Rifle a Bad Idea for Squirrels?

[easy]

Don't forget to check the game laws for your state before you go on your 'cleansing' program. Don't want to have the game warden come visit and ruin your fun.

 

[jmorris]

That Benjamin looks neat, but that's a lot of money for an air rifle.

No doubt about that, with all of the additional parts they have vs a regular rifle it’s surprising they can get the price down that far. For a factory moderated PCP the marauder is one of the “budget” guns.

 

[Charliefrank]

I can remember going to my dads about 20 years ago when he first built his house. He handed me his 10/22 and pointed to the giant maple in the yard. He said there were baby red squirrels in the tree and my job to was to sit on the lawn until they appeared. In a few minutes they did and I picked them off one at a time. The reds had pushed the grays away and they were also getting into his newly built house. Over the summer we pushed the reds back (early retirement) and imported grays from the surrounding community. They are still there today. So for squirrels, the 10/22 is hard to beat.

I remember battling reds back in VT. They would completely chase the greys out of the oak and beach groves

 

[LoonWulf]

RE shooting blackbirds off a wire, in retrospect, it does look like a bad idea. I was like 50 feet away, so I was not likely to mangle the wire, but if I had, I think the tar and feathers would have come out.

That Benjamin looks neat, but that's a lot of money for an air rifle.

Honestly the way i look at it (and this is from a saftey perspective also as ive seen more dumb stuff done with airguns, and bows for that mater, than any firearms) is that for 400 bucks your buying a very accurate, insanely quiet .22 short.
Its just as lethal as its powder driven counterpart, and deserves the same respect. Its also way quieter, and easier to get ammo for.

Another neat feature of most pcps is that they have velocity adjustments. To some degree or other you can reduce or increase velocity to suite your needs.
Ammo types can also be varied to improve performance in specific areas. You want decent wack but less travel and penetration, go to a light wadcutter. Better down range perfromance? a heavier domed. The faster rifles can even make the hollow points expand.
Something larger than a rat, squirrel, or pigeon? Try a pcp specific heavy. Some of those from the most powerful .22pcps will come surprisingly close to a .22lr.

The major downside is fills, or pumping. I got out of pcps a while ago because getting 3k+ fills here is difficult. So much so that i almost bought a high pressure compressor and booster unit.
Pumping them works but i found it better to top every 10-20shots than shoot the gun dry and start again.


I honestly hadnt even considered the shotgun as an option, guess that shows my locational perspective lol. Shotguns are for birds!
That actually sounds like the best on hand option to me now. If the neighbors are ok with it.

 

[jmorris]

The major downside is fills, or pumping.

That is no lie, I hand pumped to 3000 psi once, once.

I dug around in my “stuff” and threw this together, after I made a booster pump.



Used then until I found a smoking deal on a couple of carbon fiber SCBA tanks and fill them to 4500 psi at a paintball place, when I need to.

This is the best “finder” for HPA I have come across.

http://www.warpig.com/forums/fields/index.shtml

 

[RedlegRick]

I do mostly ground shots using CB caps out of a single shot .22, fairly quiet and they work pretty good up to about 75 feet. I will do tree shots if I'm sure I got a solid backstop, but I try to avoid that as much as possible.

 

[Demi-human]

I have always had a pellet gun. I was looking at the PCPs and the Marauder. Then a fellow had a thread about a twenty two Hornet with pellets that was VERY interesting. However a firearm is a firearm and an airgun is not, so I have come full circle.

These Marauders, they are quality then? Like any firearm, rather than any BB gun?

(How does @jmorris contain so much awesome without combusting?)

 

[gspn]

These Marauders, they are quality then? Like any firearm, rather than any BB gun?

Very nice quality guns. When I take mine out and tell people it's a pellet gun, nobody believes me. They look and feel like a very nice firearm.

I once loaned my .177 Marauder to my brother in law. One day when I was driving home from a hunt, my phone rang. He called to tell me how blown away he was by the Marauder. He said "This is like a real gun. Like if you wanted to take a rifle to the woods to take limits with, this is it." He had shot a squirrel out of a tree 60 yards from his driveway and it made a believer out of him.

They also make a "carbine" version. It's basically a Marauder Pistol with a detachable shoulder stock. That one goes with me to the field every time I hunt. I strap it to my backpack, and on those days when the deer don't move but I'm covered up with squirrels...then the squirrels get a rude awakening. Here's a story/review I wrote about the pistol/carbine. Full disclosure requires me to tell you that I'm a member of Crosmans Pro Staff too. That happened long after I bought my rifle and became a fan though.

Here's the story on the pistol to give you an idea of what it's all about:

https://www.crosman.com/connect/the-squirrel-chronicles/?hvid=QL9Gd

 

[Demi-human]

Excellent! Thank you very kindly for the response. I have a short (yeah, right.) list of procurments for next year. A Marauder will be on it. Under some springs for a Nylon sixty six, right above a Winchester SX4.
I will probably use it more than the Nylon, but that has precedence. I want to shoot it, ever so. But rounds fall into the gun somewhere.

Nice review too!

 

[gspn]

Excellent! Thank you very kindly for the response. I have a short (yeah, right.) list of procurments for next year. A Marauder will be on it. Under some springs for a Nylon sixty six, right above a Winchester SX4.

Just note that the Marauder pistol is more of a utility gun. It's a light weight gun with lots of plastic on it (fore end and stock). The rifle on the other hand has a very nice wooden stock with adjustable cheek piece, and is a wonderful gun to hold as well as shoot.

 

[jmorris]

One other note on them, that I am not sure if it has changed but the first marauder I had was a .22 cal that I like it in every way except accuracy. It just wouldn’t shoot as well as I had read about with any pellet.

I wound up with a .25 (barrels for them are made by green mountain, unlike the .22’s) and it’s pretty amazing for a pellet gun to me.

This was the first 24 rounds out of it at 25 yards with pressures and velocity’s.

With no wind 1 3/8 - 1 5/8, 8 shot groups at 100 yards is what I get with the cheaper Benjamin pellets, I don’t have any other pellet guns that are close to that. The down side is that I have to order my pellets on line and have them shipped.