Critter control air rifles

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goalie

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I recently bought a cabin and am looking at getting an air rifle that is powerful and accurate enough to allow me to do some pest control as needed on squirrels, rodents, and the like. I am leaning towards something in the $250 dollar range (including an air-rifle scope) if possible. I would like something that you cock once and shoot, and .177 or .22 would work.

1. Where is a good place to purchase from?

2. What are some models that are reliable and durable in that price range?

This does not need to be a match air-rifle, tack driver, it just needs to be practical for pest control and some plinking.

Thanks inadvance for any suggestions.
 
I've got one of these, and love it, and it is a one shot deal on crows, gophers, or pigeons. Very accurate on top of being powerful.

Gamo Hunter 220

I got mine at Big 5 on sale for $130, so there are deals out there on them.
 
I picked up a GAMO Shadow 1000 from wally world for just that purpose. Only shot chipmunks that have been getting in the house with it, but it's been devastating. I've been just using the "tru glo" sights, but head shots are easy, and all the animals died within 10 seconds, they really don't seem to be able to take much damage.

I'm happy with mine, and it doesn't bug the neighbors.
 
If you can scrounge a little more for a Beeman R-9 in .177 loaded with CPH (Crosman Premier 'Heavies' 10.5 grains) from Straightshooters.com, you would be doing yourself, your kids (if you oil it), and your grandkids (if you kids oil it) a favor! Quality looks, very accurate, leaps and bounds in front of any crappy Gamo or Mendoza offering, much less hold sensitive than the 'competition' and well-crafted enough to last for many, many years.

r9.jpg


r9laminatesix40y.jpg


40 yard target
 
For the price range you mention, you could get a decent .22 rifle and use super colibri ammo. This combination is no louder than an air rifle, and is just as powerful if not more so. I use a Winchester 9422 with the super colibris to take care of undesirable critters (most recently a skunk) around our suburban Maplewood home. It probably isn't going to be as accurate as a match air rifle, but I can get five shot groups of .75" at 25 yards with this set up which isn't bad at all. Of course, if you need more power, you can go go up to the full power .22 loadings - an option not available with an airgun.

The super colibri, if you're not familiar with it, uses a 20 grain pill propelled by primer only - no gun powder. It's a lot easier, quicker, and quieter to work a bolt or lever than a spring arm, and you have quicker follow up shots available as well.

If something like this is an option for you, I'd recommend looking into it over the air gun approach.

Cheers,
Brad
 
However the Super Colibri's anemic loading of a 20 grain pill plodding along at ~575 fps has an unbelievablely rainbow-like trajectory that is extremely hard to compensate for, while the R9 (or similar spring piston or PCP gun) sends its payload towards the target at nearly the speed of sound and with a much better ballistic coefficient.
 
The .22 may work at the cabin, but definately not at home in Minnetonka.
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From your post, I thought this was for your cabin? Anyway, it still makes less noise than many air guns. Out of my Winchester 9422, it is quieter than either my neighbor's Sheridan pellet gun or my brother in law's Gamo Shadow. It is plenty quiet enough for my home in Maplewood, where even standard velocity .22 loads would not appropriate because of noise.

Just a thought....
 
They chew holes into the eves of my house and nest there.
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Ditto. Worse, they sometimes end up falling somewhere between the walls unable to get out. They sit there scratching sometimes for days, before dying and creating an unholy stink. If it's in a closet or something, we'll cut open the dry wall before it gets that far, but can't do that in every case. Once we started shooting them, never had the problem since.

Personally, I'd recommend rimfire, pnuematic, then spring in that order. Pnuematics are loud for the amount of power the generate, but they don't have wonky hold mechanics like a spring and are power adjustable. Springs are quicker and more quiet than pnuematics, but they come with one power setting (more or less) and require a hold that isn't really firearm-like.

Rimfires are quieter than pneumatics or springs for the same power, power adjustable, and just as fast with quicker follow-up shots (even with a bolt). If a Super Colibri is too much for your home, you're going to find that many of those spring air rifles will be too. For pest control, I think it's hard to beat a rimfire.

That said, I still love all my airguns for clean, in-house, basement shooting.
 
Hmmm . . . $250 including the scope is tough, if you want something even halfway decent. If that was my budget, I'd spend it on the rifle alone, and skip the 'scope for now.

I have an RWS M48 in .177 and though it will break 1100 ft/sec with light pellets, the RWS "Superdome" pellets shoot more accurately. This has adequate power for small nuisance game, having accounted for numerous cottontails and a couple of armadillos. It's pinpoint accurate out to 40 yards, but to be honest, beyond that range, group size increases rather quickly.

What I like about the M48 is that the barrel is fixed to the receiver - I just never warmed up to the air rifles that you cock by tilting the barrel down.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I am going to save up and get a nice Beeman or RWS. Until then, my brother just lent me his BEC "Eurolux" Model 21 "Air Thunder" that he bought down at Sportsmans Guide warehouse store for about a hundred bucks. It cocks on the side, and is accurate and powerful according to my brother.

And, to keep the thread alive, what scopes do you guys like for these airguns? I am actually partial to low, fixed-power scopes in general, but am basically wondering what you guys use on the powerful rifles that don't get torn up by the wierd recoil in a hundred shots?

