Good rabbit hunting gun?-suggestions

11 posts

I live in the uk and i'm new to shooting and own a petty chinese break barrel pistol and am looking to upgrade to a small rifle or powerful pistol that can do the job of taking out rabbits from 15m - 25m. I have a rather small to medium budget of around £90 max. Looked at various rifles and a few pistols like the Weihrauch hw45 (found one on ebay for £40 but got removed from the site), crosman american classic and a range of weihrauch rifles.

Has any one got any suggestions on good guns?

From Home Counties, 79 posts

I would bung my budget up to about 115 - 120 and get a BSA meteor with a 4x20 scope. I wouldnt hunt past 20 yards however as the meteors power is only around the 8 ftlb mark.

Happy Hunting

From Leicestershire, 38 posts

Originally posted by danco1987 on 25 May 2004 5:10 PM
yeah i'm gonna do the same, been bigging up this rubbish smk s2 pistol for hunting but after all that i'm gonna admit it, this gun is rubbish, to say the least. Sorry to all those people I argued with and said this gun was the best hunting tool, well its far from it. Anyway, I've looked at a range of rifles. Been trying my friends b2.22 rifle with a smk 4x20 scope and thats a great gun power wise and not bad accuracy and well with your budget - around £45 depending on where you get it. Also for £70 a Crosman 1377c looks good and a crossman forum I visited has recommended it for close range rabbiting reaching powers of 6ft/lbs (UK legal limit).

Ohh.. good grief!
Not the faintest twinkle of hope is there.

Coffey,
Get a rifle (not a pistol)but I think you will need to put aside a slightly higher budget. Neil's suggestion was not a bad one.
To get a clean and humane kill you need 1)consistant accuracy of the gun 2) consistant accuracy of the shooter - so practice with targets 3) sufficient muzzle energy.
If you can't achieve all three, leave the bunnies alone.
Best Regards,
Steven

1 post

JESUS H CHRIST!
Hunting rabbits with pistols? Are you insane boy?????
a pistol has only enough power to wound a rabbit- it can take several shots to dispatch a rat. But even to suggest using that smk? jeez what have you been smoking?
if you are really so keen to use that gun to try to kill a rabbit, then go and turn yourself over to the ploice/rspca, and do the rest of us a favour- its suggestions like that which give us airgun users a bad name, and get us banned from practicing our sport.

From Home Counties, 79 posts

Ohh.. good grief!
Not the faintest twinkle of hope is there.

Steven,
give Danco some credit. He is starting to see the light! lol

Thanks for the vote of confidence on the Meteor suggestion. And I cant agree more on the 3 points you made.

Danco
apology excepted. but please consider a better rifle than the £45 chinese take away!!!

Coffey
Number 2 on stevens list is the hardest to achieve. Thats why the meteor is a good choice. Its light, easy to handle and its quite accurate.

Once youve mastered these points Field craft and a quality full power rifle are your next targets. But thats in the future, Dont worry about that now.

Happy Hunting

From Home Counties, 79 posts

Ravenskull your comment has been made before by me and others. And he is starting to see th light.

Incidently my last post was not supposed to be a quote!

From Uk, 52 posts

Forget hunting with pistols there only good for toppling cans. You will have to raise your budget a little before you buy a gun that is capable of hunting go for an Airgun sport sr2 it comes with a 3-9#40 scope and mounts foe £140

95 posts

Like NeilM, I think the Meteor Mk6 probably your best bet. At under 9 ft/lbs he's also right about limiting your effective range to about 15/20 metres. At 20 metres the kinetic energy of the pellet will still be about 6.5 ft/lbs, but after that it falls away very quickly. Don't be tempted by the higher FPS of the .177, go for the .22 if what you're hunting has fur. I had an early Meteor many years ago and I remember it as being quite accurate. You won't be getting sub 0.5 inch one hole groups, but you should certainly be able to get 1 inch groups without too much trouble. And that's good enough for reliable head or heart shots. Enjoy your shooting, and having bought a decent budget gun, it'll still be worth something when you trade up.

From UK, 9 posts

I honesty you aren't really being fair on the poor old bunnies even with that mate. I shoot loads of bunnies and it is always my intention to use the most powerful, accurate gun available. Been using an Original 52 until recently, bang on the 12 ftlb limit but just bought a couple of Webley Axsor pre charged air rifles as they seem to group so much better. You will be surprised how difficult it is to be disciplined enough to only shoot what is in range and unless you are a pretty mean stalker or have a cage full of bunnies to go at you ain't going to get close enough to many to dispatch them cleanly. All of my air rifles will put a pellet right through the head of a rabbit at 35 yards.

Sorry to sound negative but killing things, even pest species, is serious business IMHO.

Why don't you get some ferrets, they are great fun too.

From England, 63 posts

Don't get a bsa meteor their rubbish
up ur budget to about £115 and get a cometa 300
has a 12ftlbs power level (uk)
not a match grade rifle but good enought for hunting/plinking
what ever u do don't i repeat don't get a pistol
good luck and happy hunting