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Old November 8, 2012, 05:25 AM   #1
rebs
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air rifle ?

I hope this is in the right section ?
I am looking to buy an accurate air rifle in either 177 or 22 caliber. I don't know much about them other than I want one that is a break cocking action and is quite accurate. Does anyone have one that they strongly recommend ? I would like to be accurate to maybe 100 feet if thats possible, 50 yards would be even better if it's possible ?
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Old November 8, 2012, 06:38 AM   #2
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The biggest issue with longer range accuracy in airguns is that air rifle pellets have ballistic coefficients in the range of .01 to .025, meaning they lose velocity very fast and also experience a lot of drift in a crosswind. Even a gentle you barely feel it five mph crosswind can push a pellet over a couple of inches at 50 yards.
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Old November 8, 2012, 08:14 PM   #3
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That all depends on how much you want to spend and how accurate you want to be.

I have an old gamo 220, that was rated at 1000fps in .177. I have a 3" square steel target I shoot it at and can ring it pretty consistently, offhand at 50 yds with the iron sights. Maybe 8 out of 10 shots on a good day. I'd say its functionally very accurate, but its not a single hole benchrest kind of gun. Its more of a hunting/sporting rifle.

If you're looking for teeny tiny groups, you probably need to look for more of a target type rifle. Most of the sporters will shoot good groups, but not competition/measure it with a caliper type of groups.

As long as you stay in the 1000fps or faster class you will be fine shooting out to 50 yards. At 100 ft its pretty much point and shoot. At 50 yards, you may have to slightly adjust your hold. A good gun will perform consistently and you can learn the trajectory just like you would with a regular rifle.

My next air rifle will most likely be a benjamin trail NP:
http://www.crosman.com/airguns/rifle...rrel/BT1122WNP

I'd also like a maruader, but neither one is a high enough priority for me to spend the money right now.
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Old November 8, 2012, 08:52 PM   #4
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I have a beeman that a friend talked me into years ago. Very accurate more then me on most days. Mine is. 177. After a few times shooting he upgraded to a 25 Cal and added a 22 at the same time. If I had. It to do all over again I would have a hard time not chossing the 25. It is a little slower but very little deviation to wind. And can drop a squirl from 40-50 yards without a problem.
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Old November 8, 2012, 08:59 PM   #5
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check out the beeman kodiak in 20. i think 177 is too small and 25 is to slow. the kodiak will shoot the eyes out of queens at 50 yards all day long. beeman used to be the the pellet gun to have until some of the others started flooding the market with cheaper knock offs
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Old November 8, 2012, 09:29 PM   #6
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Ya kodiac is what my buddy has. Been a few years since I have seen him but that is one sweet air rifle. Great shooter.
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Old November 8, 2012, 09:34 PM   #7
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CCI Quiet .22 subsonic long rifle ammo is airgun quiet, maybe quieter and shoots pretty good groups at 50 yards and a 40 grain .22 bullet with a BC of about .13 drifts a lot less in a crosswind than any air rifle pellet.

fifty yard group



Yea, I know it isn't an air rifle but in most places where it's illegal to discharge a firearm, it's just as illegal to discharge an air rifle.
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Old November 9, 2012, 12:00 AM   #8
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Well, I don't have a recommendation for a break action barrel pellet rifle.

But I can recommend a Daisy 953, an underlever cocker. I upgraded mine with a Daisy competition rear sight, and a pyramidair globe front sight. I ordered the sling and sling mount directly from the Daisy customer service department.

Used to be you could get the Daisy Avanti 853 from the CMP (from ROTC shooting programs). The 853 is the more expensive version because it uses a Lothar Walther barrel and laminate wood stock. So far I haven't been able to shoot the 953 accurately enough to deserve an upgrade, so I will keep training on it until I wear it out or get good enough to need a better rifle.

I do my training at 33 feet, aka 10 meters, shooting ISSF bullseye targets. So far I have managed to get more than half the points on an 8 bull page only once.

