Air rifles are weird.

[rc42]

One real advantage of an air rifle, especially in .177, is that you can shoot upwards, maybe toward a tree, with no concern about where the pellet will end up as it will eventually stop climbing and fall like a extra tiny (8 grain) hailstone and do no damage no matter what it hits.

Obviously care should be taken with any firearm to ensure that projectiles never leave your property but that's easier with air rifles than any other type.

[Stix]

One real advantage of an air rifle, especially in .177, is that you can shoot upwards, maybe toward a tree, with no concern about where the pellet will end up as it will eventually stop climbing and fall like a extra tiny (8 grain) hailstone and do no damage no matter what it hits.

Obviously care should be taken with any firearm to ensure that projectiles never leave your property but that's easier with air rifles than any other type.

Haha...!!

Cool...!!
Lets all go out & start shooting sh!t in the air then...

You say that in a way that youre almost implying other projectiles fired from cartridges using gunpowder as a proppellant, keep going upwards & leave our atmosphere...
Gees can you imagine the amount of #4's & #7's lead shot circling the earth from all those missed clays & ducks...

Also, while im no astro physicist, to my mind, given lead has a density (or mass) thats in the vicinity of ten times that of ice, & given that bulk density difference, will likely impart a greater force on a smaller area of the eyeball of the poor sod your cowboy & indian escapades result in hitting...



Having said that, seeing you in a debate with GCA would make for good entertainment...they say fighting fire with fire is logical... ...

[bladeracer]

[quote="rc42"One real advantage of an air rifle, especially in .177, is that you can shoot upwards, maybe toward a tree, with no concern about where the pellet will end up as it will eventually stop climbing and fall like a extra tiny (8 grain) hailstone and do no damage no matter what it hits.

Obviously care should be taken with any firearm to ensure that projectiles never leave your property but that's easier with air rifles than any other type.[/quote

Haha...!!

Cool...!!
Lets all go out & start shooting sh!t in the air then...

You say that in a way that youre almost implying other projectiles fired from cartridges using gunpowder as a proppellant, keep going upwards & leave our atmosphere...
Gees can you imagine the amount of #4's & #7's lead shot circling the earth from all those missed clays & ducks...

Also, while im no astro physicist, to my mind, given lead has a density (or mass) thats in the vicinity of ten times that of ice, & given that bulk density difference, will likely impart a greater force on a smaller area of the eyeball of the poor sod your cowboy & indian escapades result in hitting...



Having said that, seeing you in a debate with GCA would make for good entertainment...they say fighting fire with fire is logical... ...

He is saying that for shooting birds and rats out of trees an air-rifle can be a safer choice because the pellet is going to land somewhere within a couple hundred meters even if you miss the target. A .22LR, even subsonic is likely to go hundreds of meters, perhaps a thousand meters in ideal conditions. Birdshot is another good choice as it falls to ground inside a couple hundred meters also, but 12ga. is an expensive way to deal with pest birds.

As for density, 8gn is still 8gn whether it's a lead pellet or a rain drop, and at 200m it's down to maybe 6-7ft-lb of energy (roughly similar to a 40gn .22LR subsonic at 900m) and 560fps. It requires (from memory) 300-ish fps to penetrate human skin, so it still is still somewhat dangerous, but at least it's easier to manage the danger zone due to the reduced range.

[Stix]

Yes...i get all that...sorry the attempt at humour is missed...


I really dont believe he thinks astronauts wear heavy visors while space walking because of the vast amounts of lead shot in orbit...

And i understand the weight/mass vs make-up debate...
But my little bit of seriousness in there was saying id rather be hit by a large object weighing "X' kg's, than an object of the same mass & velocity but that has a bulk density 10 ormore times greater.

[rc42]

Airgun pellets have a ballistic coefficient about one fifth of that for a 22LR and about half that of a shotgun 'pellet', once out of the barrel they slow down much faster than either of those.
If fired at an upward angle they don't arc and come back to ground with dangerous energy, they start to arc but lose virtually all horizontal velocity and just drop like a tiny hailstone (except slower because of the pellet tail that is designed like a shuttlecock to create drag and being hollow with air inside they have a low mass for their volume and forward surface area).

Airgun pellets and shot shell fired into the air aren't dangerous when falling down again, unless you're unlucky enough to be looking up and one lands in your eye but even then it would just hurt a bit with no damage. 'real' bullet projectiles travel further and faster, are heavier and have a higher terminal velocity even when just falling, they are much more dangerous.


In any case, nobody should discharge any firearm in any direction without knowing where the projectile could land.

