I'd encourage you to go .22 if that is an option. The .22 barrel is the most accurate rifle I've shot, bar none. It shocked me with how well it does, once adjusted.
18 grain JSB's, 4 shots all touching at 100 yards.
It was a remarkably calm day in the Sierra's, but I was on a camp chair, shooting off of a Primos tripod/shooting stick thing.
I was squirrel hunting for a week, and would just pick a small part of the animal, and do surgery with the gun.
I snuck up on a Douglas squirrel, facing the other way, at about 30 yards. He was looking away from me, laid out on a branch with his reared pointing back at me, at lamost the same level I was at, as I was on a slope, facing down.
That impact pushed a .22 hemorrhoid pill into the winking, pink starfish of his rear end, through the length of his body, and out his forehead.
Please excuse my graphic description, but I swear that I could have put finger nail polish on a pellet and do a complete manicure on the local squirrels.
These aren't big squirrels either....