Sensibly priced FAC air rifle...advise

[bruno22rf]

3 hours ago, JKD said:

This could get interesting !!!??? 🤔

Not if you're the Cow.

[Mickeydredd]

I have a Falcon FN19 pcp FAC that I used to use on rats, squirrel and magpie if that is of any use to you.  Been sitting unused in the cabinet for a while now and probably will be going forward.

 

[JKD]

56 minutes ago, bruno22rf said:

Not if you're the Cow.

Exactly ! Perhaps all parts of the cattle are impervious to a jagged lead pellet ricocheting off the concrete 🤔 What an attitude to have eh ?!

[Agriv8]

Excellent reading as normal- same problem here as walker 570 with rats crows, magpies all surrounded by prime beef cattle !
 

got the rats sorted but the magpies are giving me the run around to the extent that I have asked the farmer mate if he would be happy to use his farm as a permission to upgrade to firearms from current shotgun. 
 

I think a fac in .177 will be spot on no need for 300 yard kills 60 70 would be spot on.

Agriv8

just a point on danger to cows a stay air gun pellet is a small risk and should be managed where possible . Being able to shoot quietly from a distance means less chance of startling them and them going over on the concrete a lame bull does not tend to sell well at auction! 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Agriv8

[Walker570]

29 minutes ago, Agriv8 said:

Excellent reading as normal- same problem here as walker 570 with rats crows, magpies all surrounded by prime beef cattle !
 

got the rats sorted but the magpies are giving me the run around to the extent that I have asked the farmer mate if he would be happy to use his farm as a permission to upgrade to firearms from current shotgun. 
 

I think a fac in .177 will be spot on no need for 300 yard kills 60 70 would be spot on.

Agriv8

just a point on danger to cows a stay air gun pellet is a small risk and should be managed where possible . Being able to shoot quietly from a distance means less chance of startling them and them going over on the concrete a lame bull does not tend to sell well at auction! 

Exact and to the point.   Why take the chance at 80 yrds of wounding a magpie with a sub 12ft lb 177 when an FAC 22 or 25 will do a tidy job.

The one reason I have now been shooting this farm for the last 25 plus years is because I am super safe in how I go about the job.

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, that's a nice FAC air rifle Dave g has, light and must be 40 shots per fill, 

[Dave-G]

2 minutes ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, that's a nice FAC air rifle Dave g has, light and must be 40 shots per fill, 

Ah, that's 40 shots at the regulated power level, there's many more unregulated shots left as the air pressure decreases. 

[Agriv8]

3 hours ago, Walker570 said:

Exact and to the point.   Why take the chance at 80 yrds of wounding a magpie with a sub 12ft lb 177 when an FAC 22 or 25 will do a tidy job.

The one reason I have now been shooting this farm for the last 25 plus years is because I am super safe in how I go about the job.

No where near 25 for me about 2.5 years for me but it gets me out and stops him putting down poison which has the chance of being picked up by the owls that often buzz me while wandering around. We now have a wide mixture of song birds, bats and other wildlife that keeps the farmer very happy while he tends his prize bulls

Farmer loves to see his house martens nesting in his old barn a record number this year  - but was horrified to see one being raided by a tree rat and one by a magpie!

I have  accidentally shot bulls twice with a sub 12 .22 once on a rebound once due to a flyer I believe on both occasions hitting them around the tough hide and neither broke the skin - completely my fault as I learn . On both occasions the bull trying to stand turn and run caused other bulls to become alarmed as well. 
 

lesson learned that flyers happen and to leave a wider window between rat and bull . Ricochet happen so try and minimise when you are able ( if I’d have hit the rat it would not have happened) cow **** is a better backstop than concrete.

both occasions the bull was far more at risk of injury from the reaction than the pellet imho.

anyway back to the opening post looks like I need to talk to fao about upgrading my shotgun cert !

