Air Guns for Hunting

MiG25

MiG25

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I see in the new BC Regulations that Air Guns are allowed for Deer, Black Bear, Cougar, Sheep, Goat and the smaller animals. Other than Small Game and Game Birds, there is the caveat that it must be 35 caliber or greater.

Anybody have any experience at all with this?
 
Huge for years in the US… I don’t/haven’t hunted big game with my .35 FX Airgun, no doubt it would do the job for smaller game. Defiantly wouldn’t trust it for large deer, Bear or Cougar(sounds like an accident waiting to happen)…

For large game .45 or .50 cal is normally what I’ve seen used. They are hard to find/get in Canada though. Just not a big enough market for importers and also a lot more restrictions up here, like bull pups are banned, also believe the semi auto pcp’s are banned as well.

Still shaking my head at Cougar?!?! With an airgun, that’s not a 50cal! Just dumb, to easy to bury a pellet in muscle or deflect off a shoulder bone.
 
On the tv show American Airgunner, he hunted with a $900 USD Umarex Hammer 50 cal, two shot repeater, and it worked very well on deer sized game.
 
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Hahaha I knew that they were popular in certain country, but didn’t know that you could possibly take a deer or bear with one! What range are we talking about? Are the pellets still only lead?
Interesting topic for sure!
 
From what I can see the top end 50 Cal Air Guns are similar to a slow 20 or 12 gauge slug.

I see them filling a niche like "Cat Sneeze" loads in this country since >500fps Air Guns are treated as Firearms.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHkJXWtu7qQ

The episode of show I was talking about. Ok, there is another episode where he drops one, and one where his son gets a deer with the 50 cal hammer.

The sheer energy and three full-power shots delivered by the .50 caliber Umarex Hammer is achieved through its proprietary, patent-pending, Lightspeed valve. The innovative engineering used to design this internal mechanism coupled with a .510 caliber, 550-grain lead slug is the recipe for making over 700 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle. Almost as impressive, it only takes about two pounds of effort to operate its straight-pull bolt. This short, effortless action is all it takes to #### the rifle and advance the 2-shot magazine.
 
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DGY said:
Hahaha I knew that they were popular in certain country, but didn’t know that you could possibly take a deer or bear with one! What range are we talking about? Are the pellets still only lead?
Interesting topic for sure!
Click to expand...

Lewis and Clarke used on on their expedition. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle

Grizz
 
There is a video on YouTube where I believe it was a .50 cal. airgun they were using in Africa for taking game from a blind by a watering hole. Quite impressive for an airgun I must say. Here in Manitoba they are only allowed for upland birds or pests.
 
brybenn said:
I saw a video of some Americans dropping bison with a 50 cal air gun. I forget the make and model but it was affective
Click to expand...

That was the Quackenbush .457 pre-charged rifle showing the potential of a 510 gr cast boolit on a hefty critter. It don't take a ####load of velocity to do
the job with a well placed heavy lead projectile at sensible range. ;)
http://www.bigboreairguns.com/07bisonhunt.htm

Folks wanting more oomph can go the 12 bore route as well.
 
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Could be the answer to primer shortage, in a costly way, sounds interesting, I saw a .20cal air rifle shot one time over 300 yrs, quite impressive.
 
When Cabelas was Cabelas, they were offering some higher end airguns. Now that they're Bass Pro I don't see that anymore. Otherwise I've seen very few rifles above .22 cal online in Canada either, the odd .30 cal maybe, so it's hard to grow the market I'm sure, esp under the present oppressive regime. But I guess I'm leading up to the question: who or where sells big game worthy airguns here?
 
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