Velocity for barn gun

[JimD]

I did a little test this afternoon of penetration versus velocity using my Prod. I shot at old scraps of 22 gauge steel roofing. Projectiles were 14.66 grain H&N pellets and 14.3 grain Crosman pellets. The gun started off shooting at 680 fps and zipped right through at 30 yards. At 561 fps it did not go through at 30 yards but did at 15 yards. At 466 fps it did not go through but was close based on the shiny edge of the dent on the back side. So I would say 450 should be OK at 15 yards or more. Curiously the Airgun Revisions barn gun is a 25 caliber at 450 fps. My guess is 25 grain will penetrate less at a given velocity and a 177 more. Heavier pellets should also penetrate more.

For small birds a 22 shooting 14.33 grain at 450 fps might be OK but that is only about 6.5 fpe. A 25 caliber shooting 25 grain at 450 would be about 12 fpe which seems more robust.

I'll include a couple pictures. Velocity as low as 370 fps made a quite noticeable dent at 15 yards.

 

[woogie_man]

Would your results change if you were to shoot through something?

When you go through a pigeon or something like that, the pellet will slow the pellet down enough to allow for a higher power?

 

[beerthief]

So i can attest to killing a lot of Pidgins with a lowly Red Rider at about 45 to 50 feet under Mannheim bridge as a kid . What is that 3 FPE ? What pests are you after ?
EDIT and a few rats also , usually two shots but still just a RR BB gun

 

[WoodWelder]

I also did a test of corrugated polycarbonate panels shooting different velocities and the results were shocking.....I even shot a brand new pair of safety glasses and destroyed those as well.

I do a lot of pesting in barns shooting pigeons in the rafters. I've never had any issues staying under 12 fpe........No one should be shooting direct hits on steel or polycarbonate panels. Passing thru flesh will absorbs most if not all the fpe.

 

[MJS]

Thanks for the info!

 

[MJS]

So i can attest to killing a lot of Pidgins with a lowly Red Rider at about 45 to 50 feet under Mannheim bridge as a kid . What is that 3 FPE ? What pests are you after ?
EDIT and a few rats also , usually two shots but still just a RR BB gun

Amen to this. You can kill a rabbit with a pebble if you hit it just right.

 

[Nvreloader]

Try Wad Cutter, flat head pellets,
they provide lots of stopping power when passing thru the flying rats.
ymmv

 

[JimD]

Hitting an animal first will reduce the pellet velocity. How much depends on what animal and where you hit it. And you still have to think about at least an occasional miss. I did a test of the velocity change passing through sheets of thin plywood and mdf. It was significant, there is a thread here somewhere.

I don't have an unregulated 177 or 25. It's a lot easier to adjust the velocity of an unregulated gun. I'd like to test my assumption that 177 would penetrate more and a 25 less but doing so with what I have will require more effort. To me the most practical low power gun would be a 25. My Avenger at least has an externally adjustable regulator. Maybe I will mess with it. Or just drop the velocity of my one 177 as much as I can with the hammer spring.

 

[Revoman]

I agree with the 25 not penetrating as much as a 177. Even with more energy, the diameter makes the difference.
You can push a knife through a piece of thick cardboard, but you'll likely not be able to push a gloved hand through that same cardboard.

 

[lbc_PSI]

If you haven’t tried the JSB KO MK3 .177 10gr, you might be surprised at how well they transfer energy to a pest. Not sure if they would expand at the fps you mentioned but you might be pleasantly surprised. Even if you shot them at higher velocity I suspect a flat piece of lead isn’t going to penetrate the roof material as well as a pellet that doesn’t deform on impact/pass through.

 

[JimD]

Too windy and too much boat traffic to shoot targets so I took off the 5 lb weight I had on the 177 for targets and hung up another piece of 22 gauge steel at 15 yards. I tested 10 grain knockouts first. The lowest velocity that went through was 627 fps. The highest velocity that did not go through was 564 or about 7.4 fpe. This gun prefers 12.5 grain Nielsens so I shot a few of those. The lowest velocity that went through was 594 fps. The highest velocity that didn't go through was 551 or about 8.4 fpe. I also shot some 10.65 grain H&N Match pellets. The lowest velocity that went through was 570 and the highest velocity that did not was 538 or about 6.85 fpe.

