I know you want one, you know you want one. There are a lot of great reasons to buy an air rifle, lets have a look at them.
All the best shooters got their start with pellet pushers.
The slow recoil and low exit speeds of ‘springers’ amplify user error, when you can get it right with a spring powered gun you’ll be ahead of the game with a PCP, rim fire, or centre fire rifle.
It’s the cheapest way to practice.
From $20 a thousand, pellets are cheap and get cheaper the more you buy, they have no use-by date and take up very little space - most sizes of shoebox will hold 100,000 which will last anywhere between a long time and a lifetime.
They are the best introduction to shooting
Without the BANG and with negligible recoil, the air rifle is the perfect starting point. Just as many of us started shooting with pellet pushers, so we shall start a new generation of shooters. Personally I’ve introduced new shooters ages 8 to 56 they’ve all wanted to do it again.
You can shoot them where you can't shoot anything else
In many inner-city jurisdictions you cant hunt control pests with anything else.
Making a ‘Phutt’ rather than a ‘Bang’ they are the subtle alternative to firearms, and less provocative than using your compound bow. For example in the gun-unfriendly UK you can still practice in a suburban garden, taking squirrel, parrot and pigeons for the table right outside your kitchen window.
Pellets for Pests? Gets you hunting land
When you are asking about; trying to gain permission to hunt on farmland, an air rifle for pests tends to to get a yes on first asking, more often than a centre-fire for deer and pigs. Farmers will up-grade you later when you’ve shown your safe and you’ve offered them rabbits and / or scotch!
Easy and paperwork free
In many places they are online purchases; you’re over eighteen, you makes your choice of best air rifle for your needs, and wait [impatiently] for that exiting knock on the door.
Home customisable
There is no better (or safer) first project for the home gun-tinkerer; start with lightening the trigger, then reducing the recoil by smoothing the spring’s path, before refinishing the stock. Lot’s of fun doing the work, lots of satisfaction in the end result, and you’re creating an heirloom for pennies.
Sometimes they are the best choice
The squirrel hunters weapon of choice, a silenced PCP gives you the pellet speed you need, and is quiet enough that the bushy-tailed tree-rabbits may well stick around so you can take a second shot at one of his pals.
Low-power leads to high-skill
When you can stalk rabbits to take a lethal shot on an inch wide kill-zone at 25 yards, you are arguably more of a hunter than the fella who was escorted by a guide to shoot into the four inch circle of a game animal’s vitals at 100 yards.
You cant buy skill with money. But you can train for it with a pellet pusher!
Go on, go on, go on, you know you want to
More soon
SBW
