Survival Rifle or Air Rifle

August West said:
I am pretty sure I used it properly, you stick a dart in it and then blow into the end.

If you have experience taking game with a blow gun I would love to hear the proper way to do it, as I said, it did not work out too well for me. I am also sad to admit that I have shot several animals with field tipped arrows, which I will never do again, they also proved to be very poor killers. With that experience it is really hard to believe that without poison those little bitty round darts are going to be very efficient, properly used or not. Chris
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You can't kill them all. It takes practice and some luck but It CAN be a useful tool in a survival situation where being quiet is a concern. I have killed a bird and a squirrel with a blowgun with head shots.
 
ditto to erasmus & scottman. you can load the 22 short by hand in any 22 & have much more killing capacity. if you need food this may be a pivotable point in survival. learn how to use a wrist rocket & you can also be quiet & effective.
dennis
 
I've got both and hunt with both. The .22 Benjamin is frustrating from a survival perspective on upland game birds. You go from being a wing shooter, to more of a scaled down rifle hunter; a tiny rifle for tiny game. Most times, you don't see birds till they're on the wing, which neutralizes any possibility of a rifle shot. Hence my "frustration" with it. Rabbits are almost as fleeting. Squirrels are dumb enough to stick around in range, stationery.

The survival rifle is in .22Hornet. It has gotten WAY more small game animals for me, due in part to its light weight and stretched string trajectory. The wallop it carries is definately adequate, and even legal for deer, here in California.

Since I've got a shotgun barrel underneath, that makes it legal as well as suitable for bird blasting. In my hands, I definately do OK with a .410 on upland birds. Hunting with this has been such a fun challenge, that now my 28 gauge seems like a cannon with tons of overkill, (yeah, right!) by comparison.

When I am goofing around and hunting for sport, I don't really care if I come home with a full limit, or not. I'll still eat that day, regardless. This frees me up to hunt with the weaker and more marginal calibers, which are harder to limit out with, hence more sporting.

If I was dead serious and had to make meat for survival, I would use a scoped, accurate semiauto .22LR for small game, or a modified choked 12 gauge semi auto for birds or fleeting targets. Big game would get big bullets from a .30 caliber rifle. Also, I would pay a little more attention to the mechanics of the hunt, such as wind direction, sound and light discipline, camo, and use beaters/dogs to drive the game through some terrain bottleneck, where I'd be waiting.
 
DennisStrickland said:
ditto to erasmus & scottman. you can load the 22 short by hand in any 22 & have much more killing capacity. if you need food this may be a pivotable point in survival. learn how to use a wrist rocket & you can also be quiet & effective.
dennis
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This is correct.
~ ~ ><> ~ ~

And what I eluded to previously in my post #52 regarding the .22 shorts and the far more powerful CCI Stinger hollow point ammo in .22 long rifle. For many decades I've taken head-neck shots at 45-55 yards or under with proven consistent accuracy. The shorty's I use for squirrel, rabbit, and stationary quail, dove, ect. And the Stingers are lethal for anything larger up to medium sized hogs at the same range..

A younger fellow and friend that used to work for me purchased a Beeman R-1 .177 pellet rifle some months back and challenged me one on one with my old Remington with shorty's only. This fellow is far more than decent shot with all manor of firearms, but could not beat me once in more than 15+ two out of three rounds on paper target and water filled plastic bottle groupings.. Now, perhaps he will become more accurate with this air rifle as time progresses but I still wonder about the lethality at the 45 yard ranges we employed for small animals. Then add to that the expense of the weapon systems like the Beeman, Benjamin Sheridan or the Webly's and I'd have to recommend a decent .22 rifle instead for real world survival in the bush.


Anthony
 
I think the 760 and th 1377 have ok merit for trekking on foot if you have a youngster you can't carry much but want to have an airgun in your party. Then you have the high ammo count with low weight.



I think the importance of what you would use such an airgun for is minimal compared to how important traps are. Traps energy multiplyers, especially comparing it to talking about trying to go out and shoot small birds and such- energy expended for little gain.

Oppurtunity game can be potted, but really hunting isn't very energy effici8ent just to go out and hunt. Trapping is a much better strategy.

To kill with low powered weapons you have tyo take out "soft life support targets"- the neck, the heart, lungs etc on "larger" game....

Skull shots don't always work wtih low powered weapons.

shot a possum in the head with a benjamin 20 at point blank in the skull, ran off perfectly fine except for the cut on his head- didn't penetrate. Have used the same gun on a head shot on a squirrel, squirrel went up a tree 10 minutes later fell to it's death- didn't penetrate, fractured skull. Same thing on trying head shots with crosman 2100 on reds, fractured skull but no penetration.

