Along with the gun rack at gandermountain I wandered by some "adult" air rifles..I think they had Rremington ,Winchester,Daisy,crossman and gamo. Thecrossman "quest" was on display: 4x32 benjamin air rifle scope,. break action, 1000fps,and a real nice "birch(?) stock..really nice around $100scoped.These are small game legal here.With thelocal range closed until may;. shooting bottlecaps in the garden sounds like good clean useful fun. Pellets are even cheaper than .22lr,and no report, I'think i see some utility to these things. Anybody here keeping one in the rack? Do you Think they are worthwhile to have.?
There have been a couple of good threads on air-rifles, including one on big game hunting. About the part of no report, though...sorry...most of these at 1000fps are fairly loud and they also recoil.
From what I've read, a subsonic 22 or 177 pellet rifle (maybe 850 fps) is fairly quiet, extremely accurate and deadly for small birds/rabbits. As a kid, I found that to be pretty true, but squirrels were a bit tougher. It usually took many pellets to get them out of a tree. Tango, I've actually put a lot of consideration into this, it seems like a great plan. A bird feeder in the backyard and an air rifle would supply a person with some much needed and quietly dispatched protein in a pinch. A couple notes: Keeping it subsonic reduces the report and increases accuracy (olympic shooters keep the velocity down). Gamo is making an air shotgun. It fires #9 shot. Would be great for songbirds/starlings and such, and can fire regular 22 pellets with an adapter. For the ultimate in self reliance: An air rifle that uses pre-compressed charges instead of pumping can't be beat. You use a hand pump to charge an air tank that sits on the gun (like paintball). And since you can buy molds to make your own pellets, you could be completely self contained and independant of outside needs. Quakenbush makes air rifles in 50 cal and 308 that are capable of taking deer. They also sell hand pumps and bullet molds. http://www.quackenbushairguns.com/ Without going overboard on money, I think a $100 setup from Gander Mtn and about 2000 pellets would be a great thing to stash away in case of emergency.
spend the money and get a bolt action .22 and a box of sub sonic...almost silent... and that is an advantage in a survival situation.
.22lr(?)...got an old bolt .22 never thought of or tried subsonic rounds...thanks..I'll give it a try...I just "figured" I could use the air rifle in the backyard and tune up my shooting skills.for cheap... I look at it this way, "throw down" some bird- feed shoot a starling or 3 then you 've got crows pop a couple of crows cut them open, wait then you got other predators, fox weasel or larger birds.
I have been shooting a lot of subsonic .22 in my back yard. CCI CB Long or Short. 710 fps, 29 grain. Very, very quiet with a long barrel. I shoot them in a 20 inch barrel Winchester 94/22.