Agriv8

Edited October 19, 2022 by Agriv8
Missed a bit

[oldypigeonpopper]

2 hours ago, Dave-G said:

Ah, that's 40 shots at the regulated power level, there's many more unregulated shots left as the air pressure decreases. 

Hello, what's a few extra shots between friends 🤔😁

[bruno22rf]

9 hours ago, JKD said:

Exactly ! Perhaps all parts of the cattle are impervious to a jagged lead pellet ricocheting off the concrete 🤔 What an attitude to have eh ?!

TBH, Stu rarely makes mistakes, he was, no doubt, talking hypothetically.

[JKD]

6 minutes ago, bruno22rf said:

TBH, Stu rarely makes mistakes, he was, no doubt, talking hypothetically.

If you say so,,,, I'd say he was being irresponsible and flippant, but hey, you know what they say about opinions 👍

[bruno22rf]

4 minutes ago, JKD said:

If you say so,,,, I'd say he was being irresponsible and flippant, but hey, you know what they say about opinions 👍

Take my word for it, Stu is a well experienced FAC user and is about as knowledgable as it gets on the subject, I think he may have posted without considering his exact meaning, most unlike him TBH.

[JKD]

1 minute ago, bruno22rf said:

Take my word for it, Stu is a well experienced FAC user and is about as knowledgable as it gets on the subject, I think he may have posted without considering his exact meaning, most unlike him TBH.

Stop making excuses for him and let him comment for himself 😉

[Agriv8]

Hi JKD just asking the question here do you shoot round cattle ? There is a lot of cow to get through before a .22 pellet to become fatal or even cause serious injury. A healthy thick rib cage covers most of the vital organs even getting though neck to vital blood supplies would take some power. 

I am not making excuses just stating that you would be very very unlucky to cause  any damage We evaluate a risk every time you pull a trigger we reduce the risk where we can but we can not remove all risk.

this is why I have insurance that covers me for pest control if the farmer wished to call a vet for damage that I had done I would settle this or get my insurance involved. In reality he will lose more cattle before they are due to going lame than me with my . 22 something that he is aware of !

Agriv8

 

[Sweet11-87]

ive brought this up before and didnt get a solid answer...

whats an FAC airgun doing that an old cz 452 isnt.........   with cci cb shorts at one end pushing a 29gn bullet at 710fps and stingers at the other pushing 32gn bullet at 1640fps  youre covered from 32ft/ibs to 200 ft/ibs and the gun will last decades, is light,and cost a fraction of what theyre asking for most PCPs

yeah the ammo is more expensive but ive not had to invest in a load of scuba gear that need filling, servicing and storing.

 

what am i missing?

[Agriv8]

7 minutes ago, Sweet11-87 said:

ive brought this up before and didnt get a solid answer...

whats an FAC airgun doing that an old cz 452 isnt.........   with cci cb shorts at one end pushing a 29gn bullet at 710fps and stingers at the other pushing 32gn bullet at 1640fps  youre covered from 32ft/ibs to 200 ft/ibs and the gun will last decades, is light,and cost a fraction of what theyre asking for most PCPs

yeah the ammo is more expensive but ive not had to invest in a load of scuba gear that need filling, servicing and storing.

 

what am i missing?

For me I have the scuba gear for my sub 12 .22 I can by decent pellets from shops even Amazon 

pellets are pence so I can mess about zero it in at different distances.

I guess hourses for courses and we all have our preferred tool for the job.

Agriv8 

[Mice!]

30 minutes ago, Sweet11-87 said:

whats an FAC airgun doing that an old cz 452 isnt.........   with cci cb shorts at one end pushing a 29gn bullet at 710fps and stingers at the other pushing 32gn bullet at 1640fps  youre covered from 32ft/ibs to 200 ft/ibs and the gun will last decades, is light,and cost a fraction of what theyre asking for most PCPs

Would you want to shoot those around a farm yard though? How much would they ricochet off concrete or a metal gate post?

