it... I never really viewed them as pests, but I guess if you have a farm.....

pcp rifles are the only way to go, but you are gonna pay big, for the use. So how do you save money? ammo cost. You can get tons of made ammo, or make your own, for 100's of dollars less per year, than what you will pay, even for 22 lr ammo, if you shoot alot.

the latest issue of 'fur , fish, and game' has a dude shooting a rifle and a pistol, both pcp, using 308 cal or 9mm pellets, leaving at about 1000 fps'!!! pretty ouchy in my opinion.

If you want a nice air rifle look at european made guns. The europeans have had their guns taken away so they have done amazing things with air guns. Be aware you can spend some $$. That being said once you get past the intial investment it is cheap to shoot. You can also shoot at home and bypass time and expence of range fees. You also get to shoot more since you can do so at home. A nice air rifle will have the look and feel of your nicest powder burner: wood stocks and blued steel. I enjoy the sport of shooting and get more enjoyment out of my nice air rifles than I do powder burners because I can shoot them whenever I want and not worry about expence or finding time to go to the range. Check out some of the offerings at www.straighshooters.com or www.airgunsofarizona.com. There is a whole other world of air rifles out there that 99% of the people on this forum don't even have a clue exist.

Brazos

Ahhhhh.......

Better.

A decent .22 cal springer air rifle is pretty good for a lot of small game. Some come in the 1000 fps range and that's a lot of oomph from an air rifle.

I had one of those Gamo Varmint Stalkers. It's currently out of commission unfortunately. I had originally bought it to hunt rats in our barn during the night, but after releasing several black snakes into the barn and rats started disappearing it found a new use as a rabbit slayer.

Using Predator pellets, it had NO problems dropping a rabbit. Not once did I have a rabbit run more than five feet. And accuracy was good enough out to 25 yards to hit your average tweety bird.

Predators have been used successfully to hunt 'yotes as well.