.22 hunting ammo

[Robc.22tactical]

People of pw i been looking at the jsb predator in the .22 form are they any good for shootin rabbits ? Best wieght ?

[Underdog]

Anything through a rabbits noggin will do bud

[malantone]

are you talking air rifle slugs?

[Robc.22tactical]

Yeah seen hollow point crossmans and some mean jsb exact hollow point just wonder what the airgun shooters on here you

[malantone]

I have an old air rifle HW35 with an ox spring, It kills rabbits at 40yds with any slug, I understand that domed slugs are more accurate than pointed or hollow, don`t waste money on fancy amo.

get your fire arms cert and buy a 22rf I have killed lot of rabbits at over 100yds with mine.

[Bewsher500]

Bisley magnums

I find the hollow points and H points pellets lack a pit of penetration depending on distance and where on the skull they hit

[Therealchucknorris]

Air Arms Diabolo Hunter work a treat for me. Very accurate and do the job at the usual air rifle distances

[cuzzy]

I've started using copper pellets in my fac .22 superten and are very hard hitting bit pricey but good

[kent]

I've started using copper pellets in my fac .22 superten and are very hard hitting bit pricey but good

 

 

Copper as in copper washed? in a Sabot ? Solid copper?

[1066]

People of pw i been looking at the jsb predator in the .22 form are they any good for shootin rabbits ? Best wieght ?

 

The pellet you need is the one that's most accurate in YOUR rifle. Air rifles are notoriously pellet sensitive, two of exactly the same make may well like different pellets. With an air rifle, power is secondary to accuracy. 7-8 ftlbs in the skull of any rabbit will do the job, with 20ftlbs in the body you will have a runner.

 

I remember reading, years ago, about someone who shot dozens of rabbits on a golf course in one night with a Feinwerkbau recoilless target rifle, this would have been a rifle used for shooting paper at 10 meters, maybe only starting with a ME of 7-8ftlbs, so terminal energy could well have been down to 5 ftlbs.

 

If you can keep ALL the pellets in a group about the size of a two penny piece, with no flyers, you're good to go. The effective range you can take rabbits humanely is the range that you can keep within that group size. This will depend on, the rifle/scope, the pellet, the conditions, your shooting position and most of all, you.

[cuzzy]

barracuda power .22 copper plated get them of ebay as it cheaper than driving to the nearest gun shop

[kent]

barracuda power .22 copper plated get them of ebay as it cheaper than driving to the nearest gun shop

 

am suspecting they are copper washed rather than plated?

[kent]

 

The pellet you need is the one that's most accurate in YOUR rifle. Air rifles are notoriously pellet sensitive, two of exactly the same make may well like different pellets. With an air rifle, power is secondary to accuracy. 7-8 ftlbs in the skull of any rabbit will do the job, with 20ftlbs in the body you will have a runner.

 

I remember reading, years ago, about someone who shot dozens of rabbits on a golf course in one night with a Feinwerkbau recoilless target rifle, this would have been a rifle used for shooting paper at 10 meters, maybe only starting with a ME of 7-8ftlbs, so terminal energy could well have been down to 5 ftlbs.

 

If you can keep ALL the pellets in a group about the size of a two penny piece, with no flyers, you're good to go. The effective range you can take rabbits humanely is the range that you can keep within that group size. This will depend on, the rifle/scope, the pellet, the conditions, your shooting position and most of all, you.

 

 

I agree totally with the principle of placement (40ft lb in the backside wont kill well), though think groups irrelevant to anything but proving the ability of the tool itself as it only one shot we get, all said and done its the ability to get the first and only shot placement spot on not place 4 others in a similar place to the first shot. Two pence is also more than twice that of a rabbits brain box I therefore suggest a £1 coin for first and only shot, this comes from the 70's (long before the £1 coin) when the 2pence was in all honesty the best that could be done with the tools of the day. Also I feel the whole idea of how little power is required is an often quoted myth, this has been banded about for years but more and more I find it just isn't true as even marginal gains in power over 12 ft lb make a big difference to DRT kills on rabbits, when your talking about 7-8 ft lb that's well below sensible levels of muzzle energy. Sure low powers can kill but the reliability is often just not there and its far better to err on the side of caution when it comes to acting humanely towards live quarry.

If your average airgunner used the std £1 coin with one shot with a gun producing 10-12 ftlb at the muzzle as a standard, you will certainly see a far lower wounding rate and the spoken effective range reduce to a more realistic level. Surely this can only be good for the sport and the quarry?