A 29gn bullet will surely go clean through a magpie or rat.

[bruno22rf]

4 hours ago, JKD said:

Stop making excuses for him and let him comment for himself 😉

If you look back over the last couple of years you will find many threads where Stu and I have locked horns, he is the last person I would make excuses for.

[JKD]

2 hours ago, bruno22rf said:

If you look back over the last couple of years you will find many threads where Stu and I have locked horns, he is the last person I would make excuses for.

Fair enough,,,, and me too. But with all due respect, you are answering for him in your replies.

4 hours ago, Agriv8 said:

Hi JKD just asking the question here do you shoot round cattle ? There is a lot of cow to get through before a .22 pellet to become fatal or even cause serious injury. A healthy thick rib cage covers most of the vital organs even getting though neck to vital blood supplies would take some power. 

I am not making excuses just stating that you would be very very unlucky to cause  any damage We evaluate a risk every time you pull a trigger we reduce the risk where we can but we can not remove all risk.

this is why I have insurance that covers me for pest control if the farmer wished to call a vet for damage that I had done I would settle this or get my insurance involved. In reality he will lose more cattle before they are due to going lame than me with my . 22 something that he is aware of !

Agriv8

 

Hi Agriv8, no I don't shoot round cattle, horses and chickens yes, but never 'towards' them like you are condoning. That is an absolute no no,,,, do you not agree ? Insurance won't cover you for negligence, and yes, I know a cow isn't going to die by being hit by a .22 pellet, that's not what I said. I'm sure any farmer that new a shooter was aiming towards any of his livestock would be really happy,,,, not !!! But hey, you crack on if you feel comfortable with your risk reduction 👍

[chrisjpainter]

There are so few situations that justify FAC-Air. In most cases, either a sub-12 air rifle or rim fire would be better options. But @Walker570's situation is one of those few! 22RF would be a disaster waiting to happen. farm buildings are a ricochet paradise, not to mention the over-penetration issue. But if you need the range, then a .22 FAC-air and a heavier pellet is ideal.

As to all this nonsense of 'oops I hit a cow, but it'll be fine'. whatever the injury to the cow - small or great - it's a properly dim-witted thing to be doing! My guess is Walker's got a reputation to keep and permissions to retain. 'Sorry farmer, I accidentally shot a cow with a ricochet' is a quickfire way to lose all permissions. And what if it wasn't a cow? What if it's a person he didn't know was there and hadn't seen him shooting?

I'm a fan of the S510. If you're not rattling of 100's of shots a session, then it's a perfect tool for the job. If you need a few more shots, the later generations R10's or the old school SuperTens are brilliant FAC's and any generation of Rapid. Just avoid the Weihrauch HW100 in FAC. For some reason there are more wrong'uns out there than good'uns! No idea why, but it just didn't take to higher powers, curious for such a great gun at Sub-12 level.

Oh and I wouldn't buy new. There's no such thing as a 'sensibly priced' new FAC. Prices are always so much better at second hand level, because they're nowhere near as popular and tend to be harder to shift. But either go down the route of a dealer or find someone selling where you can test it first. There's a good way and a bad way to get a gun to FAC levels. The good ones have FAC-rated internals and are designed to take the higher powers. Any gun built to be FAC originally will be like that and anyone who's had a sub-12 tuned up should have these parts put in in place of the originals. But there's also the bodge way of not changing either all or some the internals and pushing parts beyond their working tolerances. Never ideal...

Edited October 20, 2022 by chrisjpainter

[Agriv8]

4 hours ago, JKD said:

Fair enough,,,, and me too. But with all due respect, you are answering for him in your replies.

