Decent air rifle for gophers in town

Armedsask

Armedsask

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Before any of you CGN safety Nazis get worked up, this is sanctioned by the town to rid the sports grounds of gophers.

I'm looking for a decent airgun, probably 22 calibre, to dispatch gophers at ranges under 50 meters. Would like something fairly compact. We've been using 22 subsonic but we aren't happy with the noise and ricochet potential.

Not looking to spend a pile of money on a fancy rig. Who makes a good airgun for an alright price? I used to have a Crossman backpacker in 22 but I lost it (lent it to someone).

I don't need alternatives to shooting them either.
 
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Thanks, I'll make sure to check out Gamo when I'm in the city next week. Just going to see what Cabela's has and probably grab something.

I'll keep plugging away with the 22.
 
I'd suggest an Industry Brand QB-79 if you have a place to refill 9oz. CO2 bottles nearby. Bolt action, single shot, plenty of shots-per-fill. Hits pretty hard, can be modified to hit harder. Nice and quiet. As an option, a Diana 34 spring piston rifle. It's a larger rifle, would require a more robust scope...but would hit with all kinds of authority. I could suggest others, but these are guns I have experience with. I own a QB-79 still.
 
I have a Crossman 177 CO2 pistol and it does well on gophers. Used it too get rid of gophers in the corrals with cows in there. So a better quality rifle should work well.
 
As a kid my brother and I killed hundreds of gophers with our 177 Slavia pellet rifles.The first Model I got was 624 and a few yrs later my brother got a Model 620. They were accurate and was no problem making head shots out to 25 to 30 yrds .
 
your gophers must be alot smaller than the groundhogs in my neck of the woods . ours would laugh at a pellet gun in Ontario . I have read some negitive things about the Gamo pellet guns and I myself have an old Slavia 620 I would never part with . but if I was going to buy another pellet gun and wanted it to kill something large I would choose a good one like a RWS or a Daina . with a velocity of 1200 plus fps. save up and buy something of quality . just my opinion .

have you ever seen the CCI bullet they call the small game bullet SGB. they have filled the pointed end down of a round nose 22 bullet till it was flat and it's said to have more killing power. and it won't be pointed so there will be less chance of a richochet. good luck in your choice.
 
Crosman phantom in .22 was onsale for $89 at TSC, plenty of easy mods you can do to it for more power... An Pretty damn accurate if you know how to shoot springers! Great bang for the buck!
 
Hey cement head...gophers are a tiny critter compared to the groundhogs we have here in Ontario. A fraction of the size. While I've read about people trying to take groundhogs with high power air rifles, I ALWAYS advise against it. Same goes to .22lr. I've seen groundhogs take a solid whack from a .22WMR and somehow crawl back to their holes...and that's a fair amount of energy. (about 134 ft.-lbs. @ 100 yards) Gophers~imagine a well fed black squirrel here...then cut it's height by 1/3, it's weight by 1/2...maybe even less. :)

Groundhogs~the minimum (in my opinion) to take these ethically is .223 or .204R. I use both, and chase them nearly every weekend all spring/summer long.

cement head said:
your gophers must be alot smaller than the groundhogs in my neck of the woods . ours would laugh at a pellet gun in Ontario . I have read some negitive things about the Gamo pellet guns and I myself have an old Slavia 620 I would never part with . but if I was going to buy another pellet gun and wanted it to kill something large I would choose a good one like a RWS or a Daina . with a velocity of 1200 plus fps. save up and buy something of quality . just my opinion .

have you ever seen the CCI bullet they call the small game bullet SGB. they have filled the pointed end down of a round nose 22 bullet till it was flat and it's said to have more killing power. and it won't be pointed so there will be less chance of a richochet. good luck in your choice.
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I like my Crosman Nitro Venom in .22 (PAL version), affordable, powerful and quite accurate....you certainly hear the thwack hitting tree rats with it I would have no issue putting down gophers. I got the wood stock model from D&L Airgun.
 
The inlaws have a Slavia 620. That thing is very accurate up to 30yds. I was just using it this weekend. I don't think it has lost any of it's power as they don't use it much.
Bearcat said:
As a kid my brother and I killed hundreds of gophers with our 177 Slavia pellet rifles.The first Model I got was 624 and a few yrs later my brother got a Model 620. They were accurate and was no problem making head shots out to 25 to 30 yrds .
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I don't think you would go wrong with a .22 nitro piston unit... 50 meters may be stretching it a bit, but you said you didn't want long range capability. I'd stay away from the .177 units. A benjamin trail NP2 rifle combo would be a great unit... check Airgunsource
 
.22LRGUY said:
Hey cement head...gophers are a tiny critter compared to the groundhogs we have here in Ontario. A fraction of the size. While I've read about people trying to take groundhogs with high power air rifles, I ALWAYS advise against it. Same goes to .22lr. I've seen groundhogs take a solid whack from a .22WMR and somehow crawl back to their holes...and that's a fair amount of energy. (about 134 ft.-lbs. @ 100 yards) Gophers~imagine a well fed black squirrel here...then cut it's height by 1/3, it's weight by 1/2...maybe even less. :)

Groundhogs~the minimum (in my opinion) to take these ethically is .223 or .204R. I use both, and chase them nearly every weekend all spring/summer long.
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dido, on the farm we had to make shots count, so head shots were the norm for me with the 22...other wise i would have to chase the little bugger with a baseball bat because ammo was limited in the house.
 
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