Fac airgun then quit?

[Blackrider]

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 !

[lensman57]

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 !

The fundamental question is whether a 20~25 ft.lbs air rifle should in the first place be considered as dangerous as a 100 ft.lbs .22 LR and require an FAC let alone a 250 ft.lbs 17 HMR or 600 ft.lbs .223 ?

A.G

[Hsing-ee]

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.

[angrybear]

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.

[Geezer]

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.

[Hurricane]

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.

[lensman57]

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.

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

[Hsing-ee]

[/COLOR]
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

They ricochet something terrible as well so I have heard, greasy little ballots.

[brian747]

I use my fac air an airranger.22@37fpe where my .22lr is not the tool to use ,
for ambushing bunnies I use my cricket bullpup.22@27 fpe and just for fun I have .303 wolverine @100 fpe
which is devastating on prey. I still use sub 12fpe in smaller shoots also shotguns /rimfires where needed.
atb brian

[lensman57]

They ricochet something terrible as well so I have heard, greasy little ballots.

Yes they do and those who take shooting .22 LR responsibly always make sure that they have a reasonably steep angle into the target just incase of a pass through ricochet. Shooting a .22 LR at a glancing angle is a No No.
A pellet out of an FAC air gun could still ricochet but it will loose much of its energy doing so and in comparison is reasoably safe.

A.G