2/24/08
Tom, if YOU were a newbie airgun hunter who wanted a simple way of finding out what works (and what doesn't), I'd say get yourself a chronograph (doesn't have to be very expensive), a memo pad (with pen;0), and a notebook. Go hunting. Let's say that you shoot a fox squirrel at 20 yards with a RWS-48 in .22 using an H-Point. Write it down in the memo. Fox squirrel @ 20 yards shot behind the shoulder with RWS-H Point from RWS-350. Squirrel ran perhaps 5ft. and died in under 5 seconds. When you skin the squirrel, note the damage done. Now....transfer this over to a notebook (80 page looseleaf notebooks are what I've been using for decades). Write out ALL the details as accurately as possible. At the beginning of the notebook (on the overleaf cover, you might want to have a table of contents and of course, number the pages---I have several notebooks just like this). Okay, now go out to where you usually practice and shoot through the chrono a group of the same pellets at the very same yardage and average it out Put this (velocity & energy) in the notebook too. By doing this, you will VERY QUICKLY develope a truly ACCURATE data base for what works (and what doesn't). This isn't the same as my Pearson Punch Index which will give you a numerical score based on field results that you can compare (numerically) the different calibers BUT it is easy to use. On the left hand (far left hand) margin of the page, put Good, Okay or Poor (or your own wording) to describe the performance while it's still fresh in your mind. Okay, SO....you like this performance and someone loans you his rifle in say a different caliber OR a new pellet comes out that you want to test from the 48. Take 2 bars of Ivory soap (remember 2 bars was found to be the equivalent of a fox squirrels lungs without overpenetration) and place them at 20 yards. Now shoot these with the PROVEN H-Point using the 48. Do the same with the NEW pellet using two more bars of the same soap. If your new pellet is getting SIMILAR performance (to the H-Point), you can be assured that it's field performance (at that range) will also be similar If it is getting trounced by the H-Point, realize that your field results at that range with that shot are also likely to be poor. And of course, if it is superior to the H-Point, you're going to KNOW that you have a winner. Could an airgunner make this comparison WITHOUT a chrono??? Yes he could BUT the chrono allows him to make sure that his original energy figures are still current. Without a chrono, the airgunner would have to shoot the soap with a KNOWN performer and then STORE it somewhere for future comparisons!;0)) The best way to check the soap's volume of damage (not scientific by any means but easy and useful) is to get about 4 or 5 feet away from a tv screen (20-24 inch is good) and turn on one of the cable news shows that have the scrawl at the bottom of the screen. Now take the first bar and look through the entrance with the bottom edge of the soap lined up so where you can just see the scrawl at the bottom. Now without changing anything in your hold, notice how much of the tv's screen you can see. Compare the OTHER first bar (of the other pellet). Believe me Tom, if there are differences in the pellet's destructiveness, they WILL show up and be noticed this way. Okay, now again, looking through the "entrance" of each 2nd bar, line up the bottom edge of the bar with the bottom edge of the scrawl and notice how much of the overall screen you can see Sometimes, there really isn't much difference. Other times, the difference is dramatic. Again, this is NOT scientific and is NOT as accurate overall as the PPI but it IS easy and it's darn effective! Remember, that FIRST bar is a PROVEN FIELD PERFORMER! That is your Blue Print for success! It is NOT necessarily the minimum needed but it WILL be repeatedly successful at that impact energy and that placement on that species.
Birds are a different matter and much more simple to deal with as are head shots on animals. When I was doing guidelines on the old AGLF, almost always I'd give a cushion room. Heck, with the minimum, what happens if you misjudge the range a bit? You have no surplus performance to bail you out!
For crows and pigeons 3" (3 bars) of Ivory soap is fine for a frontal chest or back shot. 2" for grackles and jays. A .177 Crow Mag or Predator from a 14+ft.lb. gun will work well to 40 yards but I STILL prefer a .20 or larger. 1" is fine on sparrows & starlings. I actually shot a sparrow with a .20 Silver Bear at 3 pumps from a Sheridan and the pellet did NOT exit and it was still barely alive pumping blood through the entrance. I don't remember the range but it surprised me to say the least. Add an inch in Ivory to the figures I gave up above and you'll have enough energy to penetrate the bird at ANY angle which is important because they are often taken at difficult angles. THIS is where the .177 even with hollowpoints are NOT at their best! Give me a .20 dome (or pointed in .22/.25) any day)! 4" of Ivory penetration will take any pigeon or crow at any angle. Why even mention the 3" in the first place? Because sometimes people need less penetration in barns and also because even outside, if you're using a lesser powered gun, you might still have enough for pigeon if you use a 3" Ivory penetrator and use the right shot placement.
