Pellet rifle hunting
Images are sometimes not shown due to bandwidth/network limitations. Refreshing the page usually helps.
You are currently reading a thread in /k/ - Weapons
You are currently reading a thread in /k/ - Weapons
Is it viable with small critters like squirrel and rabbit? What's better ammo a pellet or a BB?
Anyone got experience with bleeding, gutting and cleaning small creatures?
Pellets are fine for small game. If you are worried about it, you can get a .22 pellet rifle. Pellets > bbs for hunting. I like these plastic tipped ones personally.
Dressing small game is really simple. For squirrels in particular, it's a single slice down the belly (just cut skin deep) and you can pull the guts out. You probably aren't into trapping yet but those guts are good for baiting predator traps. If you cut off the feet, make slices down the legs to the center of the pelt, put a slice down the center of the tail and cut a circle around the top of the neck, you can save the skin by peeling it off and putting salt/borax (50/50 is fine) on the non-fur side for a few days. That will be brittle and one flat piece of fur. If you want to preserve it as soft and maleable, look into ammonium aluminum sulfate.
>>27956581
>Is it viable with small critters like squirrel and rabbit?
I feel like rabbits are starting to getout of 177 pellet's league, not that it won't kill them.
>What's better ammo a pellet or a BB?
Pellets, by far. BBs are for kids and co2 semi auto guns.
>>27956702
>I like these plastic tipped ones personally.
I think they've been the nastiest pellets I've run into, although the polymags are more accurate from my gun. They seem to retain all their weight while expanding nicely. Poly tipped pellets seem to shoot a lot flatter for me than the regular flatter headed ones I use.
OP just needs to know that polymer tipped pellets are borderline worthless vs the cheap ones if you don't have a high enough fps gun to make them work. Out of a ~500fps gun, they don't do anything special even shot directly into water.
>>27956702
Why do people recommend those Gamo PBA pellets, those things are dogshit.
But yeah, a decent .177 caliber pellet gun is perfectly adequate for squirrels and rabbits, just make sure you can reliably pull headshots because it won't always kill with a center-mass shot.
>hunting with bb's
Questionable at best, though I suppose in the US with no restrictions on power, it would be doable.
Rabbits from here on in. Personally I gut them by pulling up a bit of the skin, cutting that bit open, then kind of tearing in from there, though that's really only a technique for use with a shit knife, otherwise go ahead and slice the torso open. Then twist the head off (It's easier than cutting), and just separate the skin from the body, cutting of the feet when you get to them.Then I throw away the skin, leftover bits and fur, then wash the corpse with water, and oven cook it. Ideally with a marinade, which makes them more bearable due to the bland taste and exceedingly tough texture.
>>27956752
Nigga you gotta braise tough meats. Marinading won't do much unless you're grilling.
>>27956745
>Why do people recommend those Gamo PBA pellets, those things are dogshit.
BPA pellets are nothing special other than playing with out of curiosity, but the ones he posted aren't PBA. They're full weight hunting pellets with a ballistic tip so they have half the air resistance they should.
>>27956743
I recommended those assuming that he'd be using a decently powerful rifle. I've shot a bunch of homemade (knox) ballistics gel with them from a powerline 901 at about 50 feet and they almost always mushroomed over properly. That gun advertises 715fps with pellets but that's probably a little over what you're actually getting out of it.
OP, don't buy into the golden super pellet hype btw, it's bullshit. They advertise a huge gain in fps by using their shitty "gold" pellets but they are just inaccurate crappy ammo.
>>27956768
Oh, cheers. Would explain how I ended up with a B in catering, I have always been crap at cooking.
Marinade-wise I meant more for taste than texture though. What do you like to use for marinades? I've always liked garlic-based ones.
>>27956784
Well, whatever the hell they are, they don't agree with my CFX.
I've had better luck with shitty Crossman pellets than I've had with Red-Tip.
>>27956791
>That gun advertises 715fps with pellets but that's probably a little over what you're actually getting out of it.
Find the actual ft/lbs of energy the gun has at the muzzle, then use this calculator with your energy and pellet weight for a close guess.
http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/energycalc.htm
Here's the calculations I did with mine.
16gr: 724 (heaviest available in .177)
10.5gr: 894 (crossman premier ultra magnum domed)
8gr: 1024 (Predator Polymags)
7.9gr: 1031 (Crosman Destroyer)
7.8gr: 1037 (Gamo Red Fire)
6.6gr:(light enough to go supersonic from my gun)
4.7gr PBA: 1336 (pellet weight used when gamo decided my gun was a 1300fps)
4gr: 1448.49 (lightest pellet I know of in .177)
>>27956805
That's pretty nifty.
