Between several other projects and family requirements, I worked in some time to shoot utilizing the 18 yard indoor range due to the nasty midwest winter weather that was being experienced when I started this project.
For this exercise, I took each of my 28 rifles, springers and pcps, and shot one 10 shot group with each, looking for kill consistency on a squirrel at 18 yards.
Without a doubt, the one real takeaway, is that
regardless of springer or pcp, if you are a skilled enough woodsman, and can get within 40 yards, any one of these rifles is more than capable of making a very clean kill, every shot, and every time.
As I have previously posted a lot of information regarding each of these rifles over the last several years on this forum, I won't go into particular detail other than to say all of them have been meticulously tuned. As the weather cooperates, I intend to do a similar comparison of the +40 fpe rifles at just over 80 yards, the maximum distance I have conveniently available at home.
I would be interested in knowing, if you could only have one of these rifles, which one you would pick, and why. My problem is that I love them all.
Happy New Year!
DZ