SHoot coons or possums in the chest with the same gun, they die.

The blowgun is nice because it's my walking stick anyway- efficient.

Primitive technology is easy to support, darts made in the field, rocks picked up for ammo for a slinging projectile type weapon etc etc. Just as one can use the natural resources to make traps.

Compared to lugging around a 5 plus pound airgun, I'm going to take a more versatile 22 rimfire, or other long gun with tricks for more versatile ballistics going down to what the 5 pound airgun would achieve and exceeding it for application- more versatile. The 22 rimfire can be very light weight because it doesn't need that extra weight for the device that powers the airgun.

Does one think that you will for sure need the higher round count of the .177 airgun to take 1000 small game expending inefficient energy in sporting hunting fashion?

I wonder how much steel wire you can pack in that space that the airgun ammo would take, and how many number 8 hooks you can also fit in that space? I didn't call them "fish hooks" for a reason- Just like Ron Hood points out in Volume 3. And then how much 550 cord or other food procurement energy multipliers you could carry for the same weight as the small game gettin airgun?
 
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Scottman said:
Does one think that you will for sure need the higher round count of the .177 airgun to take 1000 small game expending inefficient energy in sporting hunting fashion?

I wonder how much steel wire you can pack in that space that the airgun ammo would take, and how many number 8 hooks you can also fit in that space? And then how much 550 cord or other food procurement energy multipliers you could carry for the same weight as the small game gettin airgun?
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you got a really good point there - good food for thought :thumbup:
 
akennedy73 said:
I think there's a good argument for the Benjamin 392 as the best survival air rifle:

http://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2005/10/airgun-for-survival.html

http://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2010/04/my-survival-gun.html

Simple maintenance will give you a rifle that'll last more than 30 years. Weighs in at five and a half pounds - not the lightest choice, but not heavy by any means. I've got mine outfitted with peep sights and it's a lot of fun to shoot.

There's a good argument for how much ammo an air rifle will allow you to carry - 1000 rounds of pellets can be carried in your pockets whereas a 1000 rounds of .22lr weighs a considerable amount.

Still, as others have said, a .22lr is WAY more versatile and capable of taking larger game at far greater ranges. Ideally you have both - an air rifle so you don't burn through your .22lr ammo taking small game and a .22lr for everything else. Or, perhaps an air rifle and a bow.
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http://www.pyramydair.com/s/a/Benja...Pre_1995_Multi_Pump_Guns_w_Soldered_Valve/624

http://www.pyramydair.com/s/a/Benja...e_Post_1995_Multi_Pumps_w_Cartridge_Valve/911

mac airguns can mod it to 14 pumps and shoot faster.

Great candidate for keeping around the property with a lot of ammo and repair kits. It gets my vote. No mechanical spring noise either, just "air" volume noise. If suppressors are legal in your area and with the proper paper work, very easy to suppress that volume, no real heat compared to a firearm.
 
August West said:
I am pretty sure I used it properly, you stick a dart in it and then blow into the end.

If you have experience taking game with a blow gun I would love to hear the proper way to do it, as I said, it did not work out too well for me. I am also sad to admit that I have shot several animals with field tipped arrows, which I will never do again, they also proved to be very poor killers. With that experience it is really hard to believe that without poison those little bitty round darts are going to be very efficient, properly used or not. Chris
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Weird little bit of info that brought to mind...

I saw on a blowgun forum a while ago, that several people swore by dipping their darts in hot pepper extract.

If i recall they still said go for brain shots. it wasn't so much as a poison exactly, as that they claimed it stopped all the twitching that critters tend to do when brain shot with something as small as a blowgun dart.
 
Scottman said:
http://www.pyramydair.com/s/a/Benja...Pre_1995_Multi_Pump_Guns_w_Soldered_Valve/624

http://www.pyramydair.com/s/a/Benja...e_Post_1995_Multi_Pumps_w_Cartridge_Valve/911

mac airguns can mod it to 14 pumps and shoot faster.

