Other Why so expensive?

[karl_h]

I disagree. No airgun provides the shock needed to kill a hog or big deer effectively with a lung shot at any range. Nether will they effectively break bone. The projectiles and velocity just aren't enough to create the shock. Anyone who understands how a bullet works recognizes this.

It's just a fantasy that guys chase. A bad shot with an airgun is a lost animal. Period. And anyone who has taken larger game with an airgun knows that.

Guys want to believe they have some power in their hands. In my experience they always overestimate. Even when shooting a 7mm mag. Experience has taught me that. This is a textbook case.

Well I kind of agree and disagree with you at the same time. Going back to the 70's, my first several years hunting whitetails up to 240lbs or so, were all with subsonic, hard cast SWC's, out of revolvers, no optics. SWC hard cast bullets cut the entry into a deer just like a paper target, hit in the lower third, through both lungs and you will have at worst a reasonable blood trail, more often than not better than just reasonable. 98+% will drop while still leaving a blood trail, easy recovery, some will go until trail is very thin before dropping. The rare ones will run at 100% speed until the brain shuts down from lack of oxygen, those the blood trail often completely stops before deer drops, you either get lucky finding, are a great tracker like 1 in 10million great, have access to a good trailing dog.... or sol. But the exact same thing happens with high power rifles on double lung shots, which is all I will take. Worse thing you can do is hit one in the heart with a high power rifle, no blood pumping, thin blood trail that ends quick, and if it took off at a 100% run, it can go over 300 yards easy before dropping. I've seen it happen many times over the decades, one time to me and I didn't even get a starting blood trail because a thumb size piece of heart totally sealed the low exit hole, and entrance was high. I recovered that deer because I was on ground I knew like the back of my hand, it was way over 200 yards straight line from where shot, it's path running, knowing the ground, was in the 300 yard range. Know your anatomy, your skill, no 100 yard subsonic shots, limit to 50 max and you should be good with a cut on impact slug, double lung, passthrough and 99% of the time you should be fine, which puts you way over the average hunting statistics by miles. There is the rare time a calm feeding deer will time a quick large move just as the sear is breaking, been there done that with a 444 marlin roughly 40 yard shot, stuff happens, bad outcome is a higher probability. I really should park that 444 or change the bullet I use(easy since they stopped making that bullet nearly 20 years ago and I have 4 loaded rounds left, speer 170gr deep curl), in terms of hard recoveries of deer, it accounts for the vast majority of the ones I've had in my life. That 444 also at the same time has the highest percentage of DRT deer of any rifle but one. I have one rifle that is 100% DRT at short range(all I've ever used it for), but I only use it and that load for pest/damage deer that I don't want traveling across property lines. Double lung with that rifle literally destroys over 30% of the meat on every deer I shot with it, they just drop, one made 2 wobbly steps, all others straight to ground. Definitely not a hunting load I use in it, although it is sold as one it acts like a varmint bullet on a gopher from a 22-250 when used on deer at close range. I think the longest shot I ever made with it was maybe 35 yards top.

My 50 yard max subsonic rule came several years after I started hunting. Crop damage shooting one day, 3 out of 20 calm feeding deer suddenly made a large fast movement as the sear broke, poor placement on deer resulted and made me think what would happen with the way I hunted with my revolvers, hence my 50 yard rule, knowing even that could get bad, everyone draws their line somewhere. Before that, I had dropped several deer cleanly over 100 yards with open sight revolvers and subsonic. FYI, I never once missed a ram(200 meters) in centerfire handgun silhouette competition, failed to have them drop which is a zero score, but never missed in the years I competed, strange I would almost always miss a chicken, mental problem I think since it should be a slam dunk shot. Hate the sound of hitting steel silhouette and it not dropping. Hate my eyes and muscle condition suck so bad I would be happy to hit a ram 1 in 10 today shooting by the rules, forget about knocking over most of the hits.

 

[Bedrock Bob]

