Killing chipmunks is about to get serious damnit!

[winmag]

Throw a Leupold or a Burris on it.
BB guns/ Air rifles have forward recoil & will completely destroy lesser scopes & even a few good ones.
But the above two mentioned will handle forward recoil, & you'll be back to smokin critters, instead of swapping glass & getting frustrated.

Hi Roy!!

 

[engineer40]

Engineer,
You really should have a look at the Beeman R9 springer in 20 Cal. Beeman air rifles are made in Germany. The quality and accuracy are superb. The Beeman Rekord trigger is one of the best on any air rifle. It is a target quality trigger. The trigger feels like a jewel or something. It is nothing like you are experiencing on the air rifles you are shooting. The rifle is so accurate that it is used in air rifle field target comps. They are about $500 but, since you are into long range shooting, you understand that you get what you pay for. Your frustrations with the other air rifles will disappear and you and your son will have lots of fun shooting. The chipmunks won't stand a chance.
My wife shoots a Beeman R7 in .177 and loves it. I do too... It's a great target rifle. A little weak for your needs though. I read that Dr. Beeman liked the R7 and R9 so much that he put target grade barrels on them so they would be accurate and popular with the public. I believe they still use those quality barrels.
Bushnell Banner scopes are air rifle rated and may quality low cost air rifle scopes.

Springer air rifles take a lot of practice to shoot well get a gas piston gun they are much easier to shoot well the Benjamin Titon guns are pretty good and you can replace the 5mm long trigger screw with a 10mm long one and remove most of the horrible creep cheap easy upgrade. After playing around with my brothers springer I would never consider one considering there are so many gas piston guns on the market now days.

engineer40,
You and I are floundering in their same water.
My problem are squirrels and those horrible sounding, obnoxious eu bar neck doves.
My friend is a dedictated pigeon & bar neck hunter. Scored over 1500 (not a typo) last year.
Going for 2000 this year.
He uses a Benjamin Marauder 22 cal with longest shots a bit beyond 100 yards.
MV is about 840 and very very quiet.
500 bucks is a bit overboard for me so I settled for a Benjamin Steel Eagle (Jim Stockey endorsed )
The Center Point scope that comes with isn't worth squat. Swapped it once after 2 weeks.
Shoots darn good. Very tight groups. Longest dove kill was 62.5 yards.
Then....I couldn't duplicate it. Random zero shifts drove me nuts.
Swapped for an identical a scope. Thought I was in hog heaven. Groups were even smaller and zero held throughout their day.
But, 2 days later zero shifted. What a pain.
In their morning she's going in a vice to determine if it's the rifle or the scope.
What ever doesn't pass them test is going back to their local cabelas.
Oh shooting these things is way different than shooting a real rifle. Consistency is imparative.

Throw a Leupold or a Burris on it.
BB guns/ Air rifles have forward recoil & will completely destroy lesser scopes & even a few good ones.
But the above two mentioned will handle forward recoil, & you'll be back to smokin critters, instead of swapping glass & getting frustrated.
Hi Roy!!

Well I think the chipmunks have won this year. I don't think there is any fixing to this Ruger. Right now I'm planning on sending it back to Midway.

I will eventually plan on getting a better air rifle. I'm not in the market to spend that much moola on one right now unfortunately. I just spent quite a few thousand to finish getting set up to shoot 3 Gun with some friends. Add to that a new riding lawn mower and a couple family trips this summer; and I think a high end German air rifle will need to wait. All the while, these chipmunks will continue to torment and tease me from a distance.

If anyone lives in the Michigan area, likes to tinker, and has $50... I'm willing to part with this air rifle. "For Sale: Almost new air rifle. Looks great!"

 

[billm67]

PCP air rifle require a bit on the commitment side. You cannot charge the tank with your air compressor. Most of them run 3000psi. They are either filled from a scuba tank of a hard to pump high pressure bike pump.

Spring powered guns tend to be fussy. You cannot leave them cocked for too long or the springs take a set or sometimes break. One of the newer type of rifles are the gas spring or nitro piston rifles. They replace the steel spring with a gas charged strut similar to what is on the hood or hatchback of a car. They can be left cocked for quite a while and can produce quite a bit of power (1000 fps in a .22). You want to go for the fastest rifle that you can afford and adjust the velocity with heavier pellets. Pellets do not fly very well once the break the speed of sound. Benjamin makes some nice budget friendly gas springs and Diana (RWS) makes some really nice rifles but the are not cheap.

 

[royinidaho]

I have my AirForce Condor SS all figgered out.

Pressure sweet spot range is 2500 - 1750 psi and PWR setting of 2.

At that power setting 3000 - 2500 PSI gives low 700s MV.

Below 1750 PSI accuracy goes to pot along with greater drop at distance.

JSB 18.1, 25 and 33 grain domed pellets running 950, 840 and 730 respectively.