Hi Agriv8, no I don't shoot round cattle, horses and chickens yes, but never 'towards' them like you are condoning. That is an absolute no no,,,, do you not agree ? Insurance won't cover you for negligence, and yes, I know a cow isn't going to die by being hit by a .22 pellet, that's not what I said. I'm sure any farmer that new a shooter was aiming towards any of his livestock would be really happy,,,, not !!! But hey, you crack on if you feel comfortable with your risk reduction 👍

Ok so picking the common ground that we have ( the need to remove the rat ) in my experience the rat is after the same food ( or water ) that the cow is. That’s where I will be Sat watching hopefully about 25 yards way as that’s my 0 point.

Watching the rats as I do with the thermal you learn there routes and shoot away as much as possible reduce the risk  But the rat will not usually walk where you can take a fully risk free shot it’s choice is usually slinking in the corners or shadows.

having invested time to get the numbers down I do not believe in waiting for them to get established again. 
 

ps it’s a very fine line between negligence and accident 
 

3 hours ago, chrisjpainter said:

As to all this nonsense of 'oops I hit a cow, but it'll be fine'. whatever the injury to the cow - small or great - it's a properly dim-witted thing to be doing! My guess is Walker's got a reputation to keep and permissions to retain. 'Sorry farmer, I accidentally shot a cow with a ricochet' is a quickfire way to lose all permissions. And what if it wasn't a cow? What if it's a person he didn't know was there and hadn't seen him shooting?

In reply to Chris if I am on the rats it’s just me a few hundred head of beef cattle the farm cats and the wildlife if people are about the rats won’t be

if other people are about the rats scarper so just me. My farmer is aware on two occasions that I have hit a cow his words were his fed troughs are now clear of rat droppings and urine. His expensive feed is being eaten by cows not rats !

please try and not shoot my cows but realistically it’s minimal risk my sub 12 is going to hurt the cow the reaction to being hit may. So I guess I am the guy who hit the cow and they were both fine ! ( read an early post if you missed it ) I guess that makes me dim whited but I have been called a lot worse!

Chris thanks for the recommendation on fac air rifles I will do some reading up

anyway as the tread seems to have now descended into what do we personally perceive as acceptable risk when pulling a trigger so I may bow out. but thanks to all who have contributed to the lively discussion and fac air files to investigate!

Agriv8

Edited October 20, 2022 by Agriv8
Added some words to make it readable

[Walker570]

7 hours ago, chrisjpainter said:

There are so few situations that justify FAC-Air. In most cases, either a sub-12 air rifle or rim fire would be better options. But @Walker570's situation is one of those few! 22RF would be a disaster waiting to happen. farm buildings are a ricochet paradise, not to mention the over-penetration issue. But if you need the range, then a .22 FAC-air and a heavier pellet is ideal.

As to all this nonsense of 'oops I hit a cow, but it'll be fine'. whatever the injury to the cow - small or great - it's a properly dim-witted thing to be doing! My guess is Walker's got a reputation to keep and permissions to retain. 'Sorry farmer, I accidentally shot a cow with a ricochet' is a quickfire way to lose all permissions. And what if it wasn't a cow? What if it's a person he didn't know was there and hadn't seen him shooting?

I'm a fan of the S510. If you're not rattling of 100's of shots a session, then it's a perfect tool for the job. If you need a few more shots, the later generations R10's or the old school SuperTens are brilliant FAC's and any generation of Rapid. Just avoid the Weihrauch HW100 in FAC. For some reason there are more wrong'uns out there than good'uns! No idea why, but it just didn't take to higher powers, curious for such a great gun at Sub-12 level.

Oh and I wouldn't buy new. There's no such thing as a 'sensibly priced' new FAC. Prices are always so much better at second hand level, because they're nowhere near as popular and tend to be harder to shift. But either go down the route of a dealer or find someone selling where you can test it first. There's a good way and a bad way to get a gun to FAC levels. The good ones have FAC-rated internals and are designed to take the higher powers. Any gun built to be FAC originally will be like that and anyone who's had a sub-12 tuned up should have these parts put in in place of the originals. But there's also the bodge way of not changing either all or some the internals and pushing parts beyond their working tolerances. Never ideal...