Well I kind of agree and disagree with you at the same time. Going back to the 70's, my first several years hunting whitetails up to 240lbs or so, were all with subsonic, hard cast SWC's, out of revolvers, no optics. SWC hard cast bullets cut the entry into a deer just like a paper target, hit in the lower third, through both lungs and you will have at worst a reasonable blood trail, more often than not better than just reasonable. 98+% will drop while still leaving a blood trail, easy recovery, some will go until trail is very thin before dropping. The rare ones will run at 100% speed until the brain shuts down from lack of oxygen, those the blood trail often completely stops before deer drops, you either get lucky finding, are a great tracker like 1 in 10million great, have access to a good trailing dog.... or sol. But the exact same thing happens with high power rifles on double lung shots, which is all I will take. Worse thing you can do is hit one in the heart with a high power rifle, no blood pumping, thin blood trail that ends quick, and if it took off at a 100% run, it can go over 300 yards easy before dropping. I've seen it happen many times over the decades, one time to me and I didn't even get a starting blood trail because a thumb size piece of heart totally sealed the low exit hole, and entrance was high. I recovered that deer because I was on ground I knew like the back of my hand, it was way over 200 yards straight line from where shot, it's path running, knowing the ground, was in the 300 yard range. Know your anatomy, your skill, no 100 yard subsonic shots, limit to 50 max and you should be good with a cut on impact slug, double lung, passthrough and 99% of the time you should be fine, which puts you way over the average hunting statistics by miles. There is the rare time a calm feeding deer will time a quick large move just as the sear is breaking, been there done that with a 444 marlin roughly 40 yard shot, stuff happens, bad outcome is a higher probability. I really should park that 444 or change the bullet I use(easy since they stopped making that bullet nearly 20 years ago and I have 4 loaded rounds left, speer 170gr deep curl), in terms of hard recoveries of deer, it accounts for the vast majority of the ones I've had in my life. That 444 also at the same time has the highest percentage of DRT deer of any rifle but one. I have one rifle that is 100% DRT at short range(all I've ever used it for), but I only use it and that load for pest/damage deer that I don't want traveling across property lines. Double lung with that rifle literally destroys over 30% of the meat on every deer I shot with it, they just drop, one made 2 wobbly steps, all others straight to ground. Definitely not a hunting load I use in it, although it is sold as one it acts like a varmint bullet on a gopher from a 22-250 when used on deer at close range. I think the longest shot I ever made with it was maybe 35 yards top.

My 50 yard max subsonic rule came several years after I started hunting. Crop damage shooting one day, 3 out of 20 calm feeding deer suddenly made a large fast movement as the sear broke, poor placement on deer resulted and made me think what would happen with the way I hunted with my revolvers, hence my 50 yard rule, knowing even that could get bad, everyone draws their line somewhere. Before that, I had dropped several deer cleanly over 100 yards with open sight revolvers and subsonic. FYI, I never once missed a ram(200 meters) in centerfire handgun silhouette competition, failed to have them drop which is a zero score, but never missed in the years I competed, strange I would almost always miss a chicken, mental problem I think since it should be a slam dunk shot. Hate the sound of hitting steel silhouette and it not dropping. Hate my eyes and muscle condition suck so bad I would be happy to hit a ram 1 in 10 today shooting by the rules, forget about knocking over most of the hits.

I plead ignorance.

I didn't know the capabilities of the giant PCP air rifles when I wrote that post. Now I know better.

If a guy really knows his weapon and his game he can do about anything. Airguns on big game are a specialized hunt just like muzzleloader and bow or pistol hunting. You really need to know your gun and how to handle a bad shot. But it can be done.

....

We were talking high end airguns. I simply pointed out that PCP's bridged a gap between air rifles and powder guns. A reasonably priced powderburner would be much less expensive and more suitable for big game than any high end PCP.

It took a turn off topic and I was asked to stop. I want to respect that.

In relation to the price of high end PCP's they are something to behold up to a certain point. But they loose their utility and value for me when they try to compete with a powderburner. Much of that is because of the high initial cost. For someone else they may be just fantastic.

 

[karl_h]

We were talking high end airguns. I simply pointed out that PCP's bridged a gap between air rifles and powder guns. A reasonably priced powderburner would be much less expensive and more suitable for big game than any high end PCP.

I know we talk about pcp's on this site, but a subsonic chunk of lead is a subsonic chunk of lead no matter what propels it. I have taken a couple deer with a big bore PCP, did it just to be different. Won't use it again, it is too awkward, too long, large temp swings where I hunt are normal which plays havoc on pressure, huge pain in the arse in general. I used a heavy SWC in it, both deer while hunting recovered short trails, good blood, both shot double lung, low entry, both trotted off fast, not running and slowed very quickly. They all were on the short side of tracking, I actually only tracked two for practice, heard both go down and knew exactly where they were so didn't need to track except to stay in practice. One of those two I hit maybe couple inches higher than I normally would to avoid low branch. Start of his blood trail was a little thinner than I'm used to, but no problem, 30 yards into his semi-circle run around back to ridge he started on, blood trail was fine. He went over the ridge, I already knew he was at base of hill from hearing him crash and stay down.

I also shot one not hunting with pcp, damaging my property well within distance of house that makes it legal where i live to kill it out of season, no other deer in years has thought to eat those bushes, just that one 6pt wanted to eat all new branches, 3rd day straight of eating totallling about 50% of all new growth that year I took him down. I know people will say should build a fence to protect stuff you plant that deer may harm, F that. Costs money, is ugly, and takes more time and maintenence, and cutting grasss around it is annoying.