Great candidate for keeping around the property with a lot of ammo and repair kits. It gets my vote. No mechanical spring noise either, just "air" volume noise. If suppressors are legal in your area and with the proper paper work, very easy to suppress that volume, no real heat compared to a firearm.
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thanks for those links - had no idea pyramyd had a repair kit. definitely going to put an order in for one :thumbup:
 
Those repair kits are a strong point in favor of the gun. Get two or more, maybe your great great grand kids could still be using the same gun :p
 
I have read this thread several times. If I have to bug out on foot am I going to take an air gun? No . But It is going to take something serious to make me not bug in . I have gear and supplies aplenty at home and am not in a flood plain so plan A is to stay put. with that in mind air rifles are very usable tools. I have been laid up with gout and being in the house was driving me crazy so I hobbled out to a thicket at the edge of the yard with my crosman1377 it has the add on stock. in 30 minutes I had a dozen trash birds on the ground and could have killed a squirrel that would make the stored staples go farther
Roy
 
plumberroy said:
I have read this thread several times. If I have to bug out on foot am I going to take an air gun? No . But It is going to take something serious to make me not bug in . I have gear and supplies aplenty at home and am not in a flood plain so plan A is to stay put. with that in mind air rifles are very usable tools. I have been laid up with gout and being in the house was driving me crazy so I hobbled out to a thicket at the edge of the yard with my crosman1377 it has the add on stock. in 30 minutes I had a dozen trash birds on the ground and could have killed a squirrel that would make the stored staples go farther
Roy
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Roy,

Thank you for chiming in with some evidence. I think the air rifle does have potential in a survival scenario too.
 
I like my Marlin Papoose. It may not be the best for all things considered but its a great package and highly accurate once set up. Its easy to put together, readily takes a scope and the carry case is designed to float if need be so I think overall Marlin did some homework for it. Its not going to break the bank to get one either.
STR
 
The problem with air rifles is they just don't pack much if a punch. I have killed close to 60 varmint cottontails with a 1000fps air rifle and its just not a good idea, I have put 3-5 pellets into a single rabbit before it stopped running and I could put one in the head and I have shot 4-5 times at a rabbit and I would think I was missing until I found its body later with 3 holes in it. If you put a round though anywhere but the spine, lungs or head it will barely flinch, hit the leg and it will run on 3 legs, the stomach and it will hardly flinch.

In short a air rifle majorly lacks the stopping power for even a rabbit or large bird, If can place the shot though the lungs or head it works but in a shtf situation how long is your scope gonna last?
 
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I agree with the idea of having a decent airgun available, but No, I would not choose any I know of over a good .22 firearm. Now with that said, history tells us airguns have been around for much longer than most will believe, in fact Lewis and Clark carried one on their mapping expedition which opened up the west for the growing United States. But they also had traditional firearms of the era as well.
Several things I think should be mentioned, one poster mentioned a large number of BBs but my experience BBs do not do well in good rifled airguns. Then the ordinary lead pellet seldom reaches much over 1000 fps in a .177 airgun. If you feel the need for 1200 and up, you will need those lighter and much more expensive pellets, costing more than all but the highest cost .22 lr.
Another fact, I have yet to find any true air rifle which will hold its charge for very long. Those who think because you can put 10 pumps to your Daisy and hunt for several hours, then finally shooting are in for a severe disappointment
In my opinion, the .20 caliber Sheridan is probably the best all around air rifle for a hunter, although the newer Gamo with the built in silencer is way up there as well. A fully charged air rifle makes very close to the same amount of noise as a longer barreled 22, so is a long ways from being silent. The chief advantage in a suburban area is you can use it with less than a full charge, which not only reduced the noise, but it's power and range. And yes, I have killed many rabbits and squirrels in my garden with a lowly .77 Daisy pellet rifle. Several ferral cats, one opossom, so used intellegintly, they will kill game, but to choose one instead of a .22, NO.
 
One difference in this country is that a normal rifle requires a firearms license and there are regulations on safe storage of any firearms owned (they come to your house and inspect your gun cabinet). An air rifle requires no license (as long as you are over 18), but then again nor does a slingshot or bow or crossbow. I think I'd rather go with a crossbow for less noise and higher lethality/bigger game capability. I'd also rather use a good rimfire .22 in a SHTF situation than an air rifle for better take down of prey. I used to have a semi-auto .22 before I moved to the city and I liked the size, weight & price of the ammo.

For long term EOTWAWKI survival I think that the ability to make weapons & ammo would put bows & crossbows well ahead of any rifle.
 
Scottman said:
hmmm moved.

Did ya ever test the coconut?
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Scottman, I actually didn't try the coconut. I had a buddy in town from the eastern seaboard in town during the holidays and we bought some supersonic gold plated rounds at sportsmans warehouse to try out with it. Instead of the coconut, I took aim (again) at an vintage galvanized steel garbage can in my backyard. It penetrated clean. I really didn't expect it to punch right through it. I'll grab a coconut this week. I think there are some at my local grocers right now actually, but I can't see a coconut trumping a galvanized steel trash can... Expect the coconut test BEFORE, lets say, Friday!
 
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