mice - is 450 fps/ .177/ 5.1 gr steel bb enough?

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Texan Scott

Member
Joined
May 2, 2012
Messages
3,184
Location
The Texas Hill Country
Title says it.

Using a 650 FPS single-shot pump to suppliment traps for rodent control (my cats are fairly useless).

A co2 repeater with a laser pointer would be quicker into action and possibly more accurate) or at least faster to aim accurately) but I worry that their stated 480 FPS (real world a bit less) might not do it.

Or will it? Odd question, but does anyone have experience shooting mice at close range?
 
I'd recommend against the BBs unless you have some kind of soft backstop. They ricochet like crazy. Pellets usually have much better terminal effect and also are MUCH less likely to come back at you if they hit something hard.

Mice are very small and not that tough. I would think that a pellet at 450fps would be pretty hard on one. Rats? That's an entirely different story.
 
I would shoot mice in the basement with my target air rifle. I think you will find that lead pellets are much better than BB's for the reasons pointed out above. Also a repeater is not really needed as you rarely get multiple shots.

My technique would be to darken the basement accept for one light (dim) above my desired backstop. I would put out a flat upside down paper plate and put a dab of peanut butter on it. Now get back in a corner (I could move back about 15 m) and get into a good stable prone or sitting position. Line up your shot and wait. Normally the mice would come out quickly. 2 to 3 minutes or so. I would let them get set and then take a head shot and they would DRT. Normally you can tag four or five mice at a session before they would get skittish and you would have to clean up the carcasses and reset the trap.

The problem toward the end is usually getting a good clean shot. Body shots are bad as they tend to run off and die somewhere and stink. You want to drop them right on the spot with a head shot.

Having compared mechanical traps (commonly trapping the animal with a a wound and not actually killing them), poison (they go off and die in the walls and stink) and sticky traps (starve to death squeaking the whole time), I find a precision air rifle shot the most humane way of dealing with an infestation.

When we would get field rats in, I would move up to the Sheridan or 22CB caps in my Winchester 52. That was pretty rare though, but the mice was a yearly thing as the winter set in.
 
What's wrong with traps? They're far more effective... just not as fun. Resetting traps is boring and disgusting but they catch way more rodents. Just put out more traps and maintain them. Keep a map of where they're all placed. ;)
 
I use rat shot in my 22 but I used to use a old knock off red ryder. But regular BB worked for me. Not that we have rodents on the regular. But I have had my share of bouts with rats and mice. Rat shot is best in my experience.
 
I often use a Tempest pistol shooting between 3 and 3.4ftlbs for rats, and being several times the size of a mouse I'd say your co2 gun or a Daisy Red Ryder would be fine for mice.
I've also used my 22 rimfire many times for night hunting because when using Aguila Colibri ammo it's extremely quiet. Something to consider if you have a .22. With "Texan" in your name you were probably born with a 22. I use a Marlin with a 22" barrel because it's quieter than a shorter one, and with the micro groove barrel makes more power. Not Super Colibri, but plain Colibri which is harder to find. The super works too, but they're louder. Being quiet is the whole point of the ammo but it all depends on what your needs are. Just a thought I threw in. I agree what others say about BB's "You'll shoot your eye out!" I've been hit by all kinds of ricochets, but BBs by far and away hold the record for % of getting hit to shots fired. I'd use lead for sure, but if BB's then use safety glasses.
Also what lobo said about rat shot, which I assume he means .22 shotshells, like those blue plastic tipped ones from CCI which are out frikking standing for shooting mice, rats, and even very good on bats. Very short range ammo, but I recommend you try them.
 
I think if I really wanted to shoot mice I'd buy some light load .410 bore shot shell and replace the lead shot with rock salt. For rats, I'd use #9 or smaller lead shot.
 
Actually, I've been using steel bbs to good effect. (No ricochets unless I miss). Thing is, there's a lot of stuff in my kitchen and laundry that wouldn't react well to pellets, bullets, or lead shot.

Don't really need the co2 for follow-up shots ... just takes too long to pump & load a single shot pump rifle when I need it NOW.
 
^^^ The OP didn't mention he'd be shooting indoors. I wouldn't shoot anything indoors for rodent control... not even a BB gun or pellet gun.;)
 
He did in a later post.
Thing is, there's a lot of stuff in my kitchen and laundry that wouldn't react well to pellets, bullets, or lead shot.
Click to expand...
I've done a significant amount of my airgun shooting indoors. Albeit with an adequate backstop.
 
:confused:

You posted at 5:32pm that he wasn't shooting indoors, he posted the comment about his kitchen and laundry at 4:01pm, over an hour and a half earlier.
 
^^^ Look again... but this is my last post on that.

