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177 vulcan and rats?


TONY R
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I have a webley vulcan in 177 having took the scope off my .22 air rifle, i decided to dust off this vulcan for using on rats.

Its left handed so only i tend to use it at our place, I have noticed with an old HW77 i had years ago the 177s around 11 ft lbs seemed to drill holes in rats not stop them stone dead as good as .22s to me.

In .22s i tend to like RWS hobby those flat fronted things, they seem to be good at stopping them in their tracks.

I tried some Milbro caladonians in it this morning, i hit two rats in the bodys not heads both were wrything about a little too much for my liking, i found a few Marksman 177s they seemed a little better to me but i only had the one shot with these it started raining so i just came indoors.

So a couple of questions, Are the RWS hobbys ok in the 177 they look very light to me on the specs, Whats a good pellet to use on rats for more put down for want of a better word, my lads small SMK 177 with calidonians seems strangly more efficient.

We used to feel the same way as kids with an old cadet BSA we had compared to the HW77.

Whats a good easily available 177 pellet, in fact as i said the marksman seemed better so should i stick to them i have not shot enough with this 177 to draw my own conclusions.

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Trouble with Hobbys is that they are made of a hard metal. I'd opt for heavier domed pellets made from softer metal such as AA Fields / JSB Exacts in the heavy weights. They will travel slower and deform better. The lighter the pellet the more likely it is to be made from hard alloy. It will also travel faster and be more likely to go straight through a rat if it doesn't hit something substantial like the skull. The heavier the pellet the more likely they are to be made of lead. These will travel slower and more likely to deform and therefore transmit more shock when hitting soft target areas.

 

I used to use Norika Killers for rats with very good effect. But you can't find them these days.

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Ill have a few more shots with the few marksman 177s i found, they are the flatish front ones, seem to remember they are reasonably heavy and one shot i had seemed better than caladonians.

Ill have a look for some of the above sujestions next time in in a gun shop, thanks for the input.

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I've still got my .177 Vulcan that I had new in 1979. Over the years it's accounted for all types of vermin. It never sees the light of day now though. In good condition they do run close to 12ft lbs in .177 and I've used marksman pellets in mine to good effect. You've set me off now Tony, time to blow the dust off the old Vulcan I think.

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Little Wife spotted a rat today on the front balcony. It scarpered off down the steps so I kept my eye on the garden especially under the bird feeder. Sure enough an hour later it was out feeding on the seeds chucked out by the birds. I nipped back into the basement and got the Prosport. It has only just come back from a loan to a neighbour so I had no way of knowing whether the zero was OK as I had set it several months ago at 25 metres. Anyway, when I got back there were two adolescent rats under the bird table, and now there is only one to account for. The zero was true enough for a head shot at about 13 metres and the Norika Killer did what it said on the tin. :good:

 

It is the season when the rats come out of the fields and look to get into houses so I've refreshed the bait I have in the traps in and outside the basement and left another one out near the bird table to catch the second one. I've got three traps permanently set up; one outside the basement garage door, one by the bird seed bins inside and another in my fishing cupboard. All our near neighbours keep chickens and so we're always on our guard.

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I'd run out of pellets well before every chicken in the area was dead. There are thousands of them. In fact, I'll bet that we are the only ones for miles around that don't have any. Don't need any either. All I have to do to get a box of eggs is leave our stale bread on the latch of one of the neighbour's chicken run and next morning there will be half a dozen fresh eggs on our gate post. Its a miracle! :lol:

 

What happened yesterday I think is that our new neighbours who have taken over the detached garden opposite our house were working in the garden all day making a new chicken pen. This might have disturbed the young rats that were used to having all day to feed on the chicken's food and so they came over to our garden where they found the bird feeder. After I'd shot the first one I sat out and waited for the second to show. I briefly saw it make its way back across towards the detached garden after the neighbours had stopped work. I left a cage trap out last night but no sign of it so far so I'm hoping that it has returned home for good.

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Miracle! Let's hope it's gone hone, my work mate has got rats in his walls from his next door neighbours having chickens, just had to tear his kitchen out, he isn't a very happy bunny at the moment. Sadly he won't let me bring in my airgun and start taking shots around his house either haha

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