Anyone using a .25 spring powered rifle

[washerboy]

I did own a .25 Bsa super sport for a very short while but it was very pellet fussy and inaccurate so I sold it.

just watched a video of the sfs snipe, a Hw99 based rifle and wondered if anyone has a similar rifle in their collection.

[manthing]

I think personally it would have to be over 12ftlbs for me, the curve must be awesome. ? 

[Stonepark]

Nothing wrong with my lightning or my Hatsan for accuracy in 0.25, benched both and are capable of stacking shots, free hand it is all down to consistency of the hold.

[rovercoupe]

Im using a .25 pcp sub 12 and its the mutts and the least pellet fussy gun i have ever owned. The squizzers hate it though.

[manthing]

You lot really do try very hard to get me to spend my few beer tokens don't you ? 

Have toyed with the idea of the "alternative calibers", could quite easily go for a .20 for general work and a .25 for ratting, but the thought of the curve was off-putting. May revisit at some point.

I do know someone who uses a .25 but he lives to far away to have a try.

[Rimfireboy]

4 hours ago, rovercoupe said:

Im using a .25 pcp sub 12 and its the mutts and the least pellet fussy gun i have ever owned. The squizzers hate it though.

What model is it? I’ve been considering a bsa ultra .25, I’ve got a Hatsan striker .25 which seems better all round than my old supersport .25 that I had in the early nineties. The supersport was sweet to shoot, but the bore was so tight that it only worked well with milbro rhinos. Having said that, I used it to shoot large numbers of rabbits around some industrial units at night time. Ranges were mostly less than thirty yards though, and the fat .25’s put them down well enough.

[Ultrastu]

One issue with the slow moving. 25 cal is .quarry jumping out of the way of the incoming pellet. 

I've had it with rabbits and. 22 cal at 40 yds 

[washerboy]

It will be used mainly on ferel pigeons in warehouses, at the moment I use an old Webley excel in .177 but did find at close range some fly off as the pellets pass through and it’s not what I need.

[Ultrastu]

You will probably find the pellet didn't pass though it failed to penetrate deep enough on a body .

A .25 should fix this by penetrating deeper to the vitals . (Ask any old boy which pellet drops birds best .177 .22 or .25 ? 

They will say the heavy pellets cos they penetrate the feathers better .

[washerboy]

I have head shot them with 177 and have them fly out the doors .ok they maybe die later but I need to pick up all I shoot at 

I did wonder that, when I owned a 22 hw90 I used matchpell flat headed pellets all the time as the gun was really accurate with them and stopped rabbits even out to 40 yards beyond what you would think a flat hole puncher pellet would do

[Guest]

If you are shooting in and around buildings you should be body-shotting not going for tricky head shots which might pass through. A sub 12ft .22 would be ideal for this.

[Rimfireboy]

The .25 is good for ferals, we cleared hundreds from factories back in the early nineties. I used my .25 supersport and it was just the job for that. The Hatsan striker .25 that I have now isn’t pellet fussy like the supersport was. The 31 grain rws superdomes are slow but incredibly hard hitting from a 12 ft lb air rifle. The penetration of these relatively slow moving pellets is astonishing.

[psycho]

I use a hw95 with 19 grain h&n ftt the best short range feral and rat gun you can buy.hit a rat and it stops hit a feral and it drops.very little penitration if you hot wood.hit a spinner and it never stops this gun is my ownly hunting springer for rabbits its rimfire using shorts or subs.for longer range a .17hmr..every rifle has its use and the close range sub 25 yard choice has to be a .25 sub 12lb springer

[Harry Callahan]

On 14/01/2018 at 16:21, J D Hunter said:

Flatheeeeed .22 ?

 

Not on pigeons. Not enough penetration, they were my 'go to' round for rabbits though.

 

I had a tin of Predator hollow points with a polymer point insert - now they were lethal!! Using RWS hollow tips currently with good results

[washerboy]

I used matchpell in.22 and these were great for rabbits through my Hw90 

[Guest]

On 14/01/2018 at 15:29, Ultrastu said:

One issue with the slow moving. 25 cal is .quarry jumping out of the way of the incoming pellet. 

I've had it with rabbits and. 22 cal at 40 yds 

I struggle to believe a rabbit can see a pellet coming at 500+ ft/s.

[Ultrastu]

They don't so much as see it .as react to the sound of the shot .And duck .

They certainly can do it with a .600 fps .22 .

[Guest]

If you do the maths, it means that rabbits have about 80ms to react before the pellet strikes. Compare that to the time it takes to blink which is about 300ms.....

[12gauge82]

Personally I can't see the point to sub 12ft/lb .25 cal airguns, to each there own, but for me, a .22 can do pretty much anything a .25 can do and more, I suppose if you wanted a dedicated ratter or for squirrls and are good at knowing ranges and good at aimming off but for me I'd stick to .22 or .177

[Ultrastu]

1 hour ago, 12gauge82 said:

Personally I can't see the point to sub 12ft/lb .25 cal airguns, to each there own, but for me, a .22 can do pretty much anything a .25 can do and more, I suppose if you wanted a dedicated ratter or for squirrls and are good at knowing ranges and good at aimming off but for me I'd stick to .22 or .177

With you on that 100 % 

I struggle to justify a .22 let alone a .25 in sub 12 

Edited March 3, 2018 by Ultrastu

[Stonepark]

For sheer knock down power a sub 25 has almost twice the momentum (knock down power/shock effect) as a 177, and about 25% more than a 22 with the same penetration.

