Sub 12 fpe - .177, .20 or .22?

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RichardUK

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May 11, 2015
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Hertfordshire
I am looking to purchase a sub 12 fpe PCP air rifle that can be used in barns and the like to reduce the risk of property damage and ricochets. Primarily this rifle will be used on birds and rats. At 12 fpe one is limited to a maximum of .22 calibre (anything bigger simply won't have the penetration needed).

My question is which calibre?

They say .177 on feather and .22 on fur. So that would lead me to think that the best all round choice would be the recently introduced .20 calibre. But is this true? Is the .20 calibre at sub 12 fpe good for both or is it good for neither?
 
RichardUK:
I had a multi-pump .20 caliber air rifle many years ago. I used it to collect rabbits as far as eighty yards and sparrows as close as ten yards. I could alter the velocity by limiting the number of pumps and then adjusting my aiming point. The only style of pellet available at the time was a barrel shaped affair that looked much like our current "Rabbit Magnum" round. With the currently available styles and weights of .20 caliber pellets on the market,you should have little difficulty selecting a couple for your specific needs and requirements. Do yourself a favor and check out the web sites for the variety of PCPs out there that develop your requirements. It seems that those with adjustable velocities would work for you. Good luck and be sure to let us know what your choice is!
Rik
 
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Richard for 12fpe I would get .177

It is much easier to work with a flatter trajectory as a new air gun shooter. Also cheaper pellets ;) 

A headshot with either caliber will kill UK shotgun quarry cleanly, it's just down to you to be sensible about limiting your range to your ability. 

If you stick to the rule of whatever range you can keep 5 shots within an inch circle (not just a group on the page but the circle that you're aiming at) then you'll have no problem dispatching your quarry. Before I get my FAC I used .22 and .177 both to good effect but the .177 was far easier to work with as you had a larger margin of error with range finding due to the flatter trajectory. 
 
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"Hits"RichardUK:
I had a multi-pump .20 caliber air rifle many years ago. I used it to collect rabbits as far as eighty yards and sparrows as close as ten yards. I could alter the velocity by limiting the number of pumps and then adjusting my aiming point. The only style of pellet available at the time was a barrel shaped affair that looked much like our current "Rabbit Magnum" round. With the currently available styles and weights of .20 caliber pellets on the market,you should have little difficulty selecting a couple for your specific needs and requirements. Do yourself a favor and check out the web sites for the variety of PCPs out there that develop your requirements. It seems that those with adjustable velocities would work for you. Good luck and be sure to let us know what your choice is!
Rik
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Hi Rik

At the moment the main contenders are (in no particular order)

Daystate Huntsman
Air Arms Ultimate Sporter
FX Wildcat
 
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You’ve asked a couple of related questions on different threads, but I’ve chosen to respond to both in kind here. For shooting birds inside barns I find that a .177 rifle of 10 ½ ftIb muzzle energy has the balance of energy to kill a bird with a head shot yet doesn’t hold the destructive energy to smash most roofing sheets. For shooting rats, realistically at up to 25 yards, a sub 12ftIb .25 weapon is very popular for its stopping power.

Because your key limiting factor appears (please check, as steel roofing would likely remove this problem) to be potential damage to roofing, I would recommend 177. That calibre has a good range of pellets, light or heavy to minimise/maximise energy retention and therefore damage to roofing/rats.

You don’t need to pay high prices for such weapons. Plenty on the second hand market, which will likely be radically effected by the new Scottish government! UK shooters have had a long trend toward PCP’s, but for me the 12ftIb limit leads me toward spring weapons.
 
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"Cookie"You’ve asked a couple of related questions on different threads, but I’ve chosen to respond to both in kind here. For shooting birds inside barns I find that a .177 rifle of 10 ½ ftIb muzzle energy has the balance of energy to kill a bird with a head shot yet doesn’t hold the destructive energy to smash most roofing sheets. For shooting rats, realistically at up to 25 yards, a sub 12ftIb .25 weapon is very popular for its stopping power.

Because your key limiting factor appears (please check, as steel roofing would likely remove this problem) to be potential damage to roofing, I would recommend 177. That calibre has a good range of pellets, light or heavy to minimise/maximise energy retention and therefore damage to roofing/rats.

You don’t need to pay high prices for such weapons. Plenty on the second hand market, which will likely be radically effected by the new Scottish government! UK shooters have had a long trend toward PCP’s, but for me the 12ftIb limit leads me toward spring weapons.
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Yes it's looking like the .17 is odds on favourite. Although I would like to hear more from anyone who has used a .20. Certainly I think I can now rule out .22. However I find what you say about the .25 and it's application in ratting very interesting, as I have a .25 air rifle slot on my FAC; And because of what you say, I will be looking to make sure that I chose a rifle that can be wound down to 12 fpe so that I can try it out for myself. So thanks for that.

Regarding my two questions, this question is about choosing the right calibre for a sub 12 fpe rifle. The other question is about the process of finding the right pellet for a PCP regardless of calibre or power.

