Caliber choice for pesting

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I just wouldn't have 3 rifles the same power level. Unless one was just so nice and shiny. I use each caliber for different purposes. Purpose being power levels for hunting. 



So I guess if I had 3 rifles in 177,22,25 at the same power levels, I'd rather have the 25 because depending on the airgun I could tune it according to whatever is appropriate to the pest. 



I certainly wouldn't prefer to use 177 on a coon in most every case. But if I could tune a 22 down to 15ft lbs and also to 50.ft lbs it might be a more versatile tool. 



I'm thinking I don't get the reason for the question though... 
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Why is the reason. Why do people automatically gravitate to a particular caliber for something. I've been watching a lot of pesting videos lately and one guy who uses a .22cal sub 12 ftlb rifle does very well. He is one of the few, if not the only one I've seen that uses a larger diameter caliber for pesting. Personally, I'm going to try .25cal at 533fps (16 ftlbs) this spring to see what it's like. Looking at the data in Strelok Pro and Chair Gun, it doesn't look too bad, but I want to see the real world results.
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Why is the reason... 



OK try shooting 30 different raccoons or similar creatures at that power level. You'll think about upgrading right away.



For example, shoot a coyote or fox using 12ft lbs. Then tell me 2 out of 10 drop in their tracks. You won't unless you're lucky. Lucky is heavily emphasized.



I make my recommendations based upon experience. I'd say research the topic a bit. Minimum foot lbs energy for species. 12ft lbs 22 isn't going to do much to a coon, besides get its attention 98 times out of 100.it will probably bounce off a skull or produce a less than lethal body shot. You need energy... Even powder burning rifles need energy. Don't shoot a moose with a 22lr and expect it to drop. 
 
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I just wouldn't have 3 rifles the same power level. Unless one was just so nice and shiny. I use each caliber for different purposes. Purpose being power levels for hunting. 



So I guess if I had 3 rifles in 177,22,25 at the same power levels, I'd rather have the 25 because depending on the airgun I could tune it according to whatever is appropriate to the pest. 



I certainly wouldn't prefer to use 177 on a coon in most every case. But if I could tune a 22 down to 15ft lbs and also to 50.ft lbs it might be a more versatile tool. 



I'm thinking I don't get the reason for the question though... 
Click to expand...

Why is the reason. Why do people automatically gravitate to a particular caliber for something. I've been watching a lot of pesting videos lately and one guy who uses a .22cal sub 12 ftlb rifle does very well. He is one of the few, if not the only one I've seen that uses a larger diameter caliber for pesting. Personally, I'm going to try .25cal at 533fps (16 ftlbs) this spring to see what it's like. Looking at the data in Strelok Pro and Chair Gun, it doesn't look too bad, but I want to see the real world results.
Click to expand...

Why is the reason... 



OK try shooting 30 different raccoons or similar creatures at that power level. You'll think about upgrading right away.



For example, shoot a coyote or fox using 12ft lbs. Then tell me 2 out of 10 drop in their tracks. You won't unless you're lucky. Lucky is heavily emphasized.



I make my recommendations based upon experience. I'd say research the topic a bit. Minimum foot lbs energy for species. 12ft lbs 22 isn't going to do much to a coon, besides get its attention 98 times out of 100.it will probably bounce off a skull or produce a less than lethal body shot. You need energy... Even powder burning rifles need energy. Don't shoot a moose with a 22lr and expect it to drop.
Click to expand...

1st page, 6th post, I specifically say rats and pigeons in barns and machinery sheds. If I want to shoot something larger like a coyote, I will use my Impact MKII .25cal with slugs. If I want to shoot bear or moose, I'll move up to one of my powder burners.
 
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I’ve been watching this one off and on, it’s a good thread. I’ve got a Kral NP02 in .25. It’s an 11” barrel rear bottle gun and with its stock porting and springs I can get right at 650fps with 25gr FX. Ive had quite a few birds “for me” fly off running that setup. A couple pigeons and I think three starlings all 20-30 yards. I can’t confirm shot placement of course, but the ones I’m speaking of had the makings of a good shot, minus the dead bird, I’m not counting tail poofs. I chalked it up to poor penetration due to lower velocity. I had the light right on one of the starlings and could see that fat pellet, it really looked like a perfect chest shot, could have been low I reckon. The little guns been a very good shooter also, it’s easy to put the pellet where you want it. Not ruling out poor shot placement, I don’t have a whole lot of time under my belt with the .25. Anyway that’s my experience.

Beau
 
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Just a little while ago I started to run a scopecam when shooting quarry.



There have been many shots that, when watched in slo-mo conveniently on my phone app, revealed what I did wrong — or what the bird did wrong (e.g., not DRT-ing despite my video-documented "perfect" shot placement).



Well, let me confess with a fairly high degree of shame: the former wrong-doings were in the vast majority..... Ouch!!

Matthias
 
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Yes and I’m in no way ruling that out, probably leaning into that conclusion. I didn’t want to compare .22 to .25, I don’t have enough experience with the .25, but it’s been much more rare with my .22s running higher fps. I’m ramping up .25 use in the next week or so, assembling a frankenkral and waiting on piston rings for my compressor. I’ll be getting more “field data”, one gun running the same ft/lbs.
 
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I just wouldn't have 3 rifles the same power level. Unless one was just so nice and shiny. I use each caliber for different purposes. Purpose being power levels for hunting. 



