My son in law is giving me a pretty potent air rifle for my birthday.
I have two already, one was quite good while it lasted - a pump gun. The other is and always was a piece of doodoo - breakbarrel you could buy at Target for under $100.
Now here’s the part about the new gun I ned explained. The mfr’s blurb says, in part:
At 1110fps in .177 (750 mps), this rifle propels pellets at .22 rim-fire velocities! This tremendous power is generated by the use of a very robust spring piston power plant cocked by a side lever action.
Can you describe what “…cocked by a side lever action” entails? I think I get it, but maybe not. I get the feeling it’s going to be one hell of a tug to cock it.
I can’t answer your question directly. Though this may give you a bit of insite.
I have a Diana model 34. A break barrel. It is rated at 1000 fps. This is probably a much more powerful weapon that was bought at target for under $100.
Look at some of these There is an under lever gun there. I suspect it may be similar to a side lever gun.
One thing to note is that on a break barrel, the sites are closer together. On the under lever, the sites can sit farther apart. I suspect the same is true for a side lever.
I am in no way an expert with air guns. But I have been shooting .22s for nearly 40 years. I can’t hit a thing with the break barrel gun. I suspect that I am expecting too much from it. A pop can at 75 feet about 50% of the time. From a bench. I’ve given up on it.
But I digress. The cocking of a break barrel for 1000 fps is really not a big deal. I suspect that the side cock may even be easier.
I’m intrigued by the side-cock (= side lever?) design. I assume there’s a lever that’s hinged so that it swings out to the left or right of the gun. But I can’t see any hint of such mechanism in the pictures I’ve seen. I’m curious how long the lever is, where it sits at rest, how one accesses/grips it, etc.
Could someone be kind enough to provide a description, better yet illustrations, of just how these work?
Not being a gun person, I didn’t notice that until you mentioned it.
Not a real hunter at all, I’ll use the 48 just to shoot squirrels and coons on my property. A few years back I culled them to acceptable levels and now they’re back to way-too-many.
Is there any connection to your alpine-backward user name and your living in the Rockies?
Visualize standing, with the gun pointed at the ground. You would need to reach down and grasp the cocking level and pull it upwards. The amount of force is equal to if you were lifting a 39 pound weight. Thats about the weight of a case of bottled beer.
Note that 1100fps in a .17 is about standard for a “hunting” pellet rilfe, they get even faster. I have seen them up to 1500 fps.
However, 1100fps in a .17 is about 800fps in the somewhat rare .22 cal pellet rifles (the same model different caliber) so it isn’t really quite .22 long rifle deadly-ness.
But do be careful, none-the-less.
I have seen a 9mm air rifle that was desgined to hunt small game.
I have a Chinese made SKS air rifle that was a military surplus item used for training purposes (saved on ammo) that is also a side lever cocking gun. A metal lever around a foot long or so originates from the back of the action and runs parallel to the stock right about even with the breech. Pulling the lever towards the back of the gun compresses a spring and opens the top loading breech in one motion. A single .177 pellet is then inserted into the back of the barrel, and the lever is swung forward to close the breech and allow firing. 1000 fps was what it could do new, but it’s probably closer to 900 now. It’s pretty powerful and since it was made sans any safety whatsoever it’s not something for everyone.
I pulled it out to write this post and noticed that the rear ramp sight has fallen off somehow. Need to get this puppy to the gunsmith. Thanks for bringing this up so I can dust of a favorite childhood plinker.
-PS- The lever is a real bitch to cock back. When I got it around age 13 I struggled to be able to cock it. A grown man would have little problem, but it’s certainly a surprising amount of effort to compress that spring.
I, myself would not use such a gun on raccoons or squirrels. If you hit it, you are very likely to injure it but not kill it. But, the injury could cause a long and slow death. Please don’t shoot at anything unless you are sure you can kill it. Fast.
We have a bear problem where I live. And we take the appropriate measures to make our property less enticing to them. I have shot in there general direction a few times with large weapons to scare them off.
I use the big guns because banging pots and pans together does not always work, and I do want a certain amount of protection for myself. I don’t want my obit to read like I was trying to cook a live bear.
“What was left of enipla was found among a nice sauce pan and a skillet”.
I always leave myself a way out (car, house). And just in case, a .356 Marlin. Black bears are timid, but they can also rip doors off of sheds, and in a recent case, go right through a garage door.
I understand that shooting a 30.06 or some such is frowned upon in many neighborhoods :). But, remember, in many cases we are in the critters neighborhood, not the other way around.
Yes. enipla is alpine backwards. My wife and I live about 1/2 mile from the continental divide. 11,200 feet at our home. Alpine is also the name of my last dear departed dog.
With my older Sheridan pump gun Model 397PA, I killed 6-7 racoons. Dropped 'em dead in their tracks, in fact. The few times I merely wounded one, I was able to get off a killing shot right after. (Several of those pests live beneath our backyard deck, unfortunately.)
And I must have knocked off 40 squirrels. No exaggeration.
I think my forthcoming Model 48 is as powerful - or maybe even more powerful - than the Sheridan. But if this proves not to be the case, then I’ll shoot just squirrels. I promise.
The biggest problem is disposing of the stinking coon corpses. Any suggestions?
Burning, unless there is a dead pile at you local dump. I guess that you could just leave them in ditches along rural roads, but that may be against the law even though they are biodegradable.
40 Squirrels might seem like I’m stretching it a bit, but I’m not.
I put out sunflower seeds for our backyeard birds, using a couple of feeders and I also strew some on the ground for ground feeders.
Ground feeding drew squirrels, of course,which was ok, until one morning I counted 13 squirrels and no birds eating the seeds. So, then I got a pump gun, and for 2 weeks, picked off 3 to 4 squirrels a day.
We have a resident hawk and a couple of owls in the immediate vicinity, but they don’t seem to help in keeping the rodent population down. In fact, the hawk caught on to my routine and would simply wait high up in a tree until he saw I killed one, and he’d then swoop down to claim the bounty. lol