I would only use traps indoors. With cats around I wouldn't use poison.
 
Texan Scott @ 04:01PM said:
Actually, I've been using steel bbs to good effect. (No ricochets unless I miss). Thing is, there's a lot of stuff in my kitchen and laundry that wouldn't react well to pellets, bullets, or lead shot.
Don't really need the co2 for follow-up shots ... just takes too long to pump & load a single shot pump rifle when I need it NOW.
Click to expand...
Mike1234567 @ 05:32 PM said:
^^^ The OP didn't mention he'd be shooting indoors. I wouldn't shoot anything indoors for rodent control... not even a BB gun or pellet gun.
Click to expand...
Is there something showing up differently on your view of this thread???
 
Cleaning pellets are like a dry fire so you shouldn't do it in a springer unless used with a pellet. I've shot indoors at rats and mice many times, springer rifle and pistol, co2 pistol, and that colibri 22 ammo I mentioned.
Someone mentioned trapping, but shooting is so much more fun. I've spent many nights on the prowl (outdoors) which is just as fun as hunting anything else. That and watching TV or wherever inside with a pistol waiting for that movement to catch your eye.
Rats and Mice: Autonomous lead receptacle devices for use with an ETS (energy transfer system). Transfers the energy cocking the gun into his little vermin body. Unfortunately for the device this creates a very short energy spike which exceeds the specifications of the unit thus rendering it inoperable.
 
Cleaning pellets are like a dry fire so you shouldn't do it in a springer unless used with a pellet.
Click to expand...
I've seen sources that indicate it's ok as long as you use more than one--up to three for a powerful sporter.
 
Well, not really. It's best to use with a pellet. Ideally you should (imo) put one lead pellet in backwards, then the cleaning pellet, followed by another lead pellet. Preferably round nose pellets. Aside from having the weight you need it will also smash the cleaner pellet pushing it outwards for a good scrubbing :)
Without the weight there the piston slams harder than normal like a dry fire. Sure you can do it, and even dry fire the gun if you want, but it puts undue stress on the gun, and mainly the scope and its mounts. And of course the more powerful the gun the worse it is. A lead pellet not only has the weight to let pressure build, but also the skirt acts like a cork holding out for more pressure. The more the chamber pressure the softer the piston impact.
If I was worried about shooting lead in the house I would switch to alloy pellets or even plastic pellets. Alloy can be harder on the gun than lead, and plastic harder than alloy, but they both beat a cleaning pellet.
Cleaning pellets for mice isn't good either, the have killing power at very short range, but they peter out extremely fast and are not accurate. I tried them to shoot holes in cardboard before which they can do within say a foot, but then at say five feet they can't even break paper. Don't hold me to those ranges because it was decades ago, I just remember it was extremely short.
 
I certainly agree with the general principle that too little resistance is not good for a spring piston (gas or metal spring) gun because the gun depends on the compressed air to cushion the piston as it slams the end of the chamber.

That is the rationale behind using more than one cleaning pellet since a single cleaning pellet doesn't provide enough resistance. I have a couple of cleaning pellet brands on hand. RWS states that they don't really recommend using the shoot-through method but that if it is employed more than one pellet should be used. They primarily recommend using the cleaning pellets as an alternative to patches--pushing them through the bore with a rod.

The material with the Beeman pellets recommends 2 pellets for pistols and 3 for rifles when using the shoot-through method. Their material doesn't mention using the pellets for push-through cleaning.

Just out of curiosity, I weighed some cleaning pellets. It turns out they have an average weight of 0.7 grains. That's much lighter than I expected.

That probably doesn't tell the whole story because it's been my experience that they are significantly harder to load into the bore than a typical lead pellet. So a little bit of what they lack in weight they probably make up for in bore resistance. I don't have a good way to measure bore resistance, so that's mostly speculation.

It is possible to add weight by oil soaking one or more of the pellets. An oil-soaked .177 cleaning pellet weighs about 2.4 grains--now 3 of them will weigh 7.2 grains and 2 will weigh 4.8 grains. That's in the right general neighborhood (albeit a little bit light in the case of the two cleaning pellets) in terms of pellet weight for a .177 gun.

I think you're probably on the right track in terms of not recommending the pellets (even with multiple pellets loaded) for any kind of routine shooting. Especially if they are shot dry, they're a lot lighter than a typical pellet and will stress the gun.

However, for an occasional quick & dirty cleaning job, I wouldn't feel badly about using multiple cleaning pellets at once (especially with one or more of the pellets oil soaked) with the shoot-through technique.

