Survival, huh? I hunt with my Benjamin, for fun and to make hunting more challenging, not because using an air rifle is more effective than any other weapon.
For some "eat small game or starve" situation, when you aren't playing around, you want a bolt action .22 rimfire with excellent: handling, scope and trigger. If you have good fire discipline, definately go with a semi-auto over the boltaction. Or a 12 gauge shotgun without too much choke. And a hell of a lot of practice.
On Benjamins:
The Benjamin claims mid 700fps for velocity. I don't have a chronograph and so must take them at their word. What I do know is that while it has plenty of power to kill with (a whopping 15 fpe), the modest velocity mandates a rainbow trajectory. This means that you will either need a laser range finder and complete trajectory table taped to the butplate, or a first rate range guessing eyeball. I've got a mediocre range guessing eyeball:foot:
Secondly, if you have to frantically pump 8 times for each hunting shot, your rate of fire will be very low. This places a premium on the quality of your ammo. Do not hunt with junk pellets from WalMart. Go and spend $12/can of 500 for premium German pellets. You won't get that many shots at game, and cheap inaccurate pellets will squander the few you do get.
Thirdly, having to put 8 pumps into your weapon for each shot will get old, fast. 10 practice shots will involve 80 pumps. Righties will have gigantic, but sore, right arms. Benjamins don't scope well (for me). Maybe I need a "scout scope" type deal?
Fourth, with the Benjamin in hunting trim, I considered 0 to 10 yards short range. The equivalent of shooting your .30 cal rifle out to 150 yards. No pellet drop, to speak of.
20 yards seemed like medium range. Like shooting a .30 cal rifle from 200 yards to maybe 300 yards. The power was still there, but the trajectory was beginning to make range estimation important for fine accuracy.
30 yards seemed like long range. You needed to make a very good guess of range, and small errors in range estimation meant a miss. If there was time to determine the holdover, good hits could be made.
Past 30 yards, and hunting? Forget it with the Benjamin. Winging animals with random chance hits is poor hunting and bad survival practice. Missed animals are frequently educated animals, which are then much harder to kill in the future. When you absolutely must have meat, don't pull the trigger unless you are about 85% sure you will hit. Dead animals can't tell their buddies to avoid you. Heck yeah I think they communicate with each other, somehow.
Want to hunt a smart opponent which will humble and educate you? Sharpen up your marksmanship and then get permission to hunt crows on some farmer's land.
Fortunately, a lot of small game you want to hunt is coke-can sized. So save up some cans and then shoot at them at unknown ranges and practice hitting them. That will be a fun afternoon. Any way, get to it and do it. Worst thing that can happen is you decide you need a .22 LR
