Thread: Do cheap air rifles actually work well for rats etc?

Originally Posted by Max Headroom

Try your rifle on a paper target and see if you can consistently shrink your groups.

That way you'll be working on the big variable: The Nut behind the Butt.

ha ha "nut behind the butt" a new one for me.

had a cheap air rifle as a kid. could shoot the stalk above the lemons to get them out of the tree. best was six in a row.

I have also found that playing anything by Portishead gets rid of rats and mice.

It does attract stoners though.

Originally Posted by altair

Have a Benjamin Varmint (Crosman) a .22 which cost me $400 new.

I'm wondering if these cheaper air rifles are actually any good for this purpose of shooting rats? Seems to have a good punch for an air rifle, sends flat head pellets right through the rats when I manage to hit them.

Seems everyone else has $800-1000 flash air rifles..do you actually need to spend that much for accuracy and reliability, or will a cheapie like this do the job? Surely it would? be happy to buy an expensive one, but life gets in the way!

The $500 Stoeger I had seemed a better rifle.....

Just after opinions, how many of you on here have used cheaper air rifles with success?

Cheers

Any crappy gun will hit the bulls eye (or hit a rate, as you may say) once in so many shots, or even produce a nice looking 3 shot group once every blue moon. What matters is whether a gun a consistently shoot well, every single shot.

The way I see it, spring guns are always, always less accurate than 22LR rifles for the same money. The awkward dual directional recoil and the light bullet weight are inherently bad for accuracy. Having shot at least 50 different 22LR rifles, I personally would not bother with inaccurate 22LR rifles. As such I see even less reason to do serious shooting or hunting with low-end spring guns.

When I first started shooting, I bought from Youngs a secondhand Gamo for 150 dollar. It works well enough for its money, and at 600 fps it was reasonably quiet. But it definitely is not reliably accurate. I only used it to plinker around the back yard. Earlier this year a fellow forum member had a second hand AA TX200 for sell, I bought it off him. It definitely is a lot better, very nice bluing, beautifully carved stock, very powerful, and noticeably more accurate.

Good Spring guns hold their value quite well too. If you can get a secondhand high end spring gun for about 800~900, say Daina mod 54, Weihrauch HW97, Air Amrs TX200, shoot it for a couple of years, you can sell it for about the same as you paid minus a hundred dollars or so. There are not a lot of people going after a second hand 350 dollar spring gun.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

flat heads followed by round heads (fortunately the cheapest) work very well...now get this YOU DONT NEED HYPERVELOCITY EXPENSIVE pellets to kill a rat...just a pellet that you can pierce bum of a coke can with and be able to hit what you are aiming at. another thing you may not have taken into consideration..air rifles recoil...quite a lot actually...it stuffs scopes as it is a two way thing very quickly...hold that forend very firmly and your groups will shrink...possibly why your standing shots worked well...a drop of 3n1 oil back into hole the air comes out of every now and again helps to keep things working properly too.

did you try this?????????

Anyone able to appraise the Crossman 2240 CO2 .22 slug pistol? Any good?

as a kid i had a chinese jobbie in .177, would have propably cost equivalent of $25 (was in South Africa), got it at the chinese shop. it has accounted for many many Minor birds, pigeons, rabbits, dassies (google that one) and quite a few stray house cats that came onto our place. main thing is shot placement and getting close enough. i cant imagine this did much more than 700fps. Marksman red box ammo did the job

Later on i got a 1000 or 1200fps hatsan, now that was a beast by comparison, but i wont say on here what animals i got with it as some might start calling me "unethical hunter" lol

Power doesn't matter if you can't hit a target the size of a rat's head.

Had one years ago and the Co2 canister cost/shot was more than using a .22.
Not sure on cost now.

Had many air driven guns over the last 50 yrs or so.
The first was a ''Slavia'' brand break barrel of low power but well made. It served myself and younger brothers with thousands of practise shots, and the odd hospital visit.
Next up was a BSA Meteor, a big step up in power etc, starlings, blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows etc with-in a closest range . Perhaps the best use was for kingfisher patrol. My father was a builder etc and built one of our homes. Included was a Goldfish pond where said Kingfishers waited for a slow Goldfish or two.
Many years latter came a series of air-pistols , the best being a Webley with a top break charge barrel. Very accurate and capable of eliminating ratty at close ish ranges.
The last one I swapped. It was an under lever fixed barrel model of dubious manufacture. [Only had Chinese style marks on it]. Anyway this V sight airgun entertained us ,[me the missus, friends etc] and could really shoot further than anything else I've shot with an airgun. Clothes pegs were a good target at times, until ''her indoors'' shot the actual washing line . To be fair it was her washing line and all I did was mow underneath it.
Always used .177 as you could get more pellets in your mouth than a .22..

Whats your stories?

Lol my cheap ass ruger Hawk smokes rabbits with iron sights. Was $180 bux from gunshitty,
Would definitely turn rats inside out.

Ha no idea how the pic of the pos mosen ended up there.

Yeah ya gotta warn people before posting up a pic of a "moist nugget"

Airguns are the embodiment of the saying "you get what you pay for". My first airgun was a $50 gift. Chinese BAM or something. Killed a rabbit or two with it so it wasn't useless.
But it didnt last, wore out pretty quick, was loud etc. Compared to my air arms TX200HC, chalk and cheese. That thing kept my friends property clear of bunnies and hares for years

for rat shooting at a dump that gun should be fine. I've found the artillery hold works best. the air rifle goes thru a forward shock as the piston gets to the end of its stroke, then a reverse shock as it recoils back before the pellet leaves the barrel . the gun needs to held the same way every time as it affects the harmonics of the shock waves differently if held different between shots. which affects point of impact.i let the gun sit on my palm with no restriction to how it recoils. it has to move the same way every time. use the pellet that groups best for your gun. accuracy kills. ( I have 11 tins of pellets that weren't quite right for my gun left. settled on the best) the price of an air gun will get you a better gun, but you buy what you need. yours works for what you need. all good. I've just spent over 2300.00 on a new air rifle and scope because of the type of hunting I do. I sure as heck wouldn't for rat hunting. if your happy with it and it's doing its job well, you have the right gun.