Today I was removing some pests from the yard. After collecting one of the birds though, I found something that intrigued me. There was a hole in the back of the bird, the pellet did a complete passthrough. Now you should know this was center mass from 30 yards away, with a 730 ft/s .22. So I performed an autopsy. The pellet had no problem going through the breast bone and out the back. Now this made me start to think a few years ago when I got my first pellet gun. It was a daisy 880 with a cheap 2-7x20 on it. It only shot about 580 ft/s with 7.8 grain daisy wadcutter pellets. Once again I shot a starling from 30 yards away. The pellet hit him center mass and also had a complete passthrough. This time though, the pellet only hit with 2.9 fpe, the .22 pellet from today hit with 11.8 fpe. Remembering this made me wonder, what is the minimum energy for a guaranteed kill on small a small bird? What thoughts do you have about minimum energy requirements on small game?