Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Air Guns Squirrels, rabbits, and other edible quarry — air rifle, air pistol, . . . or?

I've taken many rabbits raiding my backyard with .17 cal. pellet. Keep the velocity up and hit them in the head. Rabbits aren't hard to kill.

Naph: I bought an airgun for the same reasons. I decided on .22 caliber because of less wind drift than a .177 pellet. Get a tin of Crossman Premier Ultra Magnum 14.3 grain pellets to break your rifle in. Not expensive but decent accuracy. Once the accuracy settles down get an H & N Hunter Trial Pack and see what pellet shoots best in your rifle. I like a flat nose pellet on game. Other pellet manufacturers have trial packs. Regarding scopes be sure and get an airgun rated scope. The double impact of the mainspring slamming forward and then the sudden stop at the end of the stroke will quickly demolish most conventional scopes. Use a ring that has a pin in the bottom that fits into a hole in the base to keep the scope from slamming forward. You definitly need an adustable objective but at least a scope parralax adjusted to less than 100 yards. I got a Hawke Airmax 3x9 AO. Regarding rifles I avoided PCP because of the expense of the air handling equipment. High pressure compressor $800 or hand pump $130 - $280. That left underlever with fixed barrel, break barrel or gas piston. Some suggestions Weihrauch HW90 or HW97K. Beeman R9. Air Arms TX200. I chose a TX200 HC Hunter Carbine. Be advised good airguns are accurate but heavy and expensive.

You won't go wrong with any Air Arms spring powered rifle. If you can't afford one then you'll have to get a German Weihrauch but it won't shoot as nice out of the box.
Muzzle energy being equal there's nothing to chose between .177 and .22. No difference in wind drift. The .177 will shoot flatter. Zero at 30yrds and you'll be more or less point blank from 15 to 35yrds and with anything over 10.5ftlbs at the muzzle you'll be fine taking brain shot rabbits out to 40yrds.
.22 will of course hit harder and give the impression of a cleaner kill but you'll have to make sure you learn that loopy trajectory. I've got a few (8!) air rifles... including two Weihrauch, a Diana and three Air Arms. I only hunt with the Air Arms these days. .22 tx200hc with a M8 6x42 Leupold (reparrallaxed to 30yrds) on top and a .177 ProSport with a Vortex 2-7x32 rimfire scope. Both brilliant combos. ProSport was dear but boy what a rifle! Picked the TX up 2nd hand for £200. Proper yeomans tool. I'll have both of them forever.

Nap: Talk to Doug at Cameraland. He is on the Optics forum.

What is your budget? Montana marine posts here some but an air avenger pcp and hand pump is fairly reasonable and unless your shooting lots a hand pump can keep up

I have been considering selling my Beeman R9 22cal. PM me if interested. This is an older picture but as you can see it would work just fine on squirrels and rabbits.

for garden work id say one of the multipumps in .20 or .22. if you have to have one right now, benjamin has the new 392 that looks like it can be scoped. if you are really lucky at pawnshoping, fleamarketing, garage saleing look for a sheridan blue or silver streak, crosman 140 or 1400, benjamin 342 {i think}. those old multipumps are about the best there ever were for garden work. choose your power level to match for good effectiveness and lack of overpenetration and noise, maybe 1-2 pumps to scare off a deer, hit a metal trashcan with 1-2 pumps to scare off a raccoon or stray cat. i seem to have the best luck with jsp and h&n for pellets.

I have one of the new Crosman 362 pumpers. You'd have to do a breech upgrade to scope it. The plastic one that comes on it from the factory isn't grooved to take rings. The rifle is very good at backyard work, though, after filing the front sight down narrower. It's 1/8" wide out of the box.

I've got a topic posted on here on a few months back from when I first got it with some pics of the rifle and some groups. After thinning the sight down, it will shoot dime to penny sized 5 shot groups at 25 yards.

I've thwopped a couple backyard pests with it since then. It's very effective, but I usually just end up grabbing the Daisy 901 .177 instead because of better ergonomics and way less pumping effort.

Well here is the...or? I have had a pump up Sheridan .20 pellet rifle since I was a youngster and it has accounted for lots of rabbits, but not at the longer ranges that I'm reading about here. Squirrels are tougher than rabbits or a least their skin is in my experience. That variable pump is/was handy for anything from mice in the house to crows in the yard. Recently a rabbit has been eating the plantings and had to go. My old Sheridan seals are gone, but the rabbit wasn't. Reading up in the rimfire section, the guys told me about Aguila .22 Super Colibri 20 grain subsonic 590 fps long rifle ammunition. I invested $9.00 for a 50 round box, sighted in my .22 and have deceased the rabbit. It certainly isn't a long range alternative like standard long rifle ammunition, but really practical for someone with a .22 rifle and hits harder and quieter than the Sheridan.

I quit using those things after having about half a dozen squibs over the years. Still have a box or two on the shelf, though.

i have had those colibri's stick in rifle barrels also. for pistols they are great though. for a rifle in that class, I like the cb longs. out of a 10/22, they will feed from the magazine if you hand work the bolt. they are a touch louder than the colibris, but not having to keep a brass rod handy is cool. you can make a jig to flat point them also.

they sell rebuild kits for the old sheridans. and it isnt that big a deal to reseal them. or there are lots of fellas that will do it for you. tim over at macone https://www.mac1airgun.com/mac1home.html does standard rebuilds, as well as his "steroid" rebuild. i have not had him do a steroid build for me, but purchased the parts from him and did a couple of my 392's and a sheridan, and they turn those rifles into something pretty cool for a pumper if you want more power and longevity.

I've also had the Super Colibris stick in a rifle barrel, so that did it for me.

As far as airguns, I've killed quite a few squirrels and small pests for a 177 airgun, but I'd probably go with a 22 caliber if hunting was my primary goal.

A lot of the cheap "airgun scopes" won't hold up on magnum spring guns. Although not advertised as airgun scopes, I've had good luck with Leupolds and the Bushnell Elite scope on spring guns. A call to the scope manufacturers will tell you if their scopes are double braced and will hold up on spring guns.

Agreed. I won't hesitate to pop rabbits or small birds/mice, etc with a .177 but I much prefer my 22 cals for squirrels and larger birds. Seems like squirrels always run quite a ways after a .177 hit unless it's a head shot.