 

The OP might consider there is no magic pellet, having seen all sorts of shapes, sizes and designs it comes down to just one thing " the one that works best in your gun"

Edited April 5, 2014 by kent

[1066]

I think you are being deliberately nit-picky there Kent.

 

"Two pence is more than twice the size of a rabbits brain" You might be confusing a two pence piece with some other coin of the realm, maybe a groat?

 

A two pence piece measures under 26mm, only 3mm larger than the £1 coin that you champion and a quick bit of research indicates that the average rabbit brain measures 50mm and weighs 12 grams.

 

Of course I don't advocate using a minimal power air rifle for shooting live quarry, I'm just pointing out that, with an air rifle, accuracy is everything. Even with most FAC rated air rifles, power is still minimal. A body shot with a .223 will do the job, a sloppy body shot with a .22LR at around 90ftlbs will result in a runner. The head is the only place to place an air rifle pellet.

 

I would think a low percentage of airgun shooters own a chronograph or know what weight their pellets are. Many so called "Full power" air rifles are possibly starting at 9ftlbs even when in good condition and when shooting a pellet with the BC of a turnip, terminal energy at 30/40/50 yards will be well down. Remember, the 12ftlb law is absolute, no manufacture is going to put out a mass produced product that is within a spit of that figure, even the 1 in 1,000 rifle that just happens to "blueprint" MUST stay under that level, on a warm day, with a carefully run in rifle.

 

 

 

 

I agree totally with the principle of placement (40ft lb in the backside wont kill well), though think groups irrelevant to anything but proving the ability of the tool itself as it only one shot we get, all said and done its the ability to get the first and only shot placement spot on not place 4 others in a similar place to the first shot. Two pence is also more than twice that of a rabbits brain box I therefore suggest a £1 coin for first and only shot, this comes from the 70's (long before the £1 coin) when the 2pence was in all honesty the best that could be done with the tools of the day. Also I feel the whole idea of how little power is required is an often quoted myth, this has been banded about for years but more and more I find it just isn't true as even marginal gains in power over 12 ft lb make a big difference to DRT kills on rabbits, when your talking about 7-8 ft lb that's well below sensible levels of muzzle energy. Sure low powers can kill but the reliability is often just not there and its far better to err on the side of caution when it comes to acting humanely towards live quarry.

If your average airgunner used the std £1 coin with one shot with a gun producing 10-12 ftlb at the muzzle as a standard, you will certainly see a far lower wounding rate and the spoken effective range reduce to a more realistic level. Surely this can only be good for the sport and the quarry?

 

The OP might consider there is no magic pellet, having seen all sorts of shapes, sizes and designs it comes down to just one thing " the one that works best in your gun"

[kent]

They look different and it was off the top of my head. No way on this planet is a rabbits brain 2" across (maybe on one of those domestic giant ones). I was more thinking end of a 12 ga case and equating that mentally to a £1 which is what I actually use in practice (£1 coins make for expensive practice), though I haven't had the verniers out.

 

Yes power is still minimum in FAC guns, but it always confuses me as to why more with legal consent to hunt don't go that way as my experience is it makes a big difference ( I cant see why more with genuine shooting rights or permissions don't actually). Remember 18 ft lb is quite low as regards FAC air but its half as much again! I am not guessing here I have used both extensively on quarry and now class rabbit as a little too big a quarry for 12 ft lb under "usual field conditions".

 

You make a point about .223 rem but the case exists still that you can wound with a badly placed shot on quarry as small as a rabbit (low head shots remove all the lower section of the head) but the brain can survive non the less they remain pretty much inactive through the stun effect, I do this very occasionally less than 1 or 2% using a 700 ftlb gun so no power is enough to guarantee anything, it sure helps extolling the virtue of a bit more being no bad thing.

 

I think my main point was lost here through my own bad habit of saying too much. GROUPS ARE MEANINGLESS ITS ONE SHOT TO PLACE, I have seen tiny little bugs bum groups achieved with airguns well beyond the range that anyone could get a clean kill at by design.

[malantone]

They look different and it was off the top of my head. No way on this planet is a rabbits brain 2" across (maybe on one of those domestic giant ones). .

 

 

 

try this Kent http://uk.ask.com/question/rabbit-brain

[1066]

Ok Kent - I think we more or less agree there. I've just come back from a damp stroll round the fields and you are quite right, the couple of young rabbits I shot this morning with the .22LR, would not have had a brain 50mm long, 35mm might be a better guess.