[Stix]

Airgun pellets ... ... ...
If fired at an upward angle they don't arc .

Can you demonstrate this to me in a graphic based on Einsteins theory of time & space being of the one continuum--ie: the fabric of spacetime...

I bet you cant...!!!...

(Dont get your nickers all stinky now--im just mucking around, even if it is true...!!... )

[bladeracer]

I was testing more .22LR ammo this arvo, so I took the air-rifle with me and tried it at 50m.
I was very surprised and will have to play with it a lot more at longer ranges.

[TassieTiger]

I think some air rifle pellets are like my mates RC chopper he bought for $399.
It was blowing outside - he took out his brand new RC heli, got the family round, gave it full throttle and pressed the up control...it went vertical at 100mph...got 100m up and the wind got it and we never saw it again - it was out of range but stayed at full throttle. It definitely didn’t stay on the property lol. Mind you - I was crying with laughter for hours as he was crying at his wallet.

But on topic - over last 2 years I’ve had 3 break barrel air rifles in .177 for back yard plunking, birds etc. I bought 2 new (Vmax game was $299, dianna was $350 and bsa was $400) and 1 second hand.

I’ve now sold all of them - consistently was not there and drove me round the twist testing scopes, pellets, etc. I couldn’t get anything resembling consistent accuracy 30-50m. All of these were meant to be over 1000fps - so 30-50m should have been doable.
A friend bought a $2500 air compressor rifle and tbh, even that doesn’t come close to moa on a regular basis and it’s now a safe queen.
Now when I was a kid, I seem to recall hitting matchboxes and smaller at semi .22 ranges With my pump up .177 so I’m not sure how/why, but it seems as if accuracy has dropped off in the last 30 years...at least on the budget air rifles I tried.

[bladeracer]

I think some air rifle pellets are like my mates RC chopper he bought for $399.
It was blowing outside - he took out his brand new RC heli, got the family round, gave it full throttle and pressed the up control...it went vertical at 100mph...got 100m up and the wind got it and we never saw it again - it was out of range but stayed at full throttle. It definitely didn’t stay on the property lol. Mind you - I was crying with laughter for hours as he was crying at his wallet.

But on topic - over last 2 years I’ve had 3 break barrel air rifles in .177 for back yard plunking, birds etc. I bought 2 new (Vmax game was $299, dianna was $350 and bsa was $400) and 1 second hand.

I’ve now sold all of them - consistently was not there and drove me round the twist testing scopes, pellets, etc. I couldn’t get anything resembling consistent accuracy 30-50m. All of these were meant to be over 1000fps - so 30-50m should have been doable.
A friend bought a $2500 air compressor rifle and tbh, even that doesn’t come close to moa on a regular basis and it’s now a safe queen.
Now when I was a kid, I seem to recall hitting matchboxes and smaller at semi .22 ranges With my pump up .177 so I’m not sure how/why, but it seems as if accuracy has dropped off in the last 30 years...at least on the budget air rifles I tried.

When I was a kid I was shooting air-rifle competition with PCYC every week, open sights, prone, unsupported. I think it was only 10m as it was inside a building, but I'm sure my targets were just a single ragged hole. I think I just don't have that thirteen-year-old's enthusiasm to strive for that level of accuracy after forty years of living in the real world, and I certainly don't have that kid's eyesight anymore

I was also on the small bore team in Army Cadets so was doing a decent amount of competition shooting for a kid, even back then. There weren't many days I didn't do some shooting in the back yard as well, in suburban Perth.

[TassieTiger]

So it might not just be my failing memory BR lol...

I just couldn’t get anything consistent and it’s a similar story with friends who buy a plinker...seeing your results are very interesting...maybe the quest for speed has messed up some space time air rifle continuum...

[Stix]

LMFAO....!!!!!!

Ah tummy muscles i forgot about hurt...

Well i could fair dinkum hit a starling in the eye out to 20m with old Walther target air rifle when i was a kid...
Maybe its the break barrels that break that continuum...

[bigrich]

[quote="Stix" Airgun pellets ... ... ...
If fired at an upward angle they don't arc .[/quote]

Can you demonstrate this to me in a graphic based on Einsteins theory of time & space being of the one continuum--ie: the fabric of spacetime...

I bet you cant...!!!...

(Dont get your nickers all stinky now--im just mucking around, even if it is true...!!... )[/quote]

i would demonstrate it for ya stix, but i;m busy installing a flux capacitor to my deisel toyota ........

i bin thinkin' about a air rifle lately , quiet , cheap shootin' . a mate has rats at his place , a plinkin' session might be fun
i've got a loan of one, and little green plastic army men have been decimated , as have aluminium cans and other "reactive targets "

[Stix]

[quote="Stix" Airgun pellets ... ... ...
If fired at an upward angle they don't arc .

