ramshackle wrote:Before I decide to buy a rimfire though, I'm going to have to accept that I will be shooting at 40m max (because I have to use slow, "Quiet" ammo here). And be super-aware of my backstop.
I think you are selling .22LR well short here, 700fps .22LR ammo is quite capable of taking small game out to 100m, as long as you are getting the required accuracy. Accuracy will limit your range, not the energy of the bullet, or the trajectory - if you have the accuracy to make a precision hit the bullet will do a lot more damage than a pellet. Anybody that confines themselves to 40m max because of the trajectory curve needs to learn to shoot.
CCI Quiet 40gn 710fps trajectory - I'll assume a 30m zero as being a decent start for close-range shooting:
First zero is at 11.5m
It peaks 10mm high at 20m
It zeros at 30m
At 40m it's 19mm low with 42ft-lbs and 690fps - a 10mph wind deflects it 19mm
At 50m it's 88mm low
At 60m it's 165mm low
At 70m it's 265mm low
At 80m it's 390mm low
At 90m it's 540mm low
At 100m it's 710mm low with 38ft-lbs and 650fps
A .177" 7.9gn pellet at 1000fps is virtually identical:
First zero is at 17m
It peaks 3mm high at 23m
It zeros at 30m
At 40m it's 19mm low with 10ft-lbs and 740fps - a 10mph wind deflects it 120mm
At 50m it's 58mm low
At 60m it's 119mm low
At 70m it's 205mm low
At 80m it's 320mm low
At 90m it's 465mm low
At 100m it's 650mm low with 5ft-lbs and 500fps
A .22" 21gn pellet at 800fps:
First zero is at 12.5m
It peaks 10mm high at 21m
It zeros at 30m
At 40m it's 28mm low with 21ft-lbs and 680fps - a 10mph wind deflects it 70mm
At 50m it's 80mm low
At 60m it's 155mm low
At 70m it's 258mm low
At 80m it's 390mm low
At 90m it's 560mm low
At 100m it's 760mm low with 5ft-lbs and 500fps
In trajectory, there really is nothing between the three.
I extended the chart range to 1500m, and made it shoot into the air at 35-degrees, and, just to see what the three are absolutely capable of, I assume you're shooting from the top of a hill:
The CCI Quiet 40gn at 710fps will go around 1335m...if you're shooting into the sky on top of a 1200ft hill - on level ground, shooting into the sky, it'll reach about 1110m max.
The .177" 7.9gn pellet at 1000fps will go around 375m...if you're on a 220ft hill, on level ground about 330m max.
The .22" 21gn pellet at 800fps will go 515m...if you're on top of a 200ft hill. On flat ground, it'll hit the ground about 440m away.
Shooting rabbits across level ground dictates that the bullet/pellet is going to hit the ground behind the target if you miss, or penetrate through a rabbit/fox. As you're likely to be shooting at targets less than one-metre above the ground, even at 100m the bullet/pellet is going to hit the ground around the 120-150m mark on a miss, very much closer on a pass-through. The bullet/pellet is then going to ricochet off the ground, deformed, tumbling, and lacking velocity. In the three examples above, I doubt they're going to injure or damage anything further than about 300m away even if you miss your target completely. With CCI Std Vel 40gn at 1080fps I shoot a lot of steel silhouettes, which means lots of misses while I work out the wind. They are positioned on top of the dam wall at 180m. My misses pass over the dam and fall in a neat area about 350m away from me. They are hitting the ground well before that, and probably bouncing several times before stopping there. Shooting at 180m I'm aiming up about 0.6-degrees, or a metre high at 100m, plus about two-metres of dam wall.
My own testing has the CCI Quiet penetrating a corrugated steel shed out to around 165m, although it was cracking the steel out to 180m. At that range it is making around 34ft-lbs and 620fps.