Max Effective Range Of 177

[ROOKIE SNIPER1]

Hi i was just wondering what some of you ppl think the max effective range of a 177 is.Would it make a clean kill at 60 yards

[MattLin]

For what purpose?

[ROOKIE SNIPER1]

To make a clean kill

[Hsing-ee]

Depends on how powerful the rifle is and how accurate the shooter is.

If you are talking about shooting pest species like pigeon and rabbit in the brain, then a sensible maximum for a very good shooter with good hunting skills would be 40 yards.

For eveyone else and most hunting situations it is more like 35 yards, to ensure a clean kill. Chipping the beak off a pigeon or shooting a rabbit through the jaw won't kill them quickly or cleanly and you owe it to the critters not to make them suffer.

What distance can you hit a 1 pence piece at? That's a sensible range. Next time you are out on the range, stick some Polo mints on a piece of carboard, pace out 60 yards and try shooting them.

[ROOKIE SNIPER1]

What i mean is at what ranges would a legal limit rifle still have enough energy left to produce a clean kill

[Capt Snakebite]

Hi i was just wondering what some of you ppl think the max effective range of a 177 is.Would it make a clean kill at 60 yards

60 yards and I reckon the only way you'd get a clean kill is if you could chuck the rifle that far and were very, very lucky.

30 yards is best effective range, maybe out to 45 if you've a bipod and are good - otherwise, the risk of injury and a lingering death is just too high.

Alternatively, if you're after a bit of Jedi-style 'shooting with the Force', take a peek at http://www.airgunbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=265422

[ROOKIE SNIPER1]

i limit myself to 25 yards for standing shots 30 for kneeling and 40 of my pod cos that the ranges i feel confident to make a clean kill at with my rifle but looking at it on a energy prespective if you were to hit a rabbit in the head at 60 yards would the pellet have enough ft/lbs of energy left to switch the lights off

[sidesy]

40-45 max...unless your very confident or are made by cyberdyne systems and are a terminator...who knows....seriously, its all about, YOU...if your a good shot, using todays technology and use the right ammo...go for it...i used to use a telephone book at varying distances to see what energy was left in the pellet, bit heath robinson..but, worked....alternatively use a chrono (like an F1) and shoot are varying distances to get an accurate reading of the energy in those pellets...finally, if your going for distance, remember the wind does play a part in the accuracy...the longer the pellet has left the barrel the more outside forces will affect its path...practice till your confident and competent your going to get a clean and humane kill, G

[Hsing-ee]

if you were to hit a rabbit in the head at 60 yards would the pellet have enough ft/lbs of energy left to switch the lights off

theoretically maybe just about - also depends on the rabbit. If you look on the Beeman website there is alot of stuff about the minimum ft/lbs for each pest species, not suprisingly they recommend the biggest calibres and the most power, but it is in America so they have the choice ...

With a 12 ft/lbs .177 the pellet can take a while to get to 60 yards, so the unfortunate rabbit would have to hold pretty still for you.

It's a great range for plinking mints at however! You can get kills on Polos at 60 yards no problemo...

[Maltoid]

Yep but the hold over is massive and even a slight breeze can put you some inches either side of your target, so best kept at 45 yards imo

cheers

[ROOKIE SNIPER1]

40-45 max...unless your very confident or are made by cyberdyne systems and are a terminator...who knows....seriously, its all about, YOU...if your a good shot, using todays technology and use the right ammo...go for it...i used to use a telephone book at varying distances to see what energy was left in the pellet, bit heath robinson..but, worked....alternatively use a chrono (like an F1) and shoot are varying distances to get an accurate reading of the energy in those pellets...finally, if your going for distance, remember the wind does play a part in the accuracy...the longer the pellet has left the barrel the more outside forces will affect its path...practice till your confident and competent your going to get a clean and humane kill, G

THANKS M8 CHEERS

[ROOKIE SNIPER1]

Yep but the hold over is massive and even a slight breeze can put you some inches either side of your target, so best kept at 45 yards imo

cheers

Is their program that can tell you wot the wind drift and hold over will be

[Davey K]

What i mean is at what ranges would a legal limit rifle still have enough energy left to produce a clean kill

Bit of a red herring really, I believe a .22 lr round (if shot at the right trajectory) will travel upto a mile and still have the potential to kill but most 22 lr shooters restrict themselves to a max range of 60-80 yards as it is impossible to be 100% certain of accuracy over this range.