All zeroed @ 30 and same hold for 40, 50 and 60 yards. After 60 yards the 18.1s fall off pretty fast

Longest shot on Euro Dove @ 76 yards w/25 grain pellet.


The other afternoon, no wind BTW, my son had 33 kills from 38 to 65 yards w/3 misses.

Rigged up a "dressing" table for the doves. Let me tell ya, they are some decent eating! I'm gonna start gathering the all.

 

[codyadams]

Your comparing a 22 rim fire to a 22 cal air rifle, and for MOST pcp guns there is really no comparison. I have a benjamin discovery that I have done some modifications to as to increase the power, and it shoots 18.1 grain jsb diabolo pellets at 830 fps, where a 22 rimfire shoots a 40 grain projectile at 1200 fps. Before I did my modifications, it shot the same pellets at 700 fps. Over penetration or ricochet is not any more of an issue with a 22 cal air rifle than it is a 177, all you are doing is limiting your killing power. Get a 22 cal. And, the second best pellet in my rifle happens to be the wal mart 22 cal crossman premier hollow point that they stock.

As far as leaving charged, you actually NEED to keep pressure in them, to prevent condensation from entering the tank. Mine has had constant pressure in it since I owned it, so over 3 years.

As far as pressure...unless you buy a shoebox compressor, your shop compressor is of no use. Even the discovery, which has a low pressure in the pcp gun realm, is 2000 psi. Most are right at or over 3000 psi. The cheapest way to charge these is with a high pressure pump that can be purchased as a kit with the gun.

For your use, I HIGHLY suggest the benjamin discovery, in 22 cal, as it's the cheapest, and you only pump to 2000 psi, charging from 1000 psi to 2000 psi is WAY easier than going 2000 psi to 3000 psi.

With a full charge, I would get about 25-30 accurate shots before I needed to pump it up, which at my elevation (7000 feet) was about 2 pumps per shot, so 50-60 pumps and I'm good to go again.

As for accuracy...With pcp guns, there is no comparison to the pump guns or the break barrels. Most accuracy testing is done at 50 yards. My gun will group 10 shots in about 1 inch or less at 50 yards, with the jsb pellets, if I sort my pellets so none have bent skirts or anything. And mine is a cheaper pcp gun that has minor modifications. If you spend the extra 100-150 and get the marauder, that accuracy or better is expected out of the box, and it has a shrouded barrel, so it's super quiet. Probably quieter than your by gun you have been shooting. But, the down side is it takes a little more umph to pump up. But, if your after results, it's WELL worth it.

My gun was not shrouded, but was still not loud, probably only slightly louder than your bb gun. However, I wanted it quieter so I could get multiple kills, and also I had a problem on the longer shots of the bird moving before my pellet got there, as the speed of sound is significantly faster than my pellet. Either that or the stinkin starlings saw my pellet coming...so I bought a silencer for 45 bucks for my gun.

The farthest kill I have is a starling at 82 yards. This is stretching it for the accuracy of my particular rifle to maintain ethical kills, but if it wasn't windy, starling sized targets were almost certainly doomed at 60 yards. Hitting pop cans consistently at 100 yards is awful fun though, and your friends don't believe you when you set up a pop can at 100 yards to shoot with an air rifle. It's like the scene on quigly down under when the guy takes the bucket to the ridge line forever away, your friends start snickering and joking, until your first shot knocks it over, then they want a piece of the fun ha ha.

And at 15 bucks or less for 500 pellets that you shoot out of a nearly silent gun, anytime, in your back yard, these things are more fun than you think, and they get you practice on trigger time for cheap shooting at small targets.

Do yourself a favor, get a benjamin discovery or marauder in 22 cal, with the kit that comes with a hand pump, and a couple cans of pellets, and you will not regret it, I promise you that. These things are stupid fun.

My mods to my discovery include:

heavy piston hammer spring with adjuster
second barrel band for accuracy
Trigger job
Polished barrel
Bolt on shroud

Get a pcp, and have fun

 

[codyadams]

Sorry for the long post, didn't see pages 2-5....

This will be shorter. SKIP THE SPRINGERS COMPLETELY!!!! They simply DO NOT compare in accuracy and power to a pcp. Period.

Here, get this:

Benjamin Maximus Pump Combo | Airgun Depot

$350, and it will work way better. All you need is pellets. And these guys are awesome to deal with. This gun will be much more accurate, you can use any scope or leave on the iron sights, and much more powerful. It WILL shoot within 50 fps of what it says with the lighter pellets. You go to the heavy pellets, and of course, speed will drop off.

I have done what your doing, accept with a high end RWS springer. I simply couldn't get it to shoot as accurate or powerful as I wanted or as they claimed. I bought the discovery and it simply smashed the RWS springer. Nothing against the guys that like spring guns, but most of them probably haven't shot a pcp much, hence why they still shoot spring guns.

Get a pcp, and be ready for spring when the dirty buggers come back.