Thread: Air Rifle for Pest Control

You can't go for a PCP until your FAL arrives I'm afraid (excluding PCP pistols which don't require a FAL but are like hens teeth to find, and very expensive if you do find one), when it does turn up grab one and you will have a blast! I have 8 PCP rifles in my safe at the moment and use 2 of them most days - The tunability is fantastic!

What you can buy without a FAL and performs in a similar way to a PCP is a CO2 rifle, GC have a good one called the CR600w which is very popular among tuners and costs less than $400. From the factory its only running at about 9fpe but you can mod them up to about 20fpe which is plenty for rabbits out to 50m. With Co2 rifles there is very little recoil so any NV gear will be fine.

As others have rightly said springers/rammers will kill NV/Thermal scopes real quick and are almost always excluded from warranty so be very careful there!

To get an idea on power needed check out some UK airgun hunting videos on youtube, unless you have a FAC (equivalent to our FAL but harder to get) they are limited to 12 fpe and are still taking rabbits out to 50m no problem with a well placed headshot. Possums are another story, they can be tough and need more power but as you are shooting upwards near a built up area that has safety concerns as well - I normally find 16 fpe sufficient with a heart/lung or throat shot, try not to go for skull shots as the skull top and sides are fairly thick and wont net a clean kill.

Ohh and I prefer .22 or above, gives more static shock on impact vs the little .177 which tend to just drill a small wound channel and passes through.

I personally used to use my (tuned) Weihrauch HW95 spring rifle which is a .22 and does about 660 fps. With my pellets is around 14 ft/lb of energy. Easy cocking, pleasant shooting. (I now use this as loaner for friends, while I use my CZ 457 .22)
Head/neck shots on possums were 1 shot kills but thats at ranges up to 15m standing.

Nitecore P30 torch (500 lumens) on a QD mount = awesome.



I would feel confident out to 25m but after that, a spring rifle at that power level gets iffy. But it's quiet and safe in built up environments (if you are careful of course.)

PCP are great and more accurate than springers but they need air obviously. And scuba tanks. Or pumping, but that gets old real quick.

Gamo are ok, BSA is better (they're owned by Gamo), and the Crosman/Benjamin are somewhere in between. Cometa and Diana is pretty decent too in the BSA tier.
Weihrauch and Air Arms are top shelf springers but cost more than most .22 LR rifles. And heavy.

Get a gas spring if you can... low end springers are not tuned and vibrate a lot and hard to shoot accurately.
.22 is the way to go for pest control with springers/gas piston.

Don't get swayed by 1200 fps ... it's all BS. You need an air rifle that won't vibrate when fired, not hold sensitive and accurate. It's a hard combo in a springer < $500.

Originally Posted by Reon Morrison

Morning all
Could anyone help me in which air rifle or fps should be needed for pest control. More for possums and rabbits in urban areas where a .22lr is probably not the best, shooting between 30m-50m if thats possible. Air rifle would be sorted with nightvision gear so wondering if 1200fps+ for a .22 would ruin the scope or not...
https://www.guncity.com/gamo-swarm-m...0-scope-373935
Sort of thinking something like this

if you have a FAL get a pcp from Youngs Airguns in Auckland, these are more accurate and far more quieter than a brake barrel.

Also dont take any notice of the marketing around 1200fps because to get those speeds you need a lightweight pellet and accuracy will be way off from 20+meters. If you choose to go down that route use 18grain or more pellet weights to keep the fps to under 1000fps, in turn this will keep the gun quieter and more scope friendly