So I guess if I had 3 rifles in 177,22,25 at the same power levels, I'd rather have the 25 because depending on the airgun I could tune it according to whatever is appropriate to the pest. 



I certainly wouldn't prefer to use 177 on a coon in most every case. But if I could tune a 22 down to 15ft lbs and also to 50.ft lbs it might be a more versatile tool. 



I'm thinking I don't get the reason for the question though... 
Click to expand...

Why is the reason. Why do people automatically gravitate to a particular caliber for something. I've been watching a lot of pesting videos lately and one guy who uses a .22cal sub 12 ftlb rifle does very well. He is one of the few, if not the only one I've seen that uses a larger diameter caliber for pesting. Personally, I'm going to try .25cal at 533fps (16 ftlbs) this spring to see what it's like. Looking at the data in Strelok Pro and Chair Gun, it doesn't look too bad, but I want to see the real world results.
Click to expand...

Why is the reason... 



OK try shooting 30 different raccoons or similar creatures at that power level. You'll think about upgrading right away.



For example, shoot a coyote or fox using 12ft lbs. Then tell me 2 out of 10 drop in their tracks. You won't unless you're lucky. Lucky is heavily emphasized.



I make my recommendations based upon experience. I'd say research the topic a bit. Minimum foot lbs energy for species. 12ft lbs 22 isn't going to do much to a coon, besides get its attention 98 times out of 100.it will probably bounce off a skull or produce a less than lethal body shot. You need energy... Even powder burning rifles need energy. Don't shoot a moose with a 22lr and expect it to drop.
Click to expand...

1st page, 6th post, I specifically say rats and pigeons in barns and machinery sheds. If I want to shoot something larger like a coyote, I will use my Impact MKII .25cal with slugs. If I want to shoot bear or moose, I'll move up to one of my powder burners.
Click to expand...

Yeah then anything 12ft lbs. I'd use a 177. Because it's cheaper. But if you like 22 why not. Doing that sort of work wouldn't matter much. If you think it does then ballistic coefficient and energy at range would be what I'd ultimately make the decision upon. Although at 12 ft lbs it may not matter at all.. Still the same concept 
 
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Beau,

I mostly shoot squirrels but have collected 10 doves this year with my 25. Last fall it was all squirrels with my 22. My 22 is a Prod which is shooting 14.66 grain copper plated FTT at a little over 700 fps. So you have more energy and frontal area. I have 2 25s but the one I've used the most, including on all the doves, is a P35 shooting 20 grain FTTs at 875 fps.

I have not had a squirrel move more than 10 feet after impact from the P35. I collected all 14 hit with it. I haven't had to shoot a squirrel more than once with it. I shot a dove 3 times with the same gun, however. It moved about 20 feet before the last impact. I had one fly off after a big poof of feathers. I shot the top of the skull off a dove and it was still staring at me and wiggling some when I went to dress it. So it got another shot. Most squirrels and doves have dropped within a second or two of impact. But some are tougher. I think that is part of it.

I can't prove it but I think my shot placement is also worse on doves. They are pretty large for birds but still only 4 ounces or so. My squirrels have averaged over 12 ounces so they are a lot bigger. But I also think the birds are puffing out their feathers some to stay warm. Dove heads are small and tend to move a lot, even more than squirrels. So almost all my dove shots have been body shots. Most of my squirrels where shot in the head or neck.

Long way of saying my experience is also not as good with dropping birds right were they were hit. I think your gun is plenty powerful enough. I also think center mass is the only realistic aim point although I try to be above the center a little.

Jim


 
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Yes my experience has been the same. I’ve bagged a half dozen squirrels with the little gun, all head shots so no runners. I try to place my shots on feathered critters in the upper chest, but there’s no telling where the birds that didn’t fall got hit. It’s %100 poor shot placement, as you said the gun is powerful enough. Just odd how I haven’t had the same issue regularly with the 22cal guns. Not having much data really skews the end result though. It only takes a couple flyaways to seem like a lot when you haven’t killed a lot of critters with said caliber and gun. 
 
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So a couple of things come to mind reading this post. #1 hardness of lead absolutely makes a difference in pellets designed to be expanding. I find that to get any kind of good expansion on CPH I need to be shooting at least 750fps. Closer to 800 would be preferable. However with polymags and HN pellets I see expansion at much lower velocity. Also I know for a fact CPDM and CPH are a harder alloy. Years of carrying them around have showed me that Crosman pellets rarely bend at the skirts in a dump pouch but softer lead pellets do. It makes very little difference in domes because even a softer lead dome holds together and retains its weight and surface area. It may mushroom a bit and make a small difference in the penetration but nothing I would consider notable. Where this gets weird is that a hades pellet going 550 fps acts alot like a dome pellet. It retains its weight and can pass through sometimes. However pumping the velocity up to 650 it opens up and might even lose a petal or two and not pass through. Same for poly mags. They just don't work as good at very low velocity. I tend to use expanding pellets in high power rifles and just use domes the rest of the time. Only testing and experience can really answer this question for you. I think that if you want to be very careful about pass through you should use 22 domes at 12 fpe or 177 expanding bullets at 12 fpe using a softer lead. The reason is that 177 will likely be traveling fast enough to make the softer lead expanding pellets do thier job. Now what happens if you miss? Which pellet in that case would be more likely to cause damage? Idk. I can tell you that taking careful shots and sometimes passing up a shot your not sure about is the best policy. I like using feed stations with a backstop for that very reason. I also find that the animals are more likely to stop and give you a perfect shot that way. Hope this helps. 
 
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