SharpsDressedMan
member
You Know What I'M Going To Say..........
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I would appreciate the opinion of experienced air rifle users on the best choices for the following conditions:
Power: sufficient for reliable killing with a chest hit at 30 feet
Accuracy: .5 inch at 30 feet
Noise: as quiet as possible
I am past using traps to relocate, poison corn bait, and cleaning to remove scent. It is time to individually target the few remaining problem birds.
Thank you in advance.
Nom de Forum, I understand that. I have neighbors that think it is their duty to feed every stray and feral cat that wanders into the neighborhood. I have scratches all over my vehicles, torn seats and stuff on my motorcycles. I have cat excrement all over my yard, along with the diseases that brings. I have cat urine all over everything. One day a cat got into the engine compartment of one of my vehicles and got caught in the belt when we started it. Tore up the cat, and the belt.
And yet, when I trap and take them down to the shelter, the sheriffs department gets called on me. (fortunately, we got a deputy who wasn't too stupid to understand the problem, and the neighbor was told that I was fully within my rights.) And when she sees a cat in there, I've had issues with her trespassing to let the cats out of the trap.
Most springers are machined well enough that scopes can be much more accurate than most people could ever be with iron sights.Another vote for rws 34, watch for when the neighbors not home, then mow 'em down.
On the subject of springer accuracy, they can be very accurate if you use the iron sights, not so much with a scope. There is a reason why most, if not all, the various springer makes and models have the rear sight so far forward (forward of the barrel break). Any scope mounted rearward of the rear sight is just not gonna be accurate (at least by air rifle standards) no matter how expensive the scope, because each time the barrell breaks to cock, it doesn't lock back up to the scopes 'zero'.
The .22 cal packs a wallop and the pigeon is not a small bird. Yes a .177 will kill a pigeon, but a .22 pellet will put them down with authority.
Maybe you should turn in a suggestion form that all rafters should be covered so the birds have no place to perch. Might put a few hundred thousand or even millions in your pocket.For 18 of my 20 years in the Air Force I worked in the Entomology shop (Pest Control) in Civil Engineering. We had a lot of trouble with pigeons in the hangers. Something about their crap is very hard on the aluminum in air craft. The Air Force would supply us with cheap Crossman pump up pellet rifles but I chose to purchase my own Diana 52 side stroke .177 Caliber pellet rifle with a high end pellet rifle scope that I picked up in the 1980s. With that Diana model 52 I've lost count of how many I killed in the top of those hangers. Many of the shots were 110' straight up and hitting them in the chest would drop them off the beams like a stone. The bunny huggers didn't like it but they never offered to help clean up the pigeon crap. The adjustable trigger and 1100 feet per second produced a very accurate rifle to do my work with. I started with an RWS model 48 where I cocked the barrel and with worked well but the 52 with no barrel hinge worked much more accurately.
For 18 of my 20 years in the Air Force I worked in the Entomology shop (Pest Control) in Civil Engineering. We had a lot of trouble with pigeons in the hangers. Something about their crap is very hard on the aluminum in air craft. The Air Force would supply us with cheap Crossman pump up pellet rifles but I chose to purchase my own Diana 52 side stroke .177 Caliber pellet rifle with a high end pellet rifle scope that I picked up in the 1980s. With that Diana model 52 I've lost count of how many I killed in the top of those hangers. Many of the shots were 110' straight up and hitting them in the chest would drop them off the beams like a stone. The bunny huggers didn't like it but they never offered to help clean up the pigeon crap. The adjustable trigger and 1100 feet per second produced a very accurate rifle to do my work with. I started with an RWS model 48 where I cocked the barrel and with worked well but the 52 with no barrel hinge worked much more accurately.