What type of round (.25 or .30)do you guys prefer for hunting smaller hogs, goat, sheep, coyote, foxes, and similar sized animals? Predator poly mags? Hollow point? Regular pellet? Slugs?
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Best type of round for small game.
- Thread starter ckfishdive
- Start date
Those are not small game animals. Small games are like squirrels, birds, rabbit and smaller. Those kind of animals are like medium games. And 30 cal would be best use for hogs and coyotes. Any pellet or slug with enough energy will take them down. 30 cal is average 70 to 80 ft lb and is plenty for them.
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I have no experience with animals that large and air rifles. But, I suggest that you need to be sure of adequate penetration. At air gun velocities, you will not get any dramatic tissue damage with a HP pellet, at least not where it counts. If expansion or fragmentation prevents the pellet from getting to its vital target, it has done you no good.
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It depends on the power level of the rifle, range, and the animal.
Years back, and I mean over thirty , more like forty years ago, when we were all using low powered airguns, I tested the available pellets at the time using the old thick Bell telephone books, and the results pretty much mirror results in game over the years. They are different than what is found with gel.
Because the pages were tissue thin, the actual cone of force was recorded on the pages along the path of the pellet, including on the pages after it stopped that it never reached, but were still impacted.
Counter intuitive, the round nose actually penetrates best and creates the most uniform but also smallest impact imprints around the path of all of the choices.
The wadcutters penetrate to the middle range, and create a wider imprint on the pages in front of them after they stop. The cone of impact is larger than the round nose but half as long. These tests are why i started hunting squirrels with wadcutters using low powered air guns. The difference between hitting a squirrel with a wadcutter and a round nose at low power levels is easy to see on impact. You literally hear the impact at low power ranges.
The Superpoint type pellets are expected to penetrate better, but in this medium, they penetrate the least. The cone of force is larger from the beginning and continues past the actual pellet almost as far as wadcutter pellets do. We figured the angled cone produced a larger actual flat surface than the wadcutters, the impact was angled outwards from the beginning, and that explained the results.
We argued this and I proved it a dozen times to a dozen different people. We discussed how that impacted hunting pellet choice. Today, where even the springer I am using makes 15 fpe, I use what is most accurate because I hunt small game. At the time, Crosman points were the only points you could reliably get, and the more expensive options did not shoot any better out of the air rifles I had, so i used wadcutters.
How much penetration do you need? Flat point pellets dump everything in the first few inches. The points may penetrate further, but they dump their actual effective energy even quicker than wadcutters do, because the surface area of the tip is twice that of a wadcutter. If you need to penetrate and do decent damage deep, then you want a round nose pellet.
If you are going to use a hollowpoint, you need the energy to drive it to the depth your game requires. If you use a slug, then we are playing by different rules. There is a video on Youtube where a man tests various pellets in wax blocks that look to be a couple of centimeters thick. He fires one of the PolyMag type pellets and there was a round globe shaped wound channel inside the first block, that was already getting smaller by the time it exited the block. it was twice as large at the center of the block than where it exited the block. With slugs, depending on design and energy level, you can use thicker walls and different size cavities to regulate at what depth the slug dumps most of it's energy, but you still give up penetration and BC when compared to a round nose bullet.
Technically, I would guess that a roundnose is best, and then you increase the damage by going up in bore size/weight/frontal area if you need more. If you need a two inch deep wound channel with most of the damage right at the beginning, a Polymag type works well. If you need a larger initial wound channel and possibly better penetration on thin bone, then you want a Superpoint type. Medium penetration, a wadcutter type works well, but is more effected by wind so it is a close range round.
You need to get through a deer's hide, ribs, and then do enough damage to drop one cleanly comparable to an arrow hit in the same spot, then a roundnose is called for in those calibers. Not an ad or recommendation to use a .25 on deer. The other consideration with a round nose is that if you get a full pass thru, then you have a an easy trailing job. Should the projectile stop inside the target, and the target runs off. how do you track a deer in an area where 100 deer have traveled, played and fed in the last few days?
If you are going to clip the spine right behind the head, you need a different pellet than if you are going to try to shoot through and leave an exit wound from an elevated stand. From an elevated stand, you need even more penetration ability than on the ground, unless you are aiming for the small DRT targets.
