Thread: Target grade hunting capable air rifle.

You are right to go for a target grade gun because that is the accuracy you need for practice and for hunting. Try visiting a local airgun target club and see what they are using.

I have a Air Arms TX200 in hunter carbine (shorter barrel) .22 (pics: Air Arms TX200 Hunter Carbine .22)

The trigger is very crisp. I had to adjust it up from 400g as it came from the factory. I wanted it the same as my centerfire at 1000g but it would only go to 800. A bit of a pain to adjust because you need to disassemble it each shot to adjust and check. You can't dry fire it of course. It's a tw stage trigger and the first stage is very long. Adjusting the first stage was much more technical (for me) than the second and I soon got it stuck so it was very difficult to let off at all. Quickly wound it back once I had emptied it ! I suggest asking someone with experience to set it up for you if you don't like the factory settings.

I've found it good for rabbits and possums round houses. Not totally quiet but OK and safe from ricochets I think. However a miss at a possum did once result in a long delayed clink on a roof so do consider your firing zone. (as above, no complaints but slunk away and been more careful since.)

A spring airgun is quite difficult to shoot well and to be honest I can do better with my JW15 on the range. However, I can use it at home which is a great bonus. Can shoot off a quick 40 after work before dinner. Technical aspects to address with a springer are:
Long "lock time" so you need to hold the weapon still much more than a centerfire. If its moving the shot is always 3 x as far out as it looked. The barrel moves a lot between trigger fall and pellet exit.
Screws come loose specially with .22 cal so regularly loosen off and re snug. The Air Airms seems to have countersunk screws on the foreend which look to me like they might split the thin wood if over tightened.
The scope needs to be springer rated. Leapers (accushot) and Hawke (air hawk) are the standard ones. The very best only cost $200 - $400 which I don't understand. Mine shifted a lot because the Leapers mount used a foam liner which didn't hold the scope and I had shifting zeros for a year till I tried fixing that. Now its good - just my shooting ... Field target shooters use big objective high mag scope because they need to range with parallax (not allowed lasers). My advice is that a 3-12x40 with parallax is plenty for hunting and positional target practice. Since a lot of targets are under 20m you do need parallax adj to focus on them.

It's said that you can't shoot a springer off a sand bag or rest and I do sight in free sitting but when hunting I do whatever to "get steadier" and use fence posts, branches even wires as long as the gun is only touching the palm of my hand or fingers. If it contacts anything hard the shot will fly.

Hunting rabbits, only go for headshots. It's 16 ft pound at muzzle and about 10 at 40m ie 1/4 of a .22RF subsonic. You don't get massive destruction like with a rimfire nor even a big bleed out wound channel. Chest shot bunnies sometimes jump, collapse then get up and crawl or run away. Almost all the ones I get to skin out have a pellet in the head.

Ron Young is excellent (very good for mail order by phone too) but you need to go and visit first time. He has a mini range and I could try out all the good brands there and some not so good and he was very patient and made time despite selling 2 or 3 other guns while he was talking to me.