>>27956804
>I've had better luck with shitty Crossman pellets than I've had with Red-Tip.
Try predator polymags.
I feel like my 10.5gr crosmans premier ultra magnums are my best "cheap" shooters(just a coincidence that they also go at that magic 900fps number people are always talking about???), and destroyers are pretty good too and shot better for me than red fires ever did. Predator polymags shoot extremely well though. That's the direction I went for hunting pellets because of how flat shooting they are.
Try them if you feel like it. All you have to do is look at red fire and polymags next to each other to see that one is built better than the other.
>>27956795
Garlic is usually pretty good in marinades. But remember that you're going to be exposing the meat to high heat over a grill, so be careful about what goes in t. Big chunks of garlic can burn pretty easily, and lend a nasty bitter flavor to whatever you have cooking.
The opposite is true in braising. Low and slow means a mellow, softer garlic flavor. Try a recipe like this http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12254-italian-style-braised-rabbit-with-rosemary-and-mushrooms next time you bag a bunny. This is a pretty basic technique you can use for almost anything: brown the meat, then slow cook it. It's the same if you were making a rabbit stew. You want to caramelize all those delicious meat sugars, then deglaze the pan with something to get that flavor into the broth. Mushrooms and onions work, but so would a splash of wine or chicken stock. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the good stuff off.
Further questions can be brought to /ck/.
>>27956878
Finally a use for the slow cooker.
Cheers anon.
>>27956898
Slow cookers are great for this kinda thing. Just dump cleaned bunny pieces, carrots, a can of white navy beans, a couple peeled cloves of garlic, some thyme, salt, and pepper into a crock pot and set it on low. Barely cover with low sodium chicken broth (full salt broth can get way too salty), stirring occasionally.
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheUrbanHunterz
https://www.youtube.com/user/MCQBushcraft
>>27956581
one time i shot a squirrel with a .54r. shit was hilarious. fucker popped like a water balloon
Just got a Remington Tyrant.
What is the maximum range you could reliably hunt out to with the advertised 1200 fps? I'm still breaking it in but am able to reliably hit beer can sized targets at 50 yards. The manual said it takes 1k-1.5k rounds to fully break in the barrel and internals. Should i just use cheaper bulk ammo for this break in period and not worry about accuracy?
Do i need to lube anything or just shoot some cleaning pads through it?
Sorry to hi jack your thread, first air rifle. I'm used to muh real firearms but wanted something to plink out the back door with.
>>27956942
I've done it with a pigeon with surplus fmj, didn't do jack other than a neat entry/exit hole. Killed it right on the spot though, and a little blood shot out of it's mouth on impact so it must have been pretty nasty on the insides.
>>27956922
>tfw now delicious free lean protein running around for the taking
>>27956954
I have an AA S200, which apparently shoots around 800fps.
Beyond 20 metres or so (The first few rabbits I was taking shots at) It will not kill them. I know I was on target, shitty as a thing to say it is, I always am. So, 30 metres or so? As well as that, you'll probably still want to be going for the head at that fps/energy or whatever, I doubt there's enough force to kill them through shock as it goes through the torso. Minute of can may not be enough.
>>27957016
At 15 yards I'm getting roughly inch sized groups with the occasional flyer outside of that. Does the weight matter as much as accuracy? Right now the 4gr pellets are grouping tighter than the 8.5gr, but I'm not sure if it's still "breaking in" or if i still haven't found the preferred ammo for my specific gun.
>>27957058
>>27957058
May well be it just prefers the 4gr. If it's still 'breaking in' then presumably the groupings will be below normal, but it will most likely maintain the same pellet preference once it's done 'breaking in'
Obviously if the weight's high enough, the force will kill it if you get it in the torso, but then you have to deal with the possibility of shit being sprayed around the inside. If it's accurate enough to be consistently hitting the head, it just has to be heavy enough to whack it with enough force to incapacitate it. Even if it just makes it flail around, cruel as it is you can just run up to it then snap it's neck.
Why bleed them? Eat as much of that blood as you can, shit's delicious.
>>27957112
I'll just keep trying new types of ammo until i find one that works best.
Would i be able to down some annoying feral cats that keep fucking with my trash? I don't have a 22lr or anything small enough to not completely obliterate it or piss off the neighbors.
>>27957264
I don't think so anon.
Looks like you'll have to obliterate them.
Post results here when you're done, you can be like that guy that clubbed animals to death.
>>27956581
I shot a squirrel once, It pissed it off. Don't use bb's.
>>27957311
Long live meleeanon.
Hopefully my dogs just catch it soon enough.
