Max Effective Range Of 177

[ROOKIE SNIPER1]

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

[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/