I've killed coon instantly with a 3" on impact penetrating pellet so I KNOW that 3" with the right placement will turn even a big coon off like a light switch. Maybe less will too but I didn't autopsy the coon that got the 3" Ivory penetration. I simply know that a pellet that did 3" CONSISTENTLY at the close range I took the shot worked perfectly.
I used a freshly killed woodchuck and a Sheridan. Tom, 2 pumps at impact with a dome will EASILY kill a woodchuck. My testing at the time gave me about 2" of Ivory and surely 2" is enough IF the pellet hits that sweet spot between the eye and the ear.
For cottontails and squirrels, 1" of Ivory soap penetration is plenty. Squirrels seem to have harder skulls than cottontails but even 3 pumps of a Crosman 2200 using a .22 Silver Bear gave me WAY more than enough penetration on fox squirrels. I used a Crosman 760 too and I can't remember the pumps necessary but I do remember it didn't take many to send the pellet pretty deep into the head (2 or 3).
These are NOT scientific (whatever that is) and I never made any pretense about it either. The PPI IS bordering on the scientific but that's a whole different kettle of fish altogether and quite frankly, more trouble than it's worth I think. It DOES answer questions about effectiveness comparing different calibers, energies and pellets numerically. It will do so with an accuracy that correlates accurately with what you saw firsthand in the field BECAUSE it is DERIVED from first-hand field results. It is also a pain in the arse to do and for PRACTICAL purposes, not really much more (if any) effective for ascertaining pellet performance than the methods I gave you in this (windy) treatise. It DID satisty my quest for a formula/index that actually worked....a quest that kept me driven for over a decade and a half. But the thing is Tom, not long after I got it tweaked to my satisfaction than an old codger/curmudgeon (much like yourself;0) Lou V. K. on the old AGLF came up with a
statement that summed up EVERYTHING I'd been working to quantify. He said that the pellets that made the biggest holes in the vitals were the ones that killed the quickest. Leave it to an old-timer to cut out all the BS eh?;0))) Well, his statement gave me some ideas which I have outlined for you in this message and what's more they have worked beautifully!
I was trying this soap bar thing and darned if I didn't blow out the tv set. Was I supposed to shoot and then look through the hole or the other way 'round?
No, seriously, I guess that soap bars are an ok test. On the low pumps for rabbits, bear in mind that you can, literally, scare a rabbit to death. A lot of times it is not the physical damage from a head shot that kills them. They can and do just fold up and die from shock.
Red feathe,
There was an article published back in the '80s in the old Airgun News & Report by someone in Australia, IIRC, who was a rancher who had a rabbit problem that he had to concentrate on constantly to keep under control. He just happened to be an antique airgun collector as well. To combine the rabbit control with his hobby he made an effort to determine by the use of his antiques just how little energy was actually needed to anchor a cottontail. While I can't recall the actual energy figures he arrived at they were surprisingly low. Surprising to other than old country boys who laid low many a rabbit by shooting them in the head with a Daisy at extremely short range in their hide. What IS surprising to me at this stage is that I could spot them by their eyes shining in deep cover. I couldn't see them under those circumstance these days if they were orange.
Nor could I stalk as closely as I did as a kid. The sort of muscle conditioning and control to move as smoothly and slowly as I did then in order to prevent spooking them is simply not possible for me now. My Dad, who was the finest woodsman I ever knew, taught me how to stalk and, even though not one to issue compliments, he admitted that I got better than himself. The ability to 'flow' through the woods utterly silently and almost invisibly is almost as much a state of mind as a physical act. And I don't have it any more.
In the same vein the old country boy is also well aware that a gray squirrel takes 'a lot more killing' than a cottontail and a Fox squirrel requires a lot more than the gray. Hardly surprising when one considers that natural selection long ago weeded those out of the squirrel gene pool that couldn't fall out of a tree with impunity. In other words a squirrel is genetically predisposed to withstand far more trauma than a rabbit.
I know if you're a long-time squirrel hunter you've seen squirrels fall, get up, look around as though embarrassed and hoping they were unseen and continue on as though nothing happened. But as you noted it almost seems as if a rabbit can be scared to death. There's a LOT of difference between the 2 species in the ability to withstand trauma. Tom
Got two house rabbits. Recently we got a rambunctious young dog. I told my wife the three should never meet. A sign at the vet's talks about how high maintenance a pet the rabbit is. (And they really are.) One of the points it highlights is that, if kept outside, simply the approach of a preditor to their cage can kill them. Now, one of mine, I am sure, couldn't care less about the dog. The other, well, it would be belly-up in short order.
Yup, rabbits and hare must be the one of the easiest mammals on earth to kill. I've taken them with body shots, at 20 yds, with a gun capable of only 480fps at the muzzle. Not much energy there, well below 4 fpe at impact. Did the funky chicken for about 10 seconds, and expired.
