Looking at air guns

[jim Glass]

I have an old .22 cal Crossman pellet rifle made back in the 60's that uses 2 Co2 cylinders at a time. I play with it quite often and get by with it since my back yard is adjacent to the county side.

I understand air guns have progressed a long way and now have .25, .30, and 357 cal air guns. Does someone here know about these things. It is almost blackbird season here and I could use a good air gun on raccoons in Florida. These modern air guns are gassed up from scuba tanks or from expensive air pumps.

Any opinions on air guns?

[madmax]

Following. Need a backyard shooter in town.

[crashdive123]

I've got the Beeman Dual Caliber (.22 and .177) that is fine for backyard shooting. I tried several brands of pellets before I found one that shoots really well.

Was talking with a friend the other day that has gotten into air gunning (who knew that was a thing) and is spending over 2K per rifle now (he has several).

For that kind of $$ mine will shoot something bigger than pellets.

[Antonyraison]

I am also following..
I have (with my dad, was actually his rifle while growing up so its easily 45-50+ years old) a really nice old BSA air rifle .22 Which well the piece just under the barrel breaks away to cock the gun, basically uses a spring, which I used to shoot quiet a bit and was really decent at going through Tin cans...
A lot our guys here use what they now call PCP air rifles which uses the CO2 Air canisters similar to what A paintball gun would... and some of them are fairly powerful..
I wouldn't really know what to recommend or exactly how many FPS it should be or any of that, but I am also looking at possibly getting a back yard shooter as where I am presently staying the yard is an Acre big

[jim Glass]

The PCP air rifles is what I'm looking at but these are charged up from an air pump. The larger calibers have some impressive statistics like killing deer at 50 yards and even wild hogs with brain shots. Some PCP air guns can cost $500 and up but I hear
a nice first gun can be bought for $250 to $300.

[Antonyraison]

The PCP air rifles is what I'm looking at but these are charged up from an air pump. The larger calibers have some impressive statistics like killing deer at 50 yards and even wild hogs with brain shots. Some PCP air guns can cost $500 and up but I hear
a nice first gun can be bought for $250 to $300.

Indeed Heard some claims like that, managed to shoot one of my friends ones back out in the filed in 2015, was fairly large caliber, larger than .22.. I don't know the brand or the exact caliber, just recall it had a magazine that could take I think about 6 rounds, looked like the inside piece of a revolver, just smaller, that slots into rifle like a cartage... And It shot really well, easily could take out small game like rabbits and such.. and had quiet an effective range also... I will ask him exactly what it was...

[Antonyraison]

Ok I have returned with answers...
The PCP he has is the Air Arms S510 Xtra FAC Sidelever PCP Air Rifle
they come in .177 , .22 and .25 shoots at around 1000fps or 35ft lbs power


here is a video Of a rifle with the same power taking out a hog with a .25

[madmax]

Nice. But I sure wouldn't want to bring home a 1000 dollar airgun. My wife knows everything.

[Antonyraison]

The thing is with Air rifles according to my Mate that has quiet a few you either going for PCP or springer..
the springers are cheap but need maintenance and springs break seals break etc.. but you can get fairly powerful ones I think he said you need about 4.5lb force to go through a rabbit skull and springers average around 12ft-lbs

the next thing I think (well for me is confusion over fps, and what they mean by this..)
He explained it to me exactly like this: (quoting his words directly from a text message)

[14:14, 4/6/2018] Andre Boswa: FPS is a calculation between weight of pellet and power of rifle. You have to be careful in particular with Gamo. The quote 1000fps but with a 5 grain weight pellet then you shoot something like an 11 grain and its like lobbing a stone. Its better for them to state ft-lbs (foot Pounds) or Joules. My rifle can shoot 12 grain at 1200fps but the pellets just swirl around and its inaccurate and little stopping power. Best speed for pellets are less than 950 for stable flight so I shoot nothing under 15 grain for my PCP. In the end it depends what your going to do.
[14:17, 4/6/2018] Andre Boswa: If you are going to shoot cans in the yard you can make anything work. Hunting small game you typically have a target area of about and inch in diameter you want to hit. Pigeons you will often with a lower power rifle have the pellet deflect off the breast bone and just injure the bird. In the end it becomes a minefield like any other hobby, the more you research the more expensive your preference goes and typically 1 is never enough....

[Antonyraison]

Well this benjamin Air rifle in that above video taking out a hog is around 500 USD.