The sweet spot for trajectory is to keep ranges under 30 yards, but for knocking over rats, squirrels, barn pigeons, close range bunnies  etc it is difficult to beat.

For longer range I agree you need to go FAC in 25, where it then starts to shine.

[Ultrastu]

Knock down power / shock effect. 

Are 2 sayings that dont really mean a whole lot in shooting terms .And if they can be related to are often thought of exactly the opposite of each other. 

So which is it. Knock down or shock effect .? Cant be both 

 

Yes a heavier pellet should carry more energy down range than a lighter one . (Designs being similar ) but it's what it hits and how that extra energy is used determines the amount of energy transfered  into the quarry and in what direction 

[Ultrastu]

Let's put it like this. 

A . 177  -  7 grn wad cutter low bc of 0.010 going at 830 fps verses a 25.4 grn .25 cal going at 420 fps 

Hitting a rat  at 20 yds. The .177 will have around 8 fpe left the .25  9.8 fpe. 

So much more energy retention .

Thing is the .177 will hit the soft small narrow front end of the rat  and stop in it dumping 8 fpe into said rat creating a wide circular shock wave that shuts the internal organs down instantly .

The .25 will pass right through the rat transfering a small percentage of the 9.8 fpe (let's say 4 fpe) depends on how soft the bit it hits is .this will only create a narrow long thin shock wave and possibly fail to shut down any organs of the rat .

 

So as you see the total amount of energy you strike with isnt always relevant its how the available energy is used which counts. 

So you could say the .177 lower energy pellet has shocked the rat more than the .25 .

But if you were shooting at steel targets where all the available energy is transfered then the .25 with its much higher momentum and mass would KOCK OVER  the steel plate much better than the .177 .

Knock over power .

 

So if the quarry we shoot at is as hard as steel .or as soft as rats then we must choose our pellet wisely to transfer the most amount of energy (at the given range  ) as possible 

[Stonepark]

1 hour ago, Ultrastu said:

Let's put it like this. 

A . 177  -  7 grn wad cutter low bc of 0.010 going at 830 fps verses a 25.4 grn .25 cal going at 420 fps 

Hitting a rat  at 20 yds. The .177 will have around 8 fpe left the .25  9.8 fpe. 

So much more energy retention .

Thing is the .177 will hit the soft small narrow front end of the rat  and stop in it dumping 8 fpe into said rat creating a wide circular shock wave that shuts the internal organs down instantly .

The .25 will pass right through the rat transfering a small percentage of the 9.8 fpe (let's say 4 fpe) depends on how soft the bit it hits is .this will only create a narrow long thin shock wave and possibly fail to shut down any organs of the rat .

 

So as you see the total amount of energy you strike with isnt always relevant its how the available energy is used which counts. 

So you could say the .177 lower energy pellet has shocked the rat more than the .25 .

But if you were shooting at steel targets where all the available energy is transfered then the .25 with its much higher momentum and mass would KOCK OVER  the steel plate much better than the .177 .

Knock over power .

 

So if the quarry we shoot at is as hard as steel .or as soft as rats then we must choose our pellet wisely to transfer the most amount of energy (at the given range  ) as possible 

I think you have it back to front, the 25 will create the larger shock wave whilst the 177 will tunnel, any Youtube ballistic gelatine video will show this clearly.

If you take the heavy end of both calibers (H&N Barracuda Hunter Extreme) to use similar design examples present in both calibers the energy dump is done as the pellet builds up friction on penetration of the target and normally starts within 0.5 inch if the required energy is present which may only be an inch due to the low power of a sub 12ftlbs pellet.

The 25 will penetrate roughly the same as the 177 (3.13 v's 3.4 inch respectively) but over the shorter distance has to dump 10.28ftlbs v 8.96ftlbs respectively.

Assuming a narrower target (2 inches such as a narrow end of a rat), both pellets will exit, however the energy dump will have taken place with both pellets reducing velocity until they start drilling as the velocity/energy has fallen below that required to create a shockwave and which occurs sooner with the 177, however due to the lesser resistance from the smaller frontal area, penetration continues for longer than the 25, however overall the 25 dumps more energy into the target.

[Ultrastu]

1 hour ago, Stonepark said:

I think you have it back to front, the 25 will create the larger shock wave whilst the 177 will tunnel, any Youtube ballistic gelatine video will show this clearly.

If you take the heavy end of both calibers (H&N Barracuda Hunter Extreme) to use similar design examples present in both calibers the energy dump is done as the pellet builds up friction on penetration of the target and normally starts within 0.5 inch if the required energy is present which may only be an inch due to the low power of a sub 12ftlbs pellet.

The 25 will penetrate roughly the same as the 177 (3.13 v's 3.4 inch respectively) but over the shorter distance has to dump 10.28ftlbs v 8.96ftlbs respectively.

Assuming a narrower target (2 inches such as a narrow end of a rat), both pellets will exit, however the energy dump will have taken place with both pellets reducing velocity until they start drilling as the velocity/energy has fallen below that required to create a shockwave and which occurs sooner with the 177, however due to the lesser resistance from the smaller frontal area, penetration continues for longer than the 25, however overall the 25 dumps more energy into the target.

I hate to disagree with you but your completely  wrong .your facts are upside down .and you have been following old wives tales ..there is no way on earth a .177 wadcutter penetrates more in any medium  than any .25 cal pellet .

Go shoot some stuff .owt you want from gel to potatoes.clay or books ..you will see the low bc pellet stops very quickly against the heavy .25 cal .

The frontal sectional area is only a small part of the equation  and doesnt override the more significant bc.of the pellet