Any problem with dispatching rats with a pellet gun? (i.e. lead pellets)

[spauld]

I have developed a rat problem around my chicken pen and from what I've read, I need to jump on this issue NOW, in order to have any chance of rectifying the problem. I don't want to use poison for a variety of reasons and have purchased an electronic trap (should be here by week's end). I saw one walking around the other day and thought I could humanely put it out of my misery if I only had a decent pellet gun.... so I bought one. My wife quickly pointed out that the hens might eat an errant pellet and die of lead poisoning. And while I'm quite sure only a percentage of my shots will find their target, does this sound like something I need to worry about? Has anyone had a chicken die of lead poisoning from eating a pellet gun projectile??

 

[Toddrick]

Pellets aren't like BB's. They don't bounce around and land on the ground. When they hit something they will usually flatten and get embedded in it, unless they hit metal.

I just got my Gamo sighted in last weekend. It is accurate and deadly at 50 yards. It does drop a few mils at that range, but still packs a punch, since it launches a 10gr pellet at about 900fps I think.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Shooting rats is a fun way to pass an afternoon. It's not going to solve your problem though. I don't know about an electric trap but use of only traps is not going to solve your problem now your seeing them running to food in daylight. If you'd started with traps from the beginning it may have held the population at bay.

I know you don't want to use poison but have to strongly suggest it. I use tamper proof bait boxes with chunx bait. Unlike pellet poison that get's dropped on the ground by the pests chunx has to be chewed off so stays in their cheeks. The boxes take a key to open. I leave one in the corner of my pen all the time. The other I move now and then and definitely put both of them around the basement in fall to stop the mice from wintering down there. One in awhile I'll find a dead rodent on the lawn and just dispatch it to where the chickens or pets can't get to it on route to letting birds out of coop. Most rodents will die in the nests, bring poison to brood and all die in the hole. These things work for chipmunks and squirrels too. A godsend of a product. I use tomcat chunx bait. Comes in gallon size pail that will last years.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Protecta-LP...801?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f25e7cc79

With the pellet gun I suggest sighting your scope at 100ft. That way your zero will be around 30ft and always 100ft. Think of an arc, that's what the pellet does, from 30 to 100 feet it's higher and may reach a full pellet width higher than sighted zero. After 100 ft the pellet drops. I'm still working on 200 foot shots, a lot happens with wind and drop that far out but can maintain 2 inch groups at 175 ft and would not hesitate dispatching a rat size critter at 150ft out. My beast is a Walther .22 magnum springer. It shoots best with 18 grain JSB pellets. Back calculating ballistics it does indeed have 875-925 ft/sec muzzle velocity which gets down to about 700 ft/sec 200 feet out and has dropped 5 inches but still enough punch to take down groundhogs that far out (14.6 ft lbs of energy).

 

[Toddrick]

I don't use open poison because I've found dead mice in areas where my chickens free range. Get those big traps that they can walk in and can't get out, and can hold multiple rodents. You don't even need to put bait in them because they love to crawl in dark holes, but I put poison inside to put them out of their misery so they don't starve to death.

 

[slingshotandLAR]

You can use a pellet gun put the bucket traps will be more effective because they are working 24 hours....

I have a Gamo whisper bone collector that shoots 12-1300 I think with regular pellets. It is amazingly accurate and will shoot one hole groups off a vise at 20 yards/ 60 feet. It's good fun shooting rats or anything else for that matter with it, I've taken grey squirrels and a bunch of rabbits with it as well as dispatching live trapped coons and opossums. They really are quite nice.

If you haven't tried it yet, the PBA ammo is pretty crazy and super fast, there's a problem with it though. It's as loud or louder than a .22 so if you live in a neighborhood I would avoid it. So much for whispering lol

 

[spauld]

Well, I did buy an air rifle yesterday and I saw the Gammo unit there in the store. I tried to set up the scope on mine last night (bought the cheaper Ruger product). But since it is a break barrel, I had to remove it from my vice table each time I shot it. Kind of hard to dial in the scope that way, plus the instructions were really weak...so I really did not know what I was doing. I just shot a hole in the target THEN adjusted the windage dials up and down/side to side to put the cross hairs on the hole. I was only shooting from about 15 or 20 yards away. I also ordered some of the copper clad non-lead pellets (Luxor Cu) but I've heard the lead-free pellets, while faster, are not as accurate. The loudness of them also kind of shoots down my game plan since my goal was to take more of a sniper approach to the rats, vs. an all out multi-shot assault. My thinking is that if there were an occasional POP from an air rifle, my neighbors would ignore it.

Of course, any plan to actually shoot rats will need to be part of a larger plan to fully eradicate them. After all, I'm not sure how many I have. If necessary, I may need to use poison too, but I'd really like this to be my last resort. ...this depends on how bad my situation is.

 

[Toddrick]

Any scope/mount that comes with a gun is almost certainly garbage. Consider it a "free" scope that you can assume was made in China (at a toy factory). I put a Sightron scope with special mounts on mine. Springers are harder on scopes/mounts than most center fire guns for some reason.