Can you demonstrate this to me in a graphic based on Einsteins theory of time & space being of the one continuum--ie: the fabric of spacetime...

I bet you cant...!!!...

(Dont get your nickers all stinky now--im just mucking around, even if it is true...!!... )[/quote]

i would demonstrate it for ya stix, but i;m busy installing a flux capacitor to my deisel toyota ........

i bin thinkin' about a air rifle lately , quiet , cheap shootin' . a mate has rats at his place , a plinkin' session might be fun
i've got a loan of one, and little green plastic army men have been decimated , as have aluminium cans and other "reactive targets "

[/quote]

You're welcome to bring it on down here BR...

Got a few in my yard...if you get an accurate one we can set up a bait station way down the back yard, & shoot from way up the front of the house in the hallway...we could film it & call it "long range suburban varminting"..."Starring Big Rich..."...

Ill be happy to get rid of them & in return cook you up a veal or venison rack, with a coopers ale mushroom/pepper gravy...

[Stix]

Just gotta say---this new system of quoting just makes this place look like shyte mess...

[TassieTiger]

Just gotta say---this new system of quoting just makes this place look like shyte mess...

Agree 1000% - i do most of my crap on iPhone and o my hashing the ability use one quote can screw up context...

[Sergeant Hartman]

The best way to get rats is poison, the one hit kill type, not the lollies that Bunnings sell. We had enough rats that i started seeing then during the day. Two days after baiting i have a problem,... i see dead rats (everywhere)

[TassieTiger]

What if dogs or other wild life then eat dead rats ?

[bladeracer]

The best way to get rats is poison, the one hit kill type, not the lollies that Bunnings sell. We had enough rats that i started seeing then during the day. Two days after baiting i have a problem,... i see dead rats (everywhere)

I struggle with poisoning anything, shooting is far more humane. And we have lots of bush rats as well that we do not want taking baits, I only want to target rattus rattus.

We see both rats in the sheds and compost heaps during the day, and all night the rattus rattus are busy in the house roof, but don't cause any trouble.

Except, last week they discovered a very expensive stack of grass seed. So I put the NV camera on the air-rifle last night, and plan to do some practising with it today.

[rc42]

Poison is a very cruel way to kill anything, a very slow and painful death that has no target control, anything that eats the poison dies, anything that then feeds on its body dies. Shooting is better in every way despite needing more effort.

The only place I would use poison is in the roof space of my house to control rodents when we occasionally get them. Shooting isn't practical there, even with an air rifle and they are not only an annoyance with noise at night but chewing electrical cables could burn the whole house down.

[TassieTiger]

Poison is a very cruel way to kill anything, a very slow and painful death that has no target control, anything that eats the poison dies, anything that then feeds on its body dies. Shooting is better in every way despite needing more effort.

The only place I would use poison is in the roof space of my house to control rodents when we occasionally get them. Shooting isn't practical there, even with an air rifle and they are not only an annoyance with noise at night but chewing electrical cables could burn the whole house down.

I shouldn’t post this but it is kinda funny.
A while ago, I complained to my Now departed Grand dad about rats in the roof. I could hear them scratching and running. I told him I was going to try and poison them and - he cracked it with me and said he’d get in the roof with an air rifle and shoot them. Not wanting to disappoint him I said yes.
So, a week later he comes out and we are having a couple of drinks when we hear the rats...needless to say, 7 sheets of colour bond had to be replaced the next day or so as the old fella stumbled around screaming and shooting at things that “just won’t stay Fuggen still!”

[marksman]

funny story Tassie

l was given a 22 air rifle for my boy when he was younger from a farmer who had it when he was a young bloke
my boy shoots it occasionally but it is harder to shoot than his 22 or 17
what he prefers as an alternative to the air rifle is 6mm floberts or bb caps
they are very good for quiet work, l use them for pigeons and head shooting rabbits at no more than 35y
they work well but are exy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47pLfcSa1jk

[gunnnie]

Have begun playing around with a Weirarch HW100 22cal that I bought last year.
Trigger is great, breaking clean at about 1.5lb, which aids in the accuracy department.
I'm learning from more experience airgunners that I'll get better accuracy if I use a light or soft grip/hold on these rifles. Certainly is a change from shooting my other rifles. At least I can cut sick in my backyard with this rifle, a sanity saver in this CV lockdown BS.