If you are looking for a general pellet to shoot at all of the above, at various ranges, then I think a roundnose, maybe with a small HP cavity, is called for. If you are hunting at close range out of a stand, then pick the pellet for the need.
Years back, and I mean over thirty , more like forty years ago, when we were all using low powered airguns, I tested the available pellets at the time using the old thick Bell telephone books, and the results pretty much mirror results in game over the years. They are different than what is found with gel.
Because the pages were tissue thin, the actual cone of force was recorded on the pages along the path of the pellet, including on the pages after it stopped that it never reached, but were still impacted.
Counter intuitive, the round nose actually penetrates best and creates the most uniform but also smallest impact imprints around the path of all of the choices.
The wadcutters penetrate to the middle range, and create a wider imprint on the pages in front of them after they stop. The cone of impact is larger than the round nose but half as long. These tests are why i started hunting squirrels with wadcutters using low powered air guns. The difference between hitting a squirrel with a wadcutter and a round nose at low power levels is easy to see on impact. You literally hear the impact at low power ranges.
The Superpoint type pellets are expected to penetrate better, but in this medium, they penetrate the least. The cone of force is larger from the beginning and continues past the actual pellet almost as far as wadcutter pellets do. We figured the angled cone produced a larger actual flat surface than the wadcutters, the impact was angled outwards from the beginning, and that explained the results.
We argued this and I proved it a dozen times to a dozen different people. We discussed how that impacted hunting pellet choice. Today, where even the springer I am using makes 15 fpe, I use what is most accurate because I hunt small game. At the time, Crosman points were the only points you could reliably get, and the more expensive options did not shoot any better out of the air rifles I had, so i used wadcutters.
How much penetration do you need? Flat point pellets dump everything in the first few inches. The points may penetrate further, but they dump their actual effective energy even quicker than wadcutters do, because the surface area of the tip is twice that of a wadcutter. If you need to penetrate and do decent damage deep, then you want a round nose pellet.
If you are going to use a hollowpoint, you need the energy to drive it to the depth your game requires. If you use a slug, then we are playing by different rules. There is a video on Youtube where a man tests various pellets in wax blocks that look to be a couple of centimeters thick. He fires one of the PolyMag type pellets and there was a round globe shaped wound channel inside the first block, that was already getting smaller by the time it exited the block. it was twice as large at the center of the block than where it exited the block. With slugs, depending on design and energy level, you can use thicker walls and different size cavities to regulate at what depth the slug dumps most of it's energy, but you still give up penetration and BC when compared to a round nose bullet.
Technically, I would guess that a roundnose is best, and then you increase the damage by going up in bore size/weight/frontal area if you need more. If you need a two inch deep wound channel with most of the damage right at the beginning, a Polymag type works well. If you need a larger initial wound channel and possibly better penetration on thin bone, then you want a Superpoint type. Medium penetration, a wadcutter type works well, but is more effected by wind so it is a close range round.
You need to get through a deer's hide, ribs, and then do enough damage to drop one cleanly comparable to an arrow hit in the same spot, then a roundnose is called for in those calibers. Not an ad or recommendation to use a .25 on deer. The other consideration with a round nose is that if you get a full pass thru, then you have a an easy trailing job. Should the projectile stop inside the target, and the target runs off. how do you track a deer in an area where 100 deer have traveled, played and fed in the last few days?
If you are going to clip the spine right behind the head, you need a different pellet than if you are going to try to shoot through and leave an exit wound from an elevated stand. From an elevated stand, you need even more penetration ability than on the ground, unless you are aiming for the small DRT targets.
If you are looking for a general pellet to shoot at all of the above, at various ranges, then I think a roundnose, maybe with a small HP cavity, is called for. If you are hunting at close range out of a stand, then pick the pellet for the need.
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The best pellet is the one that consistently hits the point of aim.
All the polymer,gold/brass tips and variants of the hollow point design don't mean a thing if you cant hit your target.
Mike.
All the polymer,gold/brass tips and variants of the hollow point design don't mean a thing if you cant hit your target.
Mike.
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