Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Air Guns Some thoughts on power

My Rifle shoots .22 cal CP's at 740fps they weight 14.3 grains and have about 17.5 FPE at the muzzle

This is important to compare for some things, but is it for hunting? As far as my experience goes, I've never shot anything at the muzzle. However those are the most entertaining numbers that people toss around.

My rifle shoots JSB Exacts at 670fps they weight 15.9 grains and have a .032BC They have about 16fpe at the muzzle. Compared to the Crosman Premiers these are not as good or as powerful....... But could they be?

Consider that we usually shoot game between 25-50 yards, at least I do. So then how do these two different pellets compare at actual real hunting distances.

Crosman Premier at 25 yards is 627FPS and 12.5fpe
JSB exacts at 25 yards are 607 fps and 13.04fpe......... weight and Ballistic coefficient mean something here!

Now at 40 yards Crosman Premier is 568fps and 10.2FPE
The JSB exacts are 573fps and 11.6fpe ( this is the legal maximum in the UK for airguns)

finally at 50 yards the CP's are 532fps and 9FPE
with the JSB exacts coming in at 551fps and 10.75fps

So the hype of Velocity at the muzzle does not always translate to power down range for hunting. The heavy JSB pellets blow away the faster CP's down range at actual hunting range. The CP's are a hair better to 20 yards and then fade quickly as the range gets further and further.

If this seems like splitting hairs, I can tell you that I have re-setable metal targets that require the 2" steel paddle to be shot to flip up the target again. At 50 plus yards the CP's will ding the metal paddle audibly every time. However they will not always reset it. So far I have not had the JSB's fail to fully reset the target even one time.

That 2 FPE is enough to make the difference. I have also shot a number of cottontails with chest shots at 40-60 yards. I cannot recall ever seeing the CP pellets exit. Often times there is no blood or the ability to even see the entry hole without close examination.

With the JSB's the entry is no easier to find, but there has been a number of exit holes which are bloody and typically easy to find. It's interesting to compare the actual results with the brain washing hype of high velocity. Many of the Air Rifles I see marketed claim ultra high velocity, but use alloy pellets or even those wth a plastic skirt which weigh about half the weight of a total lead pellet.

They lose velocity so fast that they are really unusable at anything beyond 20 yards. They also do not stabilize and shoot accurately in any rifle I have used. I write this for the folks new to air rifles to understand that it's not all about the muzzle velocity. It's about what you can deliver to the target at the range you will likely shoot things.