DammitBoy said
"I've seen claims in advertising for these modern air rifles that you can take deer and wild boar with them. I'd be interested to know if anybody here has any experience hunting medium sized game with any kind of air rifle. Wouldn't a suppressed .22 rifle achieve the same goal?
Hope you don't mean Gamo. In my opinion they have the most irresponsible advertising in the business. IMO their shots on hogs with .22 springers look staged. I wonder if those hogs actually died from the shot, and how many hogs they had to shoot with that springer to get footage of one that appeared to die from the shot.
Haven't taken any deer with my tuned Sam Yang .454 (yet), but I have taken nutria, an exotic ram, a wild boar, and coyote with it so far. Hoping to get a bobcat before this fur season is over.
My friends that have killed deer with theirs say the deer run about 20-40 yards, tip over, and die from a broadside double lung shot.
My 909 has been power-tuned, and get 4 shots between 693, and 699fps, with a fifth shot about 25fps slower when shooting 240grain slugs (about 260fpe), and shoots under 1 inch c-to-c at 50yards off of my steady stix. That easily equals four dead deer off of one airfill. Roundball, and 154grain EPP/UG's go 860fps.
Personally, I feel FPE matters little as far as killing power is concerned until you get more towards 1000fpe. As long as the slug is heavy enough, and going fast enough to completely penetrate the animal, that is going to do the job with a well-placed shot to the heart/lungs. They will run a bit, but just a bit.
The Sam Yang 909S can be tuned to put out 350-370+fpe, but will give you two power shots, with a finisher or two at that power level.
You can cast a roundball using a mold, and whatever pure lead you can get over a campfire like they did in the old west, and refill the reservoir on the gun with a special handpump.
If you want to see a state-of-the-art bigbore airgun that puts out between 575fpe (with the regular valve) and 700+fpe (with the hi-power valve), check out the .452 Gargoyle.
Click the first link for a slideshow. The second link is my buddy showing a coconut who's boss with his power-tuned Sam Yang 909 shooting a 205grain slug. I don't think a .45ACP would blow it up any better than that.
http://s181.photobucket.com/albums/x65/butcher45/?action=view¤t=c184e37f.pbw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VYjW-577ls