Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Clover Leaf .177 Group At 15 yards

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I remember selling Benjamins when I worked the gun counter at Hermann's Sporting Goods back in the early 1980s. I never liked the looks of them, but they were popular. Weird caliber, as I recall. Halfway between .177 and .22, no?

Can you elaborate? What are we looking at. Lead BBs, and musket caps. What kind of gun?

Get expanding pellets for hunting.

full flat nose should do the trick.

Was being a smartass mostly. Old Zimmerstutzen gun built many, many moons ago in Munderkingen, Germany.






Not obvious from the pics but it has a dual trigger. Forward cocks the action and the rear....well, you just gotta exhale and it goes pop! .177" diameter lead round balls and a rimfire case that does the heavy lifting. The barrel uses an insert of proper caliber, about 8" in length. 7" twist, why I have no idea. The ammo looks like the .22 BB caps when loaded, only they are .17 caliber. .22s pictured below....don't get all confused by the 6mm reference, that is the case length. Only God knows why the Yurps reference it like that.

Interesting. I have some CB caps. I used to, anyway. Not sure if I used them all up. Same brand and container, too.

Yep, found them. Just one container left. It's likely 40 years old. I used to use these in my basement through my S&W K-22 and Charter Arms Pathfinder back in the 1980s.

Come to think of it, the container says Made in Germany rather than Made in West Germany, so this container has to be post 1990, so closer to 30 years old. Maybe even a good bit newer, but I did use these a lot in the 1980s.

Sez mine were made in Germany also. Purchased in 1984. Yours are CB caps, loaded with conical bullets. The BB caps kill squill, coons and armadillos better for reasons I can’t fathom. Chrony velocity with my .17 BBs runs ballpark 850 FPS, dunno about the .22 caliber stuff.

Huh. So maybe my box is from the 80s, then, since yours says Germany and was purchased in 1984. The only time I remember buying them was in the 1980s for use in my basement where I had a rimfire range set up.

PS Back around then, I killed a cottontail with them using my K-22 S&W. First shot (from about twenty yards) caused the rabbit to jump six feet straight in the air and flip over 360 degrees, landing on its feet. It then darted away. It went deep into the brush, where I pumped five more into it at close range, killing it. Ruined much of it for meat. I don't recommend CB caps for cottontails.

Those with experience, back in the day, claimed that lead round balls for .36 and .44 caliber percussion revolvers were effective on human beings way out of proportion to what one would expect, even more so than conicals.

My backyard gallery.

My own

Nice. I might build one like that, too.