[Antonyraison]

Well after a lot of more research and shooting,
I got myself a qb79 Which basically is a pcp and takes those Paintball gun cylinders (with the right adapter)
its a .22 caliber and I opted to take the 15.4grain pellets... Shoots quiet nicely.. just using iron sites..
I will with in time like figure out what grain pellets work better and adjust the iron sites a bit this week/end
at A later stage i likely get a nice scope for it.
The Air rifle itself its not that expensive just under 200usd
I will post pics and vids later when I have the time.

[Antonyraison]

here is a video of one.. (not my video)

[Antonyraison]

Here is a very Short Video Of Me shooting my Rifle at thick Baked bean tin can from about 10meters or 10 yards more or less..
It easily goes through both sides of a tin can at 10 yards, and likely will do so at 20, but at 20 with current, I cant even hit the broad side of a barn... but that can be a few things from the ammo to the stock sites;I don'tt particularly like these stock Iron sights on it... also there is possible deflection from the co2 canister touching barrel (which I likely can sort out via modifying the connection somewhat or getting one that is slightly less diameter, this I take in to a specialized air gun place to assist)
I will also at a later stage likely put on a scope, although I have a friend that that said he can give me a scope he has no use for
For the price And ability with right tuning etc can reach up to 740fps with the right tank on .22 and set correctly can be extremely accurate...
Stock on a 9ounce can with the 15.4 grain is in the 600fps range which is Quiet a bit, and more than enough for target and small pest control..

Any way here is my video.

[jim Glass]

Andre: Your Mate is quite knowledgeable on air guns. I have heard before to keep the pellet speed around 950 fpm. Speeds over
1000 fpm approach the speed of sound and this creates turbulence for the pellet while in flight. He also mentioned one air gun is not typically enough. Must me like AR-15s. I have 3 of them now.

Stated a project yesterday. I saw on Youtube where a guy made an electric pump for his PCP air gun using an old compressor from a refrigerator. Yesterday I bought 2 compressors at a scrap yard, got one of them working. More later

[kyratshooter]

While there is very little chance of an air gun pushing a 14 grain pellet over the speed of sound it should at least come within a couple of hundred FPS of doing so.

And if that accuracy issue does not straighten out I would be on the phone to customer service real soon. You need to get that rifle sandbagged down on a table and really check its accuracy.

Looking at the media sources it appears that there are different diameter reservoirs available and if yours puts pressure on the barrel I would go back to where I obtained it and see about a trade back.

And all of us that are used to shooting "normal" powder burning firearms, please remember that we are talking about 14-15 grain pellets traveling at the 600-800 fps level.

A CCI cb cap pushes a 29 grain bullet at 700 fps, twice the energy of the air rifle in question, and is not normally considered anything but a mouse and rat cartridge. It also works at about the same noise level.

[jim Glass]

Ya, and I figured out the refrigerator compressor is not going to work as a pellet gun compressor. No where near the required pressure. That cost me $20 to learn that one.

Hmmmm.....good points ratshooter

[Rick]

Still, you've got a $20 compressor. Good enough to inflate the grandkid's toys.

[jim Glass]

These PCP air guns are looking like a money pit. For $267 at Amazon, I can buy a Benjamin pellet rifle with a hand pump to power it up. These had pumps look like bicycle tire pumps but will buid up 4500 PSI of pressure. Sounds like 100 pumps to power up the pellet rifle. Then you get 30-40 shots on that pump up. So people are finding ways to put electric motors on these hand pumps. Neat setups using gearmotors with cranks to convert rotary motion into reciprocating motion. Now you have this machine sitting in your garage with the purpose of airing up this pellet gun or air tanks for the pellet gun. Well, you don't need the bicycle pump at all if you have $350 to $500 for an electric pump.

The other option is a springer air gun where you cock the gun between each shot. It has its own air pump built into the rifle and boast a pellet traveling at 1200 fps.

Here is the link that got me interested: http://forums.floridasportsman.com/d...ing-faq#latest

[kyratshooter]

How odd!

For $280 I can buy a build kit for an AR and for $350 to $500 I can have 1500-2000 rounds of ammo!

You can buy a 1200 fps capable air rifle at Walmart for $75-$100 any old day you want to walk in there. Almost all the good springers now launch the ultralight pellets at that velocity.

But as we already said, that speed of sound transition for the pellets makes them unstable, and the pellets of usable weight will not reach that 1100 fps threshold anyway.

I have really found little use for the one I have and do not need to get started on another branch of the hobby. I have been fighting the urge to build an AK for 5 years and barely have held out even though it would require me to buy $2000 of tooling to build a $500 rifle!

[jim Glass]

How odd!

It is actually