Maximum range of an airgun

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Aug 13, 2017
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I don't know if there is much interest in this topic. I decided to look into it because I need to shoot pest birds and don't want a pellet to leave my property. I have a Streamline which offers 3 power settings and was hoping that one of the lower settings would keep my maximum range under 200 yards. Unfortunately, calculations showed that reducing velocity does not have as much of an effect as I would have hoped. Also surprising was that the maximum range is achieved at only 30 degrees. The following ranges are for a 15.9 grain JSB pellet at High, Medium and Low velocity settings.

Max range at 902 ft/s: 520 yards

Max range at 721 ft/s: 465 yards

Max range at 528 ft/s: 395 yards

Even at low power the maximum range exceeds my 200 yard threshold. So no shooting the House Sparrows out of trees or off the tops of the bird houses.

For those who are curious, I checked the accuracy of my method against the theoretical maximum assuming no drag. The theoretical value for 902 ft/s at 45 degrees is 8,449 yards, my method returned 8,450 yards. Also, the 400 to 500 yard values are in line with what has been previously reported. As I said, my only interest in looking into the issue was to understand the relationship between maximum range and velocity, and the effect is not as much as expected.

Chuck
 
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For zero risk tolerance, maximum range is a useful way to look at it. Otherwise it may be useful to consider the range at which it still possesses enough energy to do harm.

The following study may be of some interest. It gives the minimum pellet velocities necessary to break human skin.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7175470

Using their figure of ~330ft/sec, Chairgun says a 8.4gr JSB Exact leaving with a muzzle velocity of 800fps will have decayed to that velocity around 155 yards. A wadcutter would do so at less than 75 yards. On top of that, head geometry plays a key role in penetration, the dome being considerably better at it than the wadcutter. However it's not clear what they used in the study (at least not from the abstract; I requested a copy of the summary by email but it hasn't come through yet). If it were, you could at least gauge whether your choice of pellet would be more or less safe. 

That said, I wouldn't want my eyeball attempting to stop either one.
 
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James, my bird feeder sometimes serves double duty as a bait station, but even when shooting into the ground below the feeder I occasionally get ricochets when the ground is too dry, too wet or too frozen. Mostly I try to shoot from an elevated position in order to avoid ricochets. I have some locations where it is not possible to get elevated and I have thought of making a portable bait platform with a built in backstop for those situations. If the sparrows hit those houses this year, that is what I plan to do. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
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This is something i think about all of the time. Especially with slugs. 

Before i go to a new property i always use google earth to map out property lines, nearby houses, and fields farmers might be working in. There is a measurement tool that allows you to see where the projectile should land depending on angle of launch, velocity and bc. Its a lot of work but its the only way to shoot confidently. Especially since we are in planting and grazing season and farmers/animals may be in a distant field you cant see. 

Glad you are planning it out, be safe.
 
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I don't know if there is much interest in this topic. I decided to look into it because I need to shoot pest birds and don't want a pellet to leave my property. I have a Streamline which offers 3 power settings and was hoping that one of the lower settings would keep my maximum range under 200 yards. Unfortunately, calculations showed that reducing velocity does not have as much of an effect as I would have hoped. Also surprising was that the maximum range is achieved at only 30 degrees. The following ranges are for a 15.9 grain JSB pellet at High, Medium and Low velocity settings.

Max range at 902 ft/s: 520 yards

Max range at 721 ft/s: 465 yards

Max range at 528 ft/s: 395 yards

Even at low power the maximum range exceeds my 200 yard threshold. So no shooting the House Sparrows out of trees or off the tops of the bird houses.

For those who are curious, I checked the accuracy of my method against the theoretical maximum assuming no drag. The theoretical value for 902 ft/s at 45 degrees is 8,449 yards, my method returned 8,450 yards. Also, the 400 to 500 yard values are in line with what has been previously reported. As I said, my only interest in looking into the issue was to understand the relationship between maximum range and velocity, and the effect is not as much as expected.

Chuck
Click to expand...

In
 
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Hi again. Since several people wondered what the maximum range would be with a flat nose pellet, and we know that max range is sensitive to ballistic coefficient, I decided to calculate that scenario as well. Using the information provided by Hard Air Magazine, I decided to evaluate the .22 Crow Magnum because of its very low ballistic coefficient of 0.012. Incidentally, Hard Air reports a BC of 0.031 for the JSB 15.9 and I had determined it to be 0.0317, so pretty close. At any rate, here are the values for the Crow Magnum at High and Medium settings on my Streamline. The velocities are estimates determined by assuming the same kinetic energy at each setting as found with the JSB 15.9 pellet.

Max range at 845 ft/s: 245 yards

Max range at 675 ft/s: 220 yards

It looks like those who suggested a flat nose pellet were on to something! I wonder if the Crow Magnums will be accurate out to 30 yards from the Streamline? Anyone have experience with this combination? Or perhaps with the Streamline shooting the H&N FTT, which has a fairly low BC of 0.019?
 
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It looks like those who suggested a flat nose pellet were on to something! I wonder if the Crow Magnums will be accurate out to 30 yards from the Streamline? Anyone have experience with this combination? Or perhaps with the Streamline shooting the H&N FTT, which has a fairly low BC of 0.019?
Click to expand...

First thing I thought of too was a flat-nose wadcutter or a really agrressive HP with a "poor" BC. As far as FTT's are concerned, I wonder if the BC is a bit underrated. Sure, it's relatively mild at 14.6-ish grains, but for me they seem to perform at least as well as their BC claims if not slightly better. Just my opinion.

PT
 
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It looks like those who suggested a flat nose pellet were on to something! I wonder if the Crow Magnums will be accurate out to 30 yards from the Streamline? Anyone have experience with this combination? Or perhaps with the Streamline shooting the H&N FTT, which has a fairly low BC of 0.019?
Click to expand...

I found when you start pushing pellets faster with a larger hollow point opening like the Crow Magnum the accuracy suffers. I believe that larger opening just catches too much air making it unstable. Depending on the application going with less fps could increase the accuracy and safety margin you are looking for. Bill
 
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Crows shoot well out of my 22 streamline to 35 yds after that they open up. I have found most pellets to shoot well out of the st barrels but velocity is very important with each. Crosman pellets shoot great around 20 ft lbs. on medium. I notice this with all pellets in all my guns you need to get them in there correct FPS range with your barrels twist.
 
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