As to whether a springer or PCP. I have a very nice HW99S springer in .177. However in an environment where noise and movement can give you away, I would have thought a PCP would have a significant advantage over a springer where there are other prey you don't want to scare off sitting around. Not to mention that springers are inherently less accurate than PCPs due to the fact that in a PCP the scope is anchored down relative to barrel, nor to mention springer recoil and springers being sensitive to the way their held. This may not matter when shooting short distances in the garden, but in the field where greater distances are involved, it could easily make the difference between a hit/miss or a clean/unclean kill. Especially when the target zone could be as small as a pigeons head.
 
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"bokes"At 12 fpe, I think it depends on what you want to do.
When hunting outside & going for head shots = .177
Heart/lung shots in/around buildings where overpenetration undesireable = .22
You only want 1 rifle to do it all = .20
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It would probably help to get into specifics. It looks like the fur side of things will be covered by my FAC .25 dialled down to sub 12 fpe.

So if we focus on birds. In my limited experience with a .177, I have found that they just go straight through (that's wood pigeons - still need to find out about crows). A .22 will demolish a magpie but bounce off of a wood pigeon. Clearly (for wood pigeons) the .177 makes it through the feathers but doesn't dump its energy in the bird, it dumps it in the thing sitting behind the bird. With these observations (and we're talking centre mass shots here - not head shots) I'm pretty sure that the best all round pellet for a wood pigeon will be a .20. But will a .20 penetrate the toughest area of the toughest bird on my list? Namely a crow.
 
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Richard UK,

I'm afraid your experience doesn't match mine. Wood pigeons are tough birds, though a clear weak point is the head. If you hit one solidly in the head with a near 12ftIb air rifle of any calibre, inside 40 yards, you will get a clean kill. Even if you shoot a wood pigeon in the chest with a .22 21.4gn baracuda with 25ftIb impact energy it can still fly off a couple of hundred yards and die with the pellet inside. A 177 can dump all its energy in a woodpigeon without going all the way through; which would be difficult with those chests and wings. I've seen these things happen. Shot placement is the absolute key factor with sub 12ftIb, calibre being secondary.

Some PCP's are more accurate than some spring rifles. A HW99 should, as long as it isn't defective, be able ok for pest control to 40 yards. Try tuning it to reduce noise. I don't know your circumstances, but do not necessarily expect to be allowed an FAC .25 rifle. Some Police are suspicious of "new" calibres, mainly because they are ignorant of what they can do and therefore can't assess their possible risks.
 
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"Cookie"Richard UK,

I'm afraid your experience doesn't match mine. Wood pigeons are tough birds, though a clear weak point is the head. If you hit one solidly in the head with a near 12ftIb air rifle of any calibre, inside 40 yards, you will get a clean kill. Even if you shoot a wood pigeon in the chest with a .22 21.4gn baracuda with 25ftIb impact energy it can still fly off a couple of hundred yards and die with the pellet inside. A 177 can dump all its energy in a woodpigeon without going all the way through; which would be difficult with those chests and wings. I've seen these things happen. Shot placement is the absolute key factor with sub 12ftIb, calibre being secondary.

Some PCP's are more accurate than some spring rifles. A HW99 should, as long as it isn't defective, be able ok for pest control to 40 yards. Try tuning it to reduce noise. I don't know your circumstances, but do not necessarily expect to be allowed an FAC .25 rifle. Some Police are suspicious of "new" calibres, mainly because they are ignorant of what they can do and therefore can't assess their possible risks.
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Like I say my experience with air rifles is limited. The .22 I was using was a Gamo Hornet springer and I'm not at all sure what power it was putting out, but I was hitting wood pigeons and the pellets were just bouncing off of them - I know this because they kept coming back. Like I say, the .22 Gamo demolished a magpie, but was all but useless on wood pigeons. I returned the Gamo as I had originally stipulated I wanted to shoot wood pigeons with it and they happily obliged, swapping it out for the .177 HW99S; And boy, I may be new to air rifles, but any idiot could see that in every respect the HW99S well and truly out classed the Gamo Hornet, but then as is so often the case (but not always) - you get what you pay for. The HW99S had no problem with centre mass shots on wood pigeons and I've not had any parking in the garden for a while now. But bare in mind in all of this that I'm talking about a range of some 10 metres, no doubt the dynamics would be different at greater distances and with it, the results observed.

Regarding the .25. At 12 fpe the police should have no issues with it as you don't need an FAC ticket for any sub 12 fpe air rifle regardless of the calibre. At 50 fpe, well that's a different story. At 50 fpe the police look at a .25 in much the same way as they do a 100 fpe .22LR round and others would be wise to think of it in much the same way, regardless of if they live in the UK or the US.

BTW, If you haven't guessed already, I have no complaints with my HW99S and if your looking for a springer, would have no problems recommending it as an excellent buy. As you say ballistically speaking it should be good for 40 yard shots, my main concern with springers when talking the sort of ranges associated with 12 fpe guns, is the stealth factor. Even with a moderator they are generally speaking more noisy than PCPs and when reloading the prey will probably think your waving at them and not interpret it as a friendly howdy-how-are-you kind of gesture.
 
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