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Old November 9, 2012, 09:53 AM   #9
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There's a load of good info at the pyramydair.com Airgun Academy section.
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Old November 9, 2012, 01:59 PM   #10
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Get a Weihrauch HW97k in .20!!!
Great accuracy
Super solid construction
i shot 200+ mice and rats with mine

After owning 10 or 15 different air rifles, i can tell you nothing can touch the hw97k

only drawback, its a little heavy.
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Old November 9, 2012, 07:41 PM   #11
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Does anyone have the Beeman dual caliber model ?
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Old November 9, 2012, 10:12 PM   #12
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What's your budget?
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Old November 10, 2012, 07:08 AM   #13
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MY budget is around $200.00 if possible to get a really good one.
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Old November 10, 2012, 01:02 PM   #14
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For around $200 or a little over, I'd recommend an RWS 34, or a Benjamin Nitro-something (Trail or Titan, whichever has the integral rail). There are other good choices, but those would be mine. If you don't need much power, the Air Venturi Bronco would be an excellent choice, too; it's got good sights, good trigger, and is easy to shoot well.
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Old November 11, 2012, 12:20 AM   #15
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The RWS-34 is a great value. I have a Beeman/Webley C-1 and while people will tell you that you need more power/velocity, I can tell you you can hunt easily with 12 ft/lbs of power.
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Old November 11, 2012, 11:03 AM   #16
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I have a .22 caliber RWS 34 that's pretty accurate out 50 yards or so. It may be accurate further, but I haven't really tried. I really like the fiber optic sights it came with, and the adjustable 2-stage trigger is excellent. The overall quality of the rifle is impressive.
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Old November 12, 2012, 07:28 PM   #17
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i have a gamo big cat 1200, pushes a .177 pellet at 1200fps, have a nice little 4x scope on it, works fantastic on tree rats (squirrels) out to about 35-40 yds, believe it was about $200 at basspro
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Old November 12, 2012, 09:19 PM   #18
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Those advertised 1200 fps velocities happen only with the lightest pellets you can buy, the ones that aren't made out of lead.
If it doesn't make a cracking sound like a .22LR bullet does when you shoot it, it's not going 1200 fps.
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Old November 12, 2012, 09:47 PM   #19
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Quote:
Those advertised 1200 fps velocities happen only with the lightest pellets you can buy, the ones that aren't made out of lead.
If it doesn't make a cracking sound like a .22LR bullet does when you shoot it, it's not going 1200 fps.


...anyway.. I recently bought a Gamo Hornet for around a hundred bucks, including a scope. I have tried a couple of different pellet types, and have come to the conclusion that each rifle is different as to which pellet type it likes. I shot this group across my back yard, probably about 15 yards or so.
I understand you don't expect to get the best groups until you've put 500-1000 pellets through the rifle.
I've been really pleased with it, so far. Now I just need to figure out how to get the grackles to come back around the house.
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Old November 12, 2012, 10:11 PM   #20
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Explanation for my previous post:
The speed of sound is 1125 fps when the air temperature is 68 degrees F. 1200 fps is faster than that so a pellet going that fast will make a sound similar to the cracking of a whip.
The familiar sound of a .22 rifle is mostly due to the sound that the supersonic bullet makes when going through the air.

If you don't hear that whip cracking sound when you shoot, your pellets are going slower than the speed of sound. Those advertised velocities are based on velocities using pellets made of extra light copper or zinc based alloys. Regular lead pellets will go slower, but will retain their velocities better so even though they are slower at the muzzle, they may actually be much faster at 25 or 50 yards.

I'm just saying, don't take those velocity claims too seriously, there's a lot of puffery in advertising. I have one air pistol that's supposed to shoot 400 fps, I also have a chronograph and it says about 350 fps.

