Advice on what to buy for first air rifle

What I think I hear you describing is a PCP or pre-charged pneumatic rifle. You can go a few different ways depending on whether you want to use a Pump to fill or a scuba or carbon fiber tank. You didn't mention whether your budget was for just the gun or gun, fill set up and scope. One method would be a relatively inexpensive gun like the Benjamin Marauder (an excellent choice in my experience) or Hatsan and a $500-600 carbon fiber tank or $300 scuba tank and fill set up(make sure there's someplace convenient to get the tank filled BEFORE you buy a tank. Another would be to spend a bit more on the gun-(Air Arms S500 series comes to mind) and spend $300 on a Hill pump. If you can get to a Field target shoot or other airgun get together and try different guns to see what you like it will likely be worth the effort.
Good Luck!
John

You need more information. Youtube is good for that. Some good reviewers and informational/entertaining providers on Youtube are:

https://www.youtube.com/user/EdgunUSA/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/MoshDubber/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/AirgunGearShow/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/airgunsofarizona/videos

Definately do some more research.

That said, you can buy a Marauder, Hill pump and an excellent scope with your budget and have plenty left over for a LOT of pellets and accessories. That would be a very capable shooting and hunting package!

Good luck.

R

One of the first things you need to know if you have a place to fill a tank like a paintball shop or scuba shop. Those hand pumps can be killer if you want to do any amount of shooting. If you don't have a place to fill then a good break barrel would be nice. Don't worry about the 1000 fps think more of the style of rifle such as bull pup or standard rifle stock. 
Thats my 2 cents worth

Each shot requires that the gun be re-cocked on a break barrel. How long are you going to be in the US? It might be worth looking into getting a firearm instead of an airgun, unless you just want an airgun. (nothing wrong with that obviously) I just mention it because it will be far cheaper in the short term and you can get a heck of a gun for that price and it's something you probably wouldn't be able to do back home in Australia. Just a thought. And yes, if you're a resident of Vermont you may buy a gun as a resident alien. Don't bother with a handgun though. That's just a ball of confusion regarding regulations and restrictions.

https://www.Alphabet org.gov/firearms/qa/may-nonimmigrant-alien-who-has-been-admitted-united-states-under-nonimmigrant-visa-and

If you want an airgun specifically, I'd think a Marauder or Hatsan BT65 or AT44 would be good options. With gun ($500), scope($200), and pump($200-400) you'd have a little left over for ammo. Those are ballpark figures.

A PCP like a Marauder with the required fill equipment or a good quality springer like a HW97k, Walther LGU, RWS 48, or Air Arms TX200 are definitely within your budget. Those springers are all either underlevers or sidelevers which will have greater accuracy than the traditional break barrel springers. If you don't want to go the springer route and can't find a place to fill easily you could always go with a FX Indy which has a pump onboard to pump up when you start running low on air.

I personally keep around a springer along with having PCP rifles. That way if I get the urge to do a little after work target practice or pesting I can without having to worry about if my tank is running low.

elev9john - we might need to get a bit more specific to make the right recommendation. So allow me to focus your question a bit:

1. Club competition - Is this formal competition like a 10m shoot, or just a bunch of guys having fun? Is it paper target or field target? At what range? Is the competition limited to .177, or are .22 and/or .25 welcome?

2. Pest control - how big a pest are you wanting to control? Up to squirrel size, raccoon size, or bigger?

3. Weather - shooting indoors only? (I assume outdoors as well since you mentioned pest control. Outdoors shooting in the Vermont winter automatically disqualifies CO2 guns, they lose their oomph in the cold.)

4. Health - are you a pretty healthy person, as in "ride your bike" or "hike in the woods" healthy? If you see the basic staircase as an inconvenient adversary, you probably won't be interested in a pump. The same is true if you do a lot of shooting, like a couple tins of pellets or so per week. 

If you are pretty much going to be shooting close range paper or field target for fun, and your critters aren't going to be any bigger than a squirrel, a very good springer would likely meet your needs very well. There are a million choices, but an Air Arms TX200 or Weihrauch HW97 would be a good place to start. I would recommend having the rifle tuned by someone well known ("motorhead" comes to mind), and put some good glass on it. Again many options. 

If you choose to go the PCP route, carbon tanks are less than half the weight of aluminum scuba tanks, and have a considerably higher fill pressure. Carbon tanks also cost four times as much, and are limited by federal regulation to a max 15 year life span. If you go with PCP, you can get into a rifle like an Air Arms S200 (if you aren't left handed), BSA Scorpion SE or Benjamin Marauder, buy the tank and still be in budget. I think some guys also like the Hatsan AT-44QE, also a right hand only gun.

check out the remanufactured deals offered by Pyramyd Air, Airgun Depot and others to save a buck. Those deals change pretty often. And get acquainted with your shooting buddies, they might let you shoot one of their rifles for the next three months. This forum has a member map where you can mark your location and find shooters close to you, and another prominent airgun forum has the same thing.

Have fun!

elev8john - Welcome to the forum and to the USA (soon)! I hope your trip over is safe and swift. 
There's a lot of good advise already posted here for you to consider. http://www.pyramydair.com is a great place to start. You can browse around at all the styles of air rifles. They also have very good articles explaining how each style of airgun works as well as the pros and cons of them. Sometimes a chat box will pop up and you can chat online with one of their staff. They're very helpful and can direct you to those articles I mentioned. 

Once you narrow down what style of air rifle you think would work best for you, let us know and we'll try our best to point you in the right direction from there.  
Tom

Welcome to the forum, a BSA ultra multi shot and a hills pump is a great little starter pcp and well within your budget.

John, I assume, don't be scared off by needing to pump up a PCP. The guns that folks have been mentioning all have 200cc or less air reserves on them. Additionally, they are all 220 bar or lower for max pressure. Pumping a 185 - 200 cc tank to 200 - 220 bar is not that big of a deal. If you have a place to fill a tank, get a tank! But, if not, I would still consider the Marauder/Hatsan/Lower end Air Arms and a pump for your gun. If you're into accuracy, and you don't get a PCP, I imagine at some point you end up getting one anyways. Enjoy the search!

I would go with a Marauder, and decent pump. The Marauder can be customized and tuned later for more accuracy if you so desire and still remain three times below other PCPs out of the box.

Unless you're a tweaker I would skip the Marauder. There are lots of great choices in the 1200 dollar range, leaving you money for a pump and decent scope. My money would be on an S500. An S510 might be doable in that range too. Open the box, have a great time. With the Marauder, it might be open the box, shoot it, then try to figure out what's wrong with it. These forums are helpful for the most part but someone will always put the bug in your ear, "the problem is you".

If you want accuracy, (which I don't know of anyone that doesn't) then go with a PCP. Spend it once, cry once. Do your homework and look around in the classifieds and look into the airgun shops used classifieds section. You can probably find something there that will save you a couple of hundred dollars (I did). A good used PCP will cost you around a $1,000.00 or less, a scope another $200-300 and a SCUBA tank about $150.00. Just make sure you can get the tank filled up somewhere. You can probably find a good well known brand that is very dependable like Air Arms, Daystate or FX for this amount.