Oh, and to answer the question: Squirrels cease to be anything but a target as soon as they start chewing into my home or cabin.
 
goalie,

I recommend buying your airgun and scope from straightshooters.com

Even airgun rated scopes come apart from time to time--Kevin and Craig will take care of you if that happens. More importantly, they've been doing this a long time and they won't sell you a combination that doesn't have a good chance of being trouble free in the first place.

Also, mounting an airgun scope can be kind of tricky between the dual recoil and barrel angle issues. They'll mount it properly for you and make sure it's sighted in before you get it. And, they ship all their rifles in a hard case so that the shipper can't wreck it (at least not without a special effort.) :rolleyes:

If you have questions, they have a forum on their website that is frequented by some pretty sharp airgunners.
 
Oh, and to answer the question: Squirrels cease to be anything but a target as soon as they start chewing into my home or cabin.
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Yeah. I would like to think that I'm a fair man. After the first two holes were chewed, we put metal flashing over the holes and all along that eve that they were eating into.

They just chewed a hole on the edge of the flashing. After that, it was Go Time.

I've shot about 6 around my house here in town, and my neighboor has gotten about the same ammount right next door (he put up the flashing).

Havent seen any squirrels on our block in a LONG time.

Its strange, you see them just a street over, but they never really move in near our houses. Its like when me and my parents moved into a farm here in Maine.. I killed 32 pidgeons in the barn because my mother told me to get rid of them..

Now you see pidegons in town and right down the street, but they avoid our place like the plague.
 
I own a Beeman R1 I bought 10+ years ago. Powerful, accurate, but awfully heavy & noisier than CCI CB .22 rimfire. I'd suggect more of a carbine-sized airgun with side- or under-lever.

I might suggest foregoing the scope & mounting a decent aperture sight. Less money, no worries about falling apart, and good-to-go at the ranges you'll be bagging squirrels.

Squirrels are cute...until they start tearing up your stuff. Then they become bushy-tailed rats to be controlled. A neighbor two houses down bags 100-120 year, due to his "squirrel magnet," a pecan tree. He wants the pecans & is willing to kill (squirrels) for them.
 
I have fired a spring gun only once.. A guy I know inherited a Dana with a nice micrometer sight. The thing cracked and kicked like a 22.. Maybe even more than my 10/22.. From the sound of the pellet, it was definately supersonic.
 
Squirrels?? Have been doing my best to eliminate them since they got into my shed and eat holes in my golf bags, destroyed my grandfathers wicker fishing creel, knawed through a bunch of rifle and pistol boxes and kept looking for more. Been at it on and off for 20 years, and seems like for every one I shoot, two more move into the territory. Am away from home for long stretches, so they have tome to breed and get cocky again in my absenses.
Have a .17 side-cocker RWS with 4X scope I picked up through Cabela's years ago, but now mostly use a Marlin 39 with shorts. Just as quiet and have quick follow up shots.
When they get put on the Fedral Endangered Species list, my mission will be almost over!!:D
 
It's pretty rare for even a powerful spring-piston airgun to be anywhere near as loud as a .22LR.

However, there is a lot of mechanical noise during the firing cycle and it's transmitted directly to your skull if you rest your cheek on the stock. That means that you hear a lot more noise than a bystander. Add to that the fact that many people haven't ever shot a .22 without hearing protection.

Straightshooters has a table of sound measurements and the numbers are quite a bit lower than anything you'd expect from a 22LR. The loudest report they measured was only 94dB at the muzzle of a .20 caliber RX-1.

For comparison, they recorded the sound of an Arrow T50 hand operated spring powered staple gun putting a staple into a piece of wood. At 6 feet away it was 97dB. That's twice as loud as the RX-1.
 
Gray squirrels I have no problem with, but DEATH to all red squirrels. These are also known as pine squirrels, they're about half the size of a gray, and they are very destructive.

I had a family of them chew a hole through my cedar siding last fall and rip out a bunch of insulation. Cost me a bundle to have repaired.

Even though I'm living solidly in the suburbs, I and my neighbors for two houses in each direction all have air rifles to keep these little pests in check.

Of course when I really want to exact vengeance I use rat traps baited with peanut butter.
 
I too recently purchased an air rifle to control the local squirrel population. They can clean out all of my bird feeders in a day but the last straw was when they started to build a nest in my chimney. One fell down the chimney and somehow made it past the flue and into my house:what: Boy that was fun chasing him out :cuss:

I bought a Webley & Scott Patriot in .22. It's rated at 920 fps and is hell on squirrels:D

So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that's all she wrote. Carl Spackler
 
I am going to save up and get a nice Beeman or RWS.
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Excellent! :cool:


However, there is a lot of mechanical noise during the firing cycle and it's transmitted directly to your skull if you rest your cheek on the stock. That means that you hear a lot more noise than a bystander.
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This man speaks the truth. The noise you think so so God-awfully loud when you fire dissapates dramatically past about a few inches. Honestly. Get a buddy to fire your gun and you stand off to the side twenty or thirty feet. It will be nowhere near as loud as you thought it as when shooting it.

A neighbor two houses down bags 100-120 year
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Thanks a heckuva lot of eatin'!:what:


I have fired a spring gun only once.. A guy I know inherited a Dana with a nice micrometer sight. The thing cracked and kicked like a 22.. Maybe even more than my 10/22.. From the sound of the pellet, it was definately supersonic
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Lesson learned : use heavier pellets (and make sure to not over oil)
 
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