I expected 177 to penetrate the steel better than 22 but they did not. They stopped at 538-564 versus 466 for the 22. 525 in the 22 tore the sheet metal pretty good but did not go all the way through. So you might be OK at 500fps with a 177, maybe even 550 if you hit the steel at no less than 15 yards. I don't think my tests differentiated slugs from pellets. I did not shoot enough different velocities. But if there is a difference it must be 20 fps or less.

 

[67olds]

I would add much of what has been said above, I have killed pigeons with pretty low powered air guns

 

[67olds]

I agree with the 25 not penetrating as much as a 177. Even with more energy, the diameter makes the difference.
You can push a knife through a piece of thick cardboard, but you'll likely not be able to push a gloved hand through that same cardboard.

This does make logical sense, never thought about it like that.

 

[JungleShooter]

So I can attest to killing a lot of Pidgins with a lowly Red Rider at about 45 to 50 feet under Mannheim bridge as a kid.

Beerthief,
Mannheim bridge?
I played under the Mannheim bridge in my childhood.

Do you mean:
▪ original Mannheim, in Germany, founded in 1779?
▪ copied Mannheim, in the US?

Matthias


PS: Mine was the original Mannheim, 20min from Heidelberg — and the bridge was of the Neckar river.

 

[lbc_PSI]

Beerthief,
Mannheim bridge?
I played under the Mannheim bridge in my childhood.

Do you mean:
▪ original Mannheim, in Germany, founded in 1779?
▪ copied Mannheim, in the US?

Matthias


PS: Mine was the original Mannheim, 20min from Heidelberg — and the bridge was of the Neckar river.

Too windy and too much boat traffic to shoot targets so I took off the 5 lb weight I had on the 177 for targets and hung up another piece of 22 gauge steel at 15 yards. I tested 10 grain knockouts first. The lowest velocity that went through was 627 fps. The highest velocity that did not go through was 564 or about 7.4 fpe. This gun prefers 12.5 grain Nielsens so I shot a few of those. The lowest velocity that went through was 594 fps. The highest velocity that didn't go through was 551 or about 8.4 fpe. I also shot some 10.65 grain H&N Match pellets. The lowest velocity that went through was 570 and the highest velocity that did not was 538 or about 6.85 fpe.

I expected 177 to penetrate the steel better than 22 but they did not. They stopped at 538-564 versus 466 for the 22. 525 in the 22 tore the sheet metal pretty good but did not go all the way through. So you might be OK at 500fps with a 177, maybe even 550 if you hit the steel at no less than 15 yards. I don't think my tests differentiated slugs from pellets. I did not shoot enough different velocities. But if there is a difference it must be 20 fps or less.

View attachment 549521

I would be interested to see what dent or penetration results would be like after shooting through a simulated pest. Maybe a small apple? Or thin skinned tangerine (Josie’s from Trader Joe’s). The test above is great for those of us that miss all the time and I know that I never mi mu ma miss.

 

[SDellinger]

Inside a barn shooting my FX Royals around 470fps I try to get a metal beam as a back stop. I don't do headshots but aim at the center mass to keep the pass throughs down.

 

[gendoc]

for pest birds and rats in my barns, i use H&N match green 5.25gr lead free wadcutters
in my tamed Hatty SL flashpup around 600fps = 4.2 fpe
works very well with my 22 gauge metal panels and various pests

 

[JungleShooter]

I just detuned an RTI Prophet 1 to shoot Polymags at around 500fps.

In .30cal, I should probably mention (➧ 25FPE).


Does that qualify as a barn gun?

Matthias

 

[Squack]

Shooting at an angle and using a pellet like crow magnum that sheds velocity fast helps. For me, the biggest concern is ricochets.

 

[JimD]

I tried to get some data on 25 caliber today but it did not go great. I was using my Avenger. I degassed it and set the regulator to about 800 psi. It still shot too fast, everything went through. The lowest velocity I got on 25.4 grain FX was 558 fps. That is below what did not go through with the 177, however. With big 34 grain I was down to 482 fps and it zipped right through. I also shot 20.06 H&H FTTs which went 614 fps and also went right through.

The only thing this shows is that much heavier 25 caliber pellets go through at a lower velocity than much lighter 177 caliber pellets.