Also, spring-air pellet guns are extremely sensitive to how they are supported and putting them on a hard rest can really open up the groups. There is a lot of gun movement when the spring piston fires and if the gun is not supported exactly the same way every shot, the gun movement during firing will not be exactly the same, and this will change the point of impact.
If you are going to use it offhand, sight it in shooting offhand.

Last edited by B.L.E.; November 12, 2012 at 10:18 PM.
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Old November 12, 2012, 10:35 PM   #21
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My Gamo Shadow is pretty tight out to 15 yards, rabbit killing accurate at 25 yards and I can keep them on paper at 50 yards if I use the heavy match pellets. There are better air guns if you want to pay the cost but this works for me.
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Old November 13, 2012, 09:13 PM   #22
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With the higher powered air rifles its actually better to use heavier pellets and keep the velocity below the speed of sound when it comes to accuracy. Pellets tend to lose velocity fairly quickly due to their shape, and when they make the transition from supersonic to subsonic speeds they have a tendency to tumble and don't fly stable anymore.

This is a concern with regular rifles too, it just takes place over a much larger scale. A bullet that starts out 3 times the speed of sound and has a much better ballistic coefficient than a pellet won't make that transition inside the ranges most people are likely to shoot it at.
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Old November 13, 2012, 10:19 PM   #23
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IDK about this pellet guns being illegal in cities bt. Maybe on the coasts, but in the MidWestern suburbia it isn't the case. I can shoot a crossbow in my yard and I just face civil liability for damage.

I bought a GAMO rifle at around that price. Supposed to be 1200 with the copper pellets and 1000 with lead. I don't think it ever came close. I have read a few place you can expect about the 5th shot the rifle makes to hit that claimed velocity and then pretty quickly it settles about 20% below. Not sure if that is true or not. I wanted mine for squirrel hunting and it is not suitable for the purpose.

Accuracy is not great. At about 20 meters I can shoot a 2-3 inch group off hand pretty easily. The rifle DEFINITELY bounces around as all springers supposedly do. Not sure if it is worse than normal or not. It is not accurate enough that I use it for practice.

I saw a clerk at walmart pull a springer out and dryfire it several times for a customer to see, so who knows what happens to them before you get them. I didn't buy mine at the local walmart after witnessing that instead waiting until I made the yearly black Friday trip to Cabela's.
I considered sending it back to the company to have them overlook it once. From what I read online the performance I received isn't really outside the norm for high velocity springers though.

I wished I'd waited and paid the $500+ for a PCP rifle when I had the money. Crossman has one that goes on an AR lower I think.
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Old November 13, 2012, 11:16 PM   #24
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For those who are seduced by velocityitis.

I ran the numbers through an online trajectory computor comparing a light weight high velocity pellet to a heavy pellet.

The light pellet, a Beeman Laser weighing 6.5 grains and having a ballistic coefficient of .01

The heavy pellet, a JSB Exact Heavy weighing 10.3 grains and having a ballistic coefficient of .031

Muzzle velocitys:
light pellet 1200 fps
heavy pellet 950 fps
These are hypothetical velocitys chosen because they have about the same kinetic energy at the muzzle.

light pellet
muzzle vel 1200 fps 20.8 ft-lb energy
25 yard vel 728 fps 7.7 ft-lb
50 yard vel 514 fps 3.8 ft-lb

heavy pellet
muzzle vel 950 fps 20.6 ft-lb
25 yard vel 826 fps 15.6 ft-lb
50 yard vel 733 fps 12.3 ft-lb

50 yard drop sighted in at 25 yards zero
light fast pellet -6.2 inches
heavy slow pellet -4 inches

wind drift in a 2 mph crosswind at 50 yards
light fast pellet 3.8 inches
heavy slow pellet 1 inch
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Old November 13, 2012, 11:56 PM   #25
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Most of the accuracy issues are likely due to hold and follow-through. Springers are an aquired taste, but once you figure out the hold they shoot great. A consistent, loose hold is what works for me.
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