 

I can't really agree with you on the group thing though. Sure it's only the first shot that counts but you need to know that that shot will be a good one. In an ideal world it might be best to shoot a series of single shots at the same target, each one a "first" shot.ie. a long rest in between. If all your series of, say ten shots, are all in your "acceptable" zone, then no problem.

 

What if you were to get the odd random flyer, sometimes the first shot, sometimes the last. This would indicate a problem somewhere, shooter/scope/rifle/ammunition. Until you can be sure that you have a package that is consistent, shot after shot, (Even a series of "first" shots) then it's really not responsible to take it out in the field. The way to do this is to shoot groups.

 

When trying heavier bullets in my .243 I got to the point where most shots were going just where I wanted them, then one would go way out of the group. I had obviously reached the point where the odd bullet was failing to stabilise, without shooting groups I might well have been unaware of the problem until the unexplained miss or worse.

[Bewsher500]

 

try this Kent http://uk.ask.com/question/rabbit-brain

 

 

Ask Jeeves and "Wiki-rabbit" is your unerring source of Leporine anatomy !?

 

50mm long they may be,

50mm corner to corner or diameter they are NOT

You will also notice that the bulk of what they measure in the length of the brain includes an extremely point frontal cortex, the narrow hypothalamus and some of the brain stem

 

compare the height of the brain in the picture and tell me you shouldn't be discounting the extremities as a target zone?

At best they are 25-30mm high at the highest point

 

[malantone]

 

Ok I`ve never professed to be a brain surgeon, but I`ve never had a head shot rabbit run away.

[kent]

Ok I`ve never professed to be a brain surgeon, but I`ve never had a head shot rabbit run away.

 

 

I have had them with a blink response and one that squeeled and I could actually see its brain. For this reason alone I have mostly come away from 12 ft lb airguns and rabbits. I have also head shot with centrefire and removed the whole lower half of the head and had similar

[kent]

 

try this Kent http://uk.ask.com/question/rabbit-brain

 

 

That's a really bad bit of internet advice the "length" of the brain is 5cm - that's laughable (ask.com, I ask you!) If it was 5cm as a round object it would not even fit in its whole head. A little while back I was having a similar discussion about a goose brain so I split one out and measured it 15mm (1.5cm) at its biggest point in a 14lb goose and people were saying they could brain shoot one of those cleanly with an airgun or single shotgun pellet etc.

[kent]

Seems I am not alone in my findings, copied from BIS mag thread currently running;

 

 

kenj made the last post

I used to use AA Field in my Webley Viper Venom .22 and suffered with run offs with some clear head shot rabbits. I switched to the much heavier Bisley magnums and knocked them over every time. With the .22 magnum, you need to get out on the paper targets to learn about holdover/under, if shooting beyond 30 yards. The Bisleys work well in my .22 FAC Career 707 running at 28lb. Having started shooting a .177 again, I'm amazed how flat they shoot in comparison to .22.

 

 

I cant comment on the pellet side but I can on the fact that range needs to be appropriate and placement better than many think at 12 ft lb or under

[wymberley]

 

 

That's a really bad bit of internet advice the "length" of the brain is 5cm - that's laughable (ask.com, I ask you!) If it was 5cm as a round object it would not even fit in its whole head. A little while back I was having a similar discussion about a goose brain so I split one out and measured it 15mm (1.5cm) at its biggest point in a 14lb goose and people were saying they could brain shoot one of those cleanly with an airgun or single shotgun pellet etc.

Checking the reference in the link in malatone's Post reflects that the rabbit in question weighed 5.5 lbs. Some chicken rabbit; some neck brain.

[njc110381]

I wouldn't worry about fancy pellets. I learnt from a very young age that all these gimmicky additions - hollow points, pointy points, copper wash etc don't seem to have a grand amount of positive influence on what happens to your quarry. Pointy pellets spin off centre much more easily and don't shoot straight. Hollow point pellets are moving so slowly that they don't really expand that much. Copper wash seems to just make that previous point even worse - they don't deform at all!

 

I have for many years used a good quality round nose, whatever my rifle likes. My BSA Supersport with it's Theoben gas ram liked Webley Premier which then got remarketed as Crosman accupels. The current one (HW80) likes Air Arms Field. I haven't had many runners unless I've made a mess of the shot. If they're hit properly they drop, so concentrate on finding something that will help you to hit as accurately as you can. That means a good quality consistent pellet that your gun likes.

[colin lad]

maybe this may help

 

http://forums.pigeonwatch.co.uk/forums/topic/280263-rabbit-brain/

 

colin