Air pistol recommendations needed

J

J. MacDonald

Joined
Jun 8, 2000
Messages
3,140
Dad's got a squirrel problem and wants an air pistol to help thin the herd a bit. If it was a regular gun needed I could advise him, but I don't know much about ait pistols. Is it possible to get something decent in the $100.00 range? I'm guessing pump action over C02. Is 600fps a reasonable expectation or even possible?

Let's hear what you have to say?

jmx
 
Go with anything Gamo. Their quality is unbelievable, great customer service and you get a lifetime warranty. Also everything they make is dead on accurate, well balanced, and has an excellent feel to it. If you're wanting to kill squirrels (and I'm assuming you can't use real firearms, otherwise use a .22 short or a .410) then get a rifle. You're not going to be able to find a pistol capable of delievering 600 fps for cheap, if at all. But you can get a good Gamo rifle that will give you pinpoint accuracy and over 1,000 fps. (the hunter will give you 1250 fps with one cock and a .177 pellet)

Also squirrels are annoying and damn near impossible to kill from short distances because they always run around to the opposite side of the tree. So more than likely you're going to need to hit them from a distance, which will not be a problem with a Gamo rifle. I'd reccoment the Hunter or Stutzen models, or you can get one of their .22 pellet models if you really want stopping power. Good luck.

By the way, you can get a bolt action .22 rifle (firearm, not pellet) at Wal Mart for 87 bucks, so take that into consideration ;)
 
Dad lives in a gated community in Jacksonville. If a .22 was an option, a Ruger 10/22 would already be there.

What about Beeman or Benjamin?

jmx
 
I'm afraid $100.00 won't do it for squirrels. I have a Beeman P-3 air pistol as well as an R-7 rifle and a BSA Goldstar. I think you're going to have to spend more but I will say this, the good airguns are really accurate and a lot of fun to play with. The Beeman R-1 might be a good choice. Keep in mind spring guns, unlike pneumatics, are really tough on scopes. You must put an airgun rated scope on the spring guns due to the two way recoil. Go to an airgun board and ask your question, you'll get lots of great advice. Try the chat room at this site http://www.straightshooters.com/ lots of great info here.
 
I'll second the suggestion of a rifle over a pistol.

You can get a quality 1,000-1,200 fps air rifle for considerably less than $100 that will be plenty accurate for pest control. Pump action is much better than CO2 for this application.

I had a friend who had a similar squirrel problem, and he chose to go with a 1,000 fps Crosman pellet gun that was around $50 at the local 'mart store. It seemed to work just fine when used with pointy pellets.

You can get a pistol that will shoot at squirrel-stopping speeds, but it will cost significantly more than a rifle that would probably do a better job.

Also, have you considered rat traps baited with peanut butter? It may not be as much fun as sniping, but it would be more convenient and less likely to spook the neighbors.
 
Originally posted by jmxcpter
Dad's got a squirrel problem and wants an air pistol to help thin the herd a bit.
<snip>
Is it possible to get something decent in the $100.00 range? I'm guessing pump action over C02. Is 600fps a reasonable expectation or even possible?
Click to expand...

Squirrels are notoriously tough -
about 4ftlb energy is required at the quarry to even penetrate the hide. At least 5 ftlb at the target is recommended.

Most co2 air pistols do about 2ftlb energy at the muzzle.

The famous but now discontinued Crosman Classic 1377C multi-pump air-pistol at full power was rated at 600fps MV with .177cal pellets which is about ~5.5ftlb ME - just barely adequate for squirrels at very close range.

It's not just the velocity that's important -
for example a silly case of a feather traveling at 600fps probably would not do much damage to a squirrel - but a 14gr .22cal pellet probably would do severe damage - as its impact energy would be about 11 ftlb.

A Crosman 2240 co2 air-pistol still current is rated at 460fps MV - BUT it shoots a much heavier .22cal pellet (even allowing for an optimistic rating using the lightest of all commercially available pellet at 11.9gr) this is still ~5.6ftlb - again only just adequate at close range.

BUT as others have advised it is much, much better to get an air-rifle - for example the
multi-pump Crosman 2200B is rated at 595fps MV with a .22cal - which is about ~9.4ftlb ME (low priced at about $62)
- or if you don't like all that pumping the
co2 Crosman 2260 is rated at 600fps again with .22cal pellets - making it about ~9.5 ftlb ME (low priced at about $75)

Both these will allow adequate energy levels out to about 30+yards.

