Air Rifle Calibre Advice

[Scythe13]

What Mort says is spot on. Finding .20 pellets isn't the easiest of tasks.

What if you're out and a friend only has .22's with him? Personally, for post SHTF, I'm going with 100% ammo as .22 pellets. There are so many reasons for this. Yes it will have about 5 meters less distance, and a more curved trajectory. But if my rifle is zeroed at 25 meters, whether it's .22 or .177, it's still zeroed at 25 meters.

Whether I shoot a .177 or a .22 pellet, when I get a good clean kill shot on a rabbit, I have struggled to see which pellet has made the bunny deader than the other. A well places shot, from a .22 or .177, will result in a killed quarry.

In my personal experience, I'd rather hunt with a .177 in a nice clean, open, perfect condition situation. The top of the trajectory curve is much smoother and that makes it more forgiving for inaccuracies with range calculations.

In not ideal circumstances, as a way to compensate for my lack of .177 experience in bad conditions, I prefer to use a .22 pellet. The reason is that a small breeze is less likely to nudge it off course. The shorter distances I shoot in those conditions means I am much more unlikely to take a longer shot with the .22 which invariably means I'm stalking more, shooting from closer, with a heavier pellet, all of which means the pellet is more likely to go where I want it to.

With a .177 however, I am less experienced, and so I am currently unable to accurately adjust for any negative weather above a breeze.

We do plan to adjust all our gear for just .22 rounds though.