Bought one & realised what a superb tool it is in the vast majority of situations more like hardly shot my sub 12 since.
I remember the days when a 14 fpe airgun was the stuff of mad pneumatigraphic fantasy.
Now an airgun can be made as powerful as some centrefires, who bought one on FAC then decided that it was not for them and either went back to sub-12 fpe or got a powder-burner?
Bought one & realised what a superb tool it is in the vast majority of situations more like hardly shot my sub 12 since.
I've had a 30ft/lbs Rapid 7 since 2000 and thought it would render my 12ft/lbs stuff redundant but not the case. I use my .22lr most of the time and for closer stuff I use 12ft/lbs so the R7 doesn't get a great deal of use nowadays but it does come out with me sometimes and is rewarding to use
John Darling JD (1946-2004) was my inspiration to be the best i can and enjoy the sport i love. R.I.P
A dedicated HW80 Fanatic and owner since 1986 to present.
Mine made my sub-12ftlb rifles redundant for hunting, unless the permission specifies sub 12.
I've had a number of FAC airguns, I always return to a sub 12, a .22 rimfire and a centrefire or 3.......
The legal hassle is the same for an FAC airgun as a .22 rimfire and the extra power and range for me makes the FAC airgun redundant.
A man can always use more alcohol, tobacco and firearms.
As with most things it's horses for courses... plenty of situations where .22 RF unsuitable for the "rural" but basically overpopulated nooks of Surrey (most due to ricochet), but FAC air is fine. I would say however that I see little point in more that around 30 FP for air (I ran mine around 28) or it just becomes too noisy and air hungry - and 900-950 fps with a .22 pellet will flatten the trajectory a far as possible before things get unstable. Even with a midweight .22 (say 16 or 18 grain JSB), that more than enough to take any quarry at the ranges imposed by a subsonic trajectory. The same fps with a 21 grain magnum will have no useful affect on the end result (unless you are shooting in a gale), and make a lot more noise as it'll need an extra 10 FP.
I also ran my .25 ELi at "just" 20 FP with 20 grain H&Ns, and it was a brilliant squizzer gun. Don't fancy taking squizzers with a rimmy.
Always looking for any cheap, interesting, knackered "project" guns. Thanks, JB.
Well personally speaking, sub12 or FAC both use the same air cylinder & my buddy bottles don't leak why the need to "wrestle" with anything ?? 50+ shots from a buddy bottle is more than enough for most days while a simple bottle swap doubles that, fill up at home job done.
The .25 pellets are around 4p each, .22lr about 10p each which speaks for itself, but way out in front by a country mile is that my FAC Rapid is WAY more accurate than any .22lr I've ever shot & the perfect hunting tool for Devon countryside.
Each to his own but the cost of a bottle and associated equipment, cost of refills, regular checks to bottle, transport of bottle and insurance risks, refling air cylinder on rifle are negative issues to me. As I said, carrying a 50 round box of .22 subs swung it for me and 15mm groups at 75 meters is well acceptable accuracy for me.
Admittedly, the downside can be shooting near buildings or restricted areas in which case, yes an FAC air rifle is preferable in the interests of safety !
“An airgun or two”………
Quite a broad range of opinion here. Accuracy is an interesting one, I have heard before that some people think their air-rifles are more accurate than their .22lrs.
Apart from my Marlin 39M, I have shot only match .22 rimfires, mostly Anschutz and those would group way less than an inch at 100 yards with Eley Tenex (do they still sell that?), so this its surprising for me to hear, I guess the average sporting .22 rimfire is not nearly as accurate. The Marlin was on a par with a good PCP.
My Ruger American .22lr struggles to group a 10rnd mag better than 3/4"(20mm) at it's 50yd zero with any ammo, although 1"(25mm) is easy enough.
The rapid .25 will shoot a 12rnd mag in 3/8"-1/2"(10-12mm) ragged single hole groups as fast as I can re-cock & pull the trigger at it's 42yd zero.
I suspect a fair bit is of course that the rimfire barrel changes temp as more shots go through it.
lensman57, there has to be cut off at some point & someone is always going to say it's in the wrong place
At 42fpe with a 25gn pellet I suspect mine is easily lethal at 50-60yds, at 20-25fpe they're probably still lethal at 25yds, yes powder is much more powerful, but as I say the limit has to be somewhere.
It depends on the gun, whether air or powder.
My go-to rimfire back in the day was a Browning 52 Sporter, a Japanese-made copy of the classic and rare Winchester 52 Sporter. A long bench-rested range session after I got it had it printing five-shot groups of 0.45" - 1" at 50 yards with the ten or so types of ammunition I had on hand.
I can certainly see the merit of FAC air in the UK, alongside sub-12 and powder guns.
I agree with an earlier poster that the law is a bit odd in treating a 14 ft-lbs springer more stringently than a 3-shot semi-auto 12 bore.
After getting my AirWolf MVT I never touched my previous 12ft.lb air rifles, I did turn it down to 12ft.lb a couple of times, but then decided it served no purpose to do this. I now have another 12ft.lb air rifle, but the only reason is I wanted to build a bullpup as a project, I now use this for close range squizzers and rats.
From the AirWolf I step up to a HMR, and this covers all my shooting nowadays.
Absolutely agree with you. There has to be a cut off point. The fact remains that in no way a .177 16 ft.lbs airgun is so dangerous as to be bunched up with the powder burners, plus the fact that even a 40 ft.lbs .22 air rifle is inherently much safer than a .22 LR simply because of the inefficiencies of the design of the pellets. That pellet fired out of the 42 ft.lbs gun from a height of 160cm will be in the ground with very little energy well before it reaches the 200 yard mark. The .22 LR as we know even at its lowly 100 ft.lbs remains lethal to 500 yards ( 37 ft.lbs of Energy ) and can travel more than a mile before it can be considered ' safe '.
A.G