The 10gr Crossman pellets I use don't break the sound barrier and are pretty accurate. Anything that breaks the sound barrier will have less reliable accuracy because when it slows back down below the barrier it becomes less stable.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Set a table outside and chair. Use hard pillows or stool cushions to prop up the gun. A "military hold" is when you let the gun rest on your forearm or flat palm of hand when standing. To use pillows as a prop is the same thing. Don't grab the gun on stock just handle and trigger allowing the gun to jump where ever it wants. It will jump to the same position every time if you don't try to keep it in check and that will give perfect accuracy.

If you want to sight in to zero at a short range then measure out 30 ft from the table you made as a bench rest. Take three or five shots with the crosshair on the bullseye. It doesn't matter where those pellets go but the grouping is important. Your hold and type of pellet will effect the grouping. Try a heavy lead pellet in wad cutter or round nose style as those are the most stable designs and if pellet is heavy enough will get you below the speed of sound greatly reducing the noise. Below 1050 ft per second will do it. The Gamo .177 does 1300 ft/sec with alloy and around 1100-1150 with lead so go as heavy lead as you can find and it will get down to 1050 and suddenly be quiet and far more accurate.

Back to that grouping and zeroing the scope. If you've a good tight group then adjust the turrets to move that group to bullseye. They label scopes to move the pellet in the direction you want. The side turret will have an R or L and arrow telling you that if you want the pellet to move right then click in direction of R (note it's actually backwards as to what your crosshair is moving but makes sighting in easy). Same with up and down. Now the click should be 1/4 inch of movement at 100 yards so at 30 ft (10 yrds) that would be 10 clicks for 1/4 inch. In reality each click could move 1/8 inch in 10 yrds, inexpensive scopes are not made to the precision they label the scope to. Each scope is different so you'll just have to make 5 or 10 clicks, take 5 more shots and see what that does at 10 yrds. Once you know how far each click moves sighting the scope will go by much faster.

I checked trajectory with those high velocities and .177 pellet. You probably want to zero in at 50 ft or even 60ft and that's your short zero. The crossman premier 10.5 is readily available but may still be too light in your gun. It's Ballistic coefficient is .026. JSB makes a jumbo monster 13.4 grain and has a BC of 0.035.

This is a good trajectory program, you'll see how each pellet performs. The important column is the path of pellet. I'd use 1000ft/sec for crossman and 900 ft/sec for the JSB in the program.

http://www.airguns.net/trajectory.php

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Besides hold and pellet and speed another thing that will mess with your accuracy is setting the pellet. If a small amount is protruding then it gets crimped when closing the barrel. That small bend to the skirt will change it's tragectory. Make sure to firmly set the pellet each time. I use a pellet pen so the pellet actually is recessed about 1/16th of inch every time. You could easily make something with cork and thick gauge wire to set the pellet. With cork you can adjust the depth of wire until it's where you want it and then your pellets are undamaged and at same placement every time. I like the skirt just in barrel to ensure no crimping, 1/16 inch works well.

Caution is needed with these guns because once you get to plinking you can't stop. Then you want a better scope, then better gun which in turn merits a varmit scope for distance and the cycle continues.

The Gamo came with a gas piston right? I think almost all new springers have the gas ram now. Much easier to cock and doesn't jump back and forth like the metal spring models do. They are scope killers. Cross hairs start to drift and even fall off in the scope. Meh, if your scope fails just shoot open sights. no need to think about arc then. Your aiming with the barrel so the pellet shoots straight until losing elevation.

If you only use lead it will coat the inside of the barrel and actually increase accuracy. Putting an alloy through will take that coating off losing accuracy. Never clean the inside of an air gun barrel and always use lead. If cleaning you only do it when new to clean out all the grease. But 100 shots will do the same thing. If your gun is smoking some then you've a lot of grease and wont get accuracy until cleaned. Just pump a lot of pellets through then fine tune your scope.

Have fun with it.
Now I'm icthing to go out and practice my 200ft shots.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I have developed a rat problem around my chicken pen and from what I've read, I need to jump on this issue NOW, in order to have any chance of rectifying the problem. I don't want to use poison for a variety of reasons and have purchased an electronic trap (should be here by week's end). I saw one walking around the other day and thought I could humanely put it out of my misery if I only had a decent pellet gun.... so I bought one. My wife quickly pointed out that the hens might eat an errant pellet and die of lead poisoning. And while I'm quite sure only a percentage of my shots will find their target, does this sound like something I need to worry about? Has anyone had a chicken die of lead poisoning from eating a pellet gun projectile??

Lead is a basic element and large amounts of this element is naturally present in the Earth's crust. Elements like lead can not be destroyed or produced by man (or by your wife) it simply exists at differing amounts in the environment. In fact some heavy metal elements have made the jump from deadly poison to our children's daily multi-vitamins. Some examples of these deadly heavy metals that have become healthy minerals are Copper, Selenium, and Zinc. I half way expect to see a Recommended Daily Adult Dosage for lead to be set by medical researchers.

I don't think that your hens will be adversely effected by a few stray pellets. Poisoning is dependent on how much was ingested.

I would also think that you could eat all the rats that you manage to shoot, provided that you chew them well.

Non't forget to remove all the pellets embedded in the rats that you intend to cook and eat, you don't want to break a tooth.