Thanks Chris appreciated and spot on. I have over the past 50 odd years of shooting high powered rifles never mind even FAC air, see/winessed people take shots with no consideration for background or where the projectile will finish up. I have shot on the Co0ntinent quite a bit and remember a German party I was with and one of them asked where his colleague was positioned. The host for day said we Brits would be here and the German said, I'm not worried about the Brits it is Herman that I am worried about.

Believe me we kept a close eye on Herman on that trip.

By far the safest shooters I have shared the fields with over those years have been Brits, the rest have been the good the bad and the ugly.   Witness tragic case in France this week..... how many close shaves don't we hear about?

[Sweet11-87]

19 hours ago, Mice! said:

Would you want to shoot those around a farm yard though? How much would they ricochet off concrete or a metal gate post?

A 29gn bullet will surely go clean through a magpie or rat.

i cant see how a 22 rimfire firing shorts will richochet any more or less than a FAC airgun pushing the same ft/ibs.  at 70 yards the stated distance he will be shooting both will only be carrying about half the energy it left the barrel with if a balistic calculator is to be belived. then its got to dump energy into the magpie or rat, their wont be a great deal of energy left at that point and so an adequate back stop wont have to be that substantial. if youre passing through the quarry and causing damage  or are clean missing the target so the round isnt energy dumping then at that point  its not an issue of  wrong tool for the job its poor decision making. however from the comments the guy seems quite switched on so id imagine neither will be a conern.

 

 

[oowee]

15 hours ago, chrisjpainter said:

There are so few situations that justify FAC-Air. In most cases, either a sub-12 air rifle or rim fire would be better options. But @Walker570's situation is one of those few! 22RF would be a disaster waiting to happen. farm buildings are a ricochet paradise, not to mention the over-penetration issue. But if you need the range, then a .22 FAC-air and a heavier pellet is ideal.

As to all this nonsense of 'oops I hit a cow, but it'll be fine'. whatever the injury to the cow - small or great - it's a properly dim-witted thing to be doing! My guess is Walker's got a reputation to keep and permissions to retain. 'Sorry farmer, I accidentally shot a cow with a ricochet' is a quickfire way to lose all permissions. And what if it wasn't a cow? What if it's a person he didn't know was there and hadn't seen him shooting?

I'm a fan of the S510. If you're not rattling of 100's of shots a session, then it's a perfect tool for the job. If you need a few more shots, the later generations R10's or the old school SuperTens are brilliant FAC's and any generation of Rapid. Just avoid the Weihrauch HW100 in FAC. For some reason there are more wrong'uns out there than good'uns! No idea why, but it just didn't take to higher powers, curious for such a great gun at Sub-12 level.

Oh and I wouldn't buy new. There's no such thing as a 'sensibly priced' new FAC. Prices are always so much better at second hand level, because they're nowhere near as popular and tend to be harder to shift. But either go down the route of a dealer or find someone selling where you can test it first. There's a good way and a bad way to get a gun to FAC levels. The good ones have FAC-rated internals and are designed to take the higher powers. Any gun built to be FAC originally will be like that and anyone who's had a sub-12 tuned up should have these parts put in in place of the originals. But there's also the bodge way of not changing either all or some the internals and pushing parts beyond their working tolerances. Never ideal...

This. ^^^

The beauty of fac air is I can sit in the middle of the yard and shoot pretty much anywhere. I may be able to get 25 yds from the quarry but I can be far motre effective and cover a much greater area sat still in the middle of the target environment. Exactly the same with rabbits around the paddocks. I can shoot more quicker with more confidence than I could ever do with a sub 12 and pretty much free from ricochet.

I may be able to do the same with .22 shorts but never tried them. How accurate and how fast are they?

[Houseplant]

CCI Quiet 22LR run at 710 fps.