It's the same with legal limit air rifles - technically speaking a .177 pellet from a gun running at 11.3ft lb would still penetrate a rabbit skull at 70 yards but it's not possible to shoot legal limit air rifles 100% consistently accurately at this distance. Try it out on paper if you are interested enough. Put a one inch circle out at 70 yards and try to hit it every single time from whatever shooting stance you use in the field and in a range of realistic weather conditions. It's a simple excercise and it proves beyond doubt that hunting at this range with legal limit air rifles whilst delivering 100% accuracy is impossible.

Power and distance are somewhat irrelevant concepts to air rifle hunting. As a sport, it should be about how you use your fieldcraft and knowledge of terrain to close to the least possible distance with your prey and then take your shot. If you've done your job properly, this shot should not have any measure of doubt or chance attached to it. That's what air rifle hunters get their buzz from doing.

There are plenty of powder burners that allow you to take 100 yard bunnies, and if this is what you're after, it's a simple matter to download the forms and get your application rolling.

Final bit of advice, hunting of any sort is not about pushing the envelope and extending your range until you are out on the edge of what is possible. It's about the 'sure thing' shot, the shot you know you can take with as close to100% certainty as possible, the shot that delivers a humane dispatch with the least chance of wounding. If you want to push the envelope, do it on paper. Another poster provided you with a link to the long range shooting section and there are plenty of us on there that enjoy pushing the boundaries of what air rifles are capable of, but out in the hunting field is not the place to undertake this sort of research.

Whack up some one inch circles and start grouping pellets into them from a range of stances. Once it's second nature, move the targets back a bit and do it again. Once you get to a range where you cannot consistently group in these circles however much you practise, you know that this is 'out of range'. Move back to where you were comfortably grouping and you've found your maximum effective range.

This was the advice I got from the BBS and I stand by it, because whatever your skill level, you will discover your maximum assured hunting range. If this is 25 yards then stick to it, you may find that your fieldcraft is much better than the guys who can shoot consistently out to 35 yards and as a result you take just as many bunnies as them.

All the best with your shooting

[Davey K]

Plenty of info here re: energy retained etc

http://www.chairgun.com/

[Brian.Samson]

Is their program that can tell you wot the wind drift and hold over will be

Chairgun will give you a reasonably accurate hold over figure, and a very rough approximation for wind drift (assuming you know the exact windspeed and direction and it remains constant along the entire path of your pellet - which it most certainly will not).

I'm reluctant to answer your original question because although you're phrasing it as a hypothetical maximum range question, further questions about hold over and windage suggest that you're contemplating actually attempting this on a live animal. That would be totally irresponsible!

Having said that hypothetically, an efficient .177 pellet (e.g. JSB Exact) shot from an air rifle running at 11.5 fpe is capable of making a clean kill on an average rabbit at distances up to 70 yards.

In reality, no matter how good a shot you think you are or how still you think the wind conditions YOU aren't good enough to make that shot.

That's not a slur on you, I'm not good enough to make that shot with any more than say a 50/50 chance of success (probably less) and I don't know anyone who is - and I know a few FT World Champions.

First off the wind is a major factor - it's never completely still and it's rarely predictable. Secondly range finding is another major factor, just to give you some idea of how critical it is, a laser range finder isn't accurate enough to be able to give you the information you'd need to give the correct holdover at 70 yards and pacing the shot out certainly isn't and lastly pellet stability is also a major factor. At some point the pellet will start to 'tumble' greatly affecting the ability to hold a tight enough grouping.

The killzone on a rabbit is about the size of a 2p piece - you'd be doing well to make the shot at 45 yards.