I grew up on small family farm. My job as a kid was to protect my dad's garden and fruit trees from marauding birds. My weapon, a .22 Benjamin pump pellet rifle. I shot and killed hundreds, if not thousands of birds and other small creatures.
An airgun is effective and deadly used against small animals at reasonable range.
I remember that once in awhile I would head a bird solidly and it would fly away or hit the ground alive. On the rare occasion my dad let me shoot a bird with his "real" 22 rifle, the bird would blow up. A squirrel shot with an airgun might take multiple hits if the head wasn't hit. I have shot them with rimfire too. Unless you hit the head, you might not have enough left to eat. We had pheasants on the property. Several tries with the pellet gun were useless. I would hit them, I could hear the pellet impact, but they would take off flying or running. My dad once took a shot at one with his 22 rifle. The shot caused the pheasant to drop instantly in its tracks.
By the way, a 22 short will completely penetrate through a 2X4 at short range. An airgun's pellet can be dug out of the wood with a knife.
I get a kick out of this forum. We are know contemplating the effectiveness of a pellet gun on deer and boar. In another thread it was concluded by some that a 30-30 would be useless against elk.