If you don't like .22cal which is generally the prefered caliber for pest control for their better impact (higher momentum for the same energy levels) the .177cal equivalants but at lower energy levels are:
Crosman 2100B (~8.7ftlb ME)
Crosman 1760 (~7.5ftlb ME)
 
A Beeman R-7 would work really nice but, it is not anywhere near your $100 price target.

A Winchester 1000x model gets advertised for $100 here in Arizona. 1000FPS for .177 pellet would do the trick. I don't know who smooth or accurate it is but, it is made by Daisy so you have a reasonable level or quality control compared to many other brands out there.

If there is a remote chance for some general plinking fun, a Beeman R-7 would be a great choice. Beeman R-7

Personally, I really like my Air Arms Pro-Elite and TX-200. The Beeman R-9 ain't bad either but, it isn't as sweet as the two Air Arms rifles.
 
a live trap?

Very effective, quiet. You can relocate the squirrels or kill them some other way.

A BB gun just doesn't seem up to the task of killing a squirrel. Then you have the problem of coup de grace. Also a air gun with enough oomph might be loud.

We had a problem at our house and just moved them to the park about 4 miles away. Of course I think that might be illegal.


:rolleyes:


Paul
 
My 80 year old father kills buckets of squirrels with a $50 Daisy bb gun.That price included the cheap scope.
 
Originally posted by Sid Post
A Beeman R-7 would work really nice but, it is not anywhere near your $100 price target.

A Winchester 1000x model gets advertised for $100 here in Arizona. 1000FPS for .177 pellet would do the trick. I don't know who smooth or accurate it is but, it is made by Daisy so you have a reasonable level or quality control compared to many other brands out there.
Click to expand...

I'd second the R-7 but unfortunately it's more than double the price target.

The Winchester 1000X is NOT made by Daisy - but merely imported and re-badged. It is made in Turkey - and unfortunately it is just that. Early examples had trigger problems - being very heavy and unreliable - the newer ones still have tremendously heavy triggers, and when chronographed came no where near the advertized 1,000fps using real world pellets. The main spring is a monster - way over sprung - in fact someone over at AirgunForum put in a weaker spring and obtained noticably higher muzzle velocities.

Staying under $100 the Slavia CZ 630 and 631 have fine reputations - but they are really only meant for plinking - as they are about 6ftlb energy at the muzzle - which as you can see is only maginal for squirrels to about 10-15yards. However with the shooter's better ability to be accurate with a rifle - one can be more precise with shot placement and aim for the brain-pan where the energy required is less (about 3ftlb at the quarry) - however I'd be very dubious about many with the ability to take headshots reliably out to beyond about 30 yards.
 
Last time I went to the SHOT SHOW, they were displayed at the Daisy booth along with Avanti. Since I don't own one, there is no personal experience other then the observation made. Since they aren't in my price or quality class, I never really looked close. Thanks for the update.
 
The R-7 is great, really easy to shoot, but possibly a bit underpowered for squirrels, shot placement would be very important with this gun. Here's another good site for airgun info.

http://www.airguns.net
 
Originally posted by tonybigthumbs
Do you guys use field point .177 for this? i dont see a BB penetrating..
Click to expand...

There is huge debate over this -

It seems that for shooting live quarry (fur/hide) like squirrels .22cal is the prefered caliber.

When shot placement is good (brain-pan or heart/lung shot) then any (accurate) pellet will do the job when there is adequate power/energy - suggested minimum of 5ftlb at the target for squirrels.

However there is a lot of argument that hollow-point pellets - like the .22cal RWS Super-H Point has more impact than a regular domed/roundhead pellet like the Crosman Premier.

Most sharply pointed pellets, counter to intuition, do not have good aerodynamics and may even have accuracy problems at longer ranges (due to sharp angles and difficulty in precise centering of the points) - more rounded "pointed" pellets like the (Crosman) Copperhead Pointed (head shaped more like an American football) are exceptions to the rule and fly well - if they are accurate out of your individual gun.

Just an additional note - I keep using the the word "accurate" -
Although airguns are inherently very accurate - they can be very fussy about the pellets used.
A good general rule is to try the pellets that other people have found successful in the same gun -
BUT these pellets must be tested in the individual gun -
as sometimes the same make/model and caliber gun can have very different pellet preferences.
 
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