I'm glad this came up. I hadn't ever bothered weighing the cleaning pellets before. I don't think I'll ever shoot them dry again, regardless of what the enclosed material suggests.
Ideally you should (imo) put one lead pellet in backwards, then the cleaning pellet, followed by another lead pellet.
Click to expand...
This should create tremendously more resistance/friction than a normal pellet. It is my understanding that too much bore resistance in a metal spring gun can cause a more abrupt piston rebound than normal which may eventually kink or break the spring--sort of the same kind of damage that dieseling can cause since it's the same basic mechanical cause. It should not be an issue in a gas spring/nitro piston gun.
 
Chevota said:
Cleaning pellets are like a dry fire so you shouldn't do it in a springer unless used with a pellet. I've shot indoors at rats and mice many times, springer rifle and pistol, co2 pistol, and that colibri 22 ammo I mentioned.
Someone mentioned trapping, but shooting is so much more fun. I've spent many nights on the prowl (outdoors) which is just as fun as hunting anything else. That and watching TV or wherever inside with a pistol waiting for that movement to catch your eye.
Rats and Mice: Autonomous lead receptacle devices for use with an ETS (energy transfer system). Transfers the energy cocking the gun into his little vermin body. Unfortunately for the device this creates a very short energy spike which exceeds the specifications of the unit thus rendering it inoperable.
Click to expand...

Yes I know but so-o-o-o-o-o ineffective compared to... traps that are... everywhere... all the time. By all means shoot if you want... in addition to the traps. Make a game of it and try to plink them dead before they find a trap.;)
 
Still it's so simple to add a lead pellet behind a cleaner. Two pellets don't hurt anything, that theory is complete bs imo, no idea where it started. You can experiment by blocking the breech completely and the gun will be smoother and quieter than you ever thought possible. Heavier pellets are a step in that direction, lighter pellets are a step closer to dryfire. Besides, there's no need to use cleaning pellets anyway, they don't come close to a cleaning patch. Imo the old saying applies here: "There are two kinds of fishing lures, the kind that catch fish, and the kind that catch fishermen." I think cleaning pellets are the latter. I have a box of them that are so loose they couldn't possibly work even if you stacked 10 of them. They'd need to be very tight to both work, tight enough that you'd probably need a tool to insert them. As for shooting one shot being no big deal, for the gun yes, for the scope I'd say no. Imo most scopes are often on the verge of breaking as it is, one dryfire could do it, or start its failure. I don't put scopes on until I've tuned a gun and so far so good, no failures. Any broken scopes I have came that way on an untuned gun.

rondog: I was arrested for that once, not a good idea.

Mike: I can't say about mice, but rats quickly learn not to go near traps. With rats I may get a few with traps at first, but shooting always works and I get more in an hour than traps will in a month.
The two times I had mouse problems I could catch them by hand or shoot with equal ease. Catching a dozen or more in five min was easy. I never tried to trap those, would've been too much work. Only time I've trapped mice was when I had one or two that I never saw. Got one now actually, trap has been out for months, he won't touch it.
 
Still it's so simple to add a lead pellet behind a cleaner.
Click to expand...
Sure, but with 3 oil soaked pellets, the weight is right in the range for a normal lead pellet. There should be little to no impact if weight is the primary issue.
I have a box of them that are so loose they couldn't possibly work even if you stacked 10 of them.
Click to expand...
Well, I can't claim to be an expert on all brands of cleaning pellets--I've only had experience with 2 or 3 brands. If all the cleaning pellets I had encountered were very loose, I would probably share your opinion. All the ones I've used were such a tight fit that it was significantly more difficult to get them loaded into the chamber than to load a normal lead pellet.
...that theory is complete bs imo, no idea where it started.
Click to expand...
The first person I know who noted and publicized the issue was Russ Best, an airgunsmith. He noted a trend and began tracking data associated with spring-piston guns which broke springs. He noted that broken springs were overwhelmingly less common in guns which were shot with midweight pellets, as opposed to pellets that were on the heavier end of the scale for the caliber.

I suppose one could explain that away as a coincidence (in spite of the large volume of springers that Best had exposure to) but it also makes perfect sense from the standpoint that an abrupt stop/reversal of the piston is what causes spring damage in a dieseling springer. Admittedly dieseling creates a much more abrupt stop/reversal (it also causes much more rapid spring breakage)--but the basic theory is exactly the same.
You can experiment by blocking the breech completely and the gun will be smoother and quieter than you ever thought possible.
Click to expand...
I'm sure that is correct (assuming that it doesn't cause dieseling--which is a distinct possibility as the result of blocking the breech). You are eliminating all the muzzle blast and therefore reducing the discharge noise by at least 30%. That's not any evidence at all that it's good for the gun.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think is responsible for spring breakage in a gun that is dieseling?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top