Air Gun Home :: View topic - New guy with new airgun hunting raccoons.

SEE IT LIKE A NATIVE · New Member

Hello guys ! I just started shooting airguns and have a Beeman sportsman rs1 -- in .177 cal ! claimed velocity is 1000 fps I am not sure what weight pellet that is with !
I recently was requested to help a friend with a Racoon problem the range is usually 50 ft or less and I am trying to stick to head shots only ! I have recently aquired a supply of eunjin 16 grain .177 cal pellets ! I am wondering what kind a velocity /energy numbers I can expect with the 16 grain pellets ? I test fired a few of these pellets into a target taped to a sheet of 1/2 inch thick plywood and they passed completly through and left dents in the steel door behind it ! I am thinking these will be a good performer on racoons even if I have to go to heart/lung shots ! any advice or comments are welcome ! Kevin

broommaster2000 · Moderator

For starters, Welcome aboard!

Second, never use caps-lock. Wink

Now, for raccoon hunting I'm not sure if it's to be recommended to shoot em with .177 pellets, even if you have plenty of power. Your rifle just might do a lot less then that advertised 1000 with the right pellets.

Read around on the forum what other people use for raccoons. I think you'll find some info around these hunting, pest control and varminting subjects.

sniper · Silver Status Member

pellets that heavy are intended for pre-charged-pneumatics.
not springers. at best your rifle does 13-14 fpe. not enough for coon.

your best performance will be with 8-9 grain pellets.

i've shot 3 coons at close range with .22 LR. they all ran before expiring.

fritz · Silver Status Member

Welcome to AGH.

The plywood... what kind of plywood? Distance? Angle? Otherwise that sounds good if you did that at 50' on regular plywood.

It is very debatable wether or not you can [humanely] kill a raccoon with that setup. I would not suggest you even try, but would not be surprised if you did and where successful.

SEE IT LIKE A NATIVE · New Member

Well I gave the Raccoon a try with the 16 grain .177 cal pellets and the result was a very dead raccoon of about 15-20 lbs. Unfortunatly my Chinese Beeman self destructed during a practice session afterwords so there will be no second attempt , at least not until I get a new gun !Or conceavably fix this one !!!?? He was sitting on top of a dumpster and facing me , when he looked at the ground in front of him ,he took a pellot in the top of the head ! He dropped like a rock , no exit wound but the pellet could have gone down his throat , the angle was about right ! I wish I had a few hundred dollars to plunk down on a PCP gun !! they look slick ! Kevin

donec · Senior Member

SEE IT LIKE A NATIVE · New Member

The trigger /sear will not latch up and hold the piston against spring pressure when the gun is cocked !I have it apart and am attempting to correct the situation by filing the trigger stop to allow the trigger to rotate and travel a little further and engage the piston and hold it ! I believe you guys about the heavy pellets being for ppg type guns ,but I would like to understand the phsics behind it ? I was thinking you would get a slightly higher pressure and longer duration power pulse with the heavier pellet ! What am I missing here ?? Kevin

kanyon · Silver Status Member

Dust · Member

You tried to tow a boat with a honda civic. Your gun doesn't have the power to move the bigger pellets

kanyon · Silver Status Member

Dust · Member

kanyon · Silver Status Member

donec · Senior Member

Too bad there is not a list of pellet design parameters for our guns so we can know what size pellets we can use without causing damage.

rsterne · Moderator

There is a very long, involved thread on this forum about using heavy pellets in springers.... The argument is that every springer above "pop-gun" power (for sake of argument like target rifles which are all under ~550 fps) gets at least SOME of it's power from combustion of a thin film of lubricant spread along the walls of the tube by the previous stroke of the piston.... Note, not "detonation" or "dieseling" which is destructive.... but a "controlled burn"....

When you put in a heavier pellet, the pressures in the chamber rise to a higher level before the pellet starts to move (more momentum).... and eventually, with a heavy enough pellet, the pressure will rise to the point of detonation or dieseling.... This "explosion" IS detrimental to the gun, causing piston bounce, spring re-compression (to the point of kinking it) and seal failure.... There was a recent thread showing damage to an RWS-350 which may have been caused by this phenomenon.... The damage to your rifle begs the question if it suffered a similar fate....

I'm still not sure I buy all the arguments on this subject.... but there seems to be enough anecdotal evidence to support it.... The conclusion of that thread was that "medium powered" springers (in the D-34 power range) shouldn't use pellets above about 9.5 gr. in .177 or 18 gr. in .22 cal.... "Magnum" springers should be designed to handle the heavier pellets, but even there, the upper limit would appear to be about 11.5 gr. in .177 and 21 gr. in .22.... Pellets heavier than that are designed for use in high-powered PCPs....

Bob

SEE IT LIKE A NATIVE · New Member