airgun hunting question?

Question

When your hunting squirrels with an airgun do you want pellets for penetration or expansion? Same for birds. I'm guessing you want expansion for squirrels and penetration for birds.

Answer 1

I would suggest that you try whatever types of pellets that you have, by shooting them into a wet telephone directory. You will find that there is very little, if any, difference in the performance. Air rifle pellets do not have sufficient velocity to consistently expand. I would go with whatever are the most accurate in your gun, this will get you the most kills in the long run.

Answer 2

I use a pellet rifle that has a muzzle velocity of over 1000 fps.
With that speed I use the round nosed pellets that give both expansion and penetration at that kind of velocity.

If your using a lower velocity weapon, you will need penetration more then expansion.

The rifles muzzle velocity is what determines which you use, the higher velocity rifles give you both out of most pellets.

A trick I use when I feel I need more expansion with the round nose pellets is use my knife and cut an X in the nose as deep as I can with out cutting all the way through , at that velocity it tries to divide in to 4 segments and expansion is quick.
Works good on birds, but pisses squirrels off most of the time.



D58


Hunting with Rifle, Pistol, Muzzle loader and Bow for over 3 decades.
Reloading Rifle, Pistol and shotgun for over 3 decades.

Answer 3

If you're hunting for sparrows and rodents, any model will do. Though I do find slingshots more convenient. You can hit a flying sparrow with a slingshot if you're skilled enough. Swifts are another matter though. They have a talent for dodging the stones half an inch before impact. If you're hunting for something larger, no model will do. Unless of course you're skilled enough to hit the weakest point on the skull and hit it at the right angle to mess up the brain. My uncle can make an air rifle in a machine shop, and I can make a shotgun(what a way to blow off those pests). But for rodents, I'm usually content with a slingshot.

Answer 4

go with round or flat points. a few years ago i was shooting feral pigeon in a building with a 450 fps pellet pistol. at distances of less than 20 feet the pointed pellets would go right through the birds. it was just ruffling their feathers. it would take 4 or 5 shots to bring down or incapacitate a bird. the next night i used flat headed pellets. the difference was like night and day. most of the birds went down on the first shot.

Answer 5

no u have it backwards penatration for squirrels expansion=bird
it doesn't actually really matter