Which Air Rifles or Pistols do you use for pest control, culling, stunning?

[carlf]

Even with regular ammo, you can quietly dispatch cage predators with a .22 in urban areas. BUT you must get the muzzle within 1" of the skull before you pull the trigger. The skull will absorb the shock wave, muffling the shot. And you must be aiming almost straight down, with the cage on a dirt surface. Any other situation and you risk a richocet

Subsonic .22 shorts & CB caps are also very quiet. But once again, you have to be careful.

Even high power pellets will ricochet, so make sure you have a proper backstop. When I reduce the urban backyard squirrel population in the winter, I use the side of our old shed as a backstop. That way if I miss a squirrel, the pellet buries itself in the side of the shed. You can also use a bale of hay.

If you are simply shooting raccoons or possums in a cage trap, a cheap CO2 pellet rifle will work. But as noted, for regular picking off critters and target practice, when you get more than 1/2 way through a cartridge, the accuracy & power can start to fluctuate. Some brands worse than others. The better, more expensive CO2 guns are better than the cheap one. And you dont have to have the muscle needed to cock the spring powered air rifles.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Copy of my Stoger Atac Review.

I have a break barrel made by Stoger...it's the Stoger Atac.

Below is a review of this pellet gun that I wrote for Amazon. I published my review in November of 2013.

To be honest, I am a bit of a perfectionist...functionality, useability, value and quality are key components whenever I buy anything. Most people would probably enjoy the Atac as a general plinker. I have higher expectations....You be the judge.

Enjoy.

Amazon Review....

This has been an ongoing project for the past few months, that is now complete. Yes I know its a long review, but if you are seriously planning to plunk down your cold hard cash on this item, I suggest that you read its entirety. The review has been left unchanged, as all I have done is update...

The updates to this review have been added at the bottom, and my ratings have changed as I discovered and weighed the Pros & Cons of the Stoeger Atac. I begain this review with a 4 star rating based on my initial impressions, with the current rating being 2 stars. Again, I would suggest that you read the entire review for your own edification before purchasing this item. I would also suggest that you call the seller and see if it is possible to purchase the "Gun Only"; as the "Gun & Scope combo" is not worth the hassle at any price. I hope that you enjoy the review as much as I enjoyed exploring this item and rating its Pros & Cons. Enjoy.

Years ago, I test fired the Stoeger X10 air rifle. After that fiasco, I pretty much wrote Stoeger off as any kind of a quality manufacturer of airguns. The X10 that I tested was truly a horrible un-impressive product that needed much after market work to make it even passable for any use by the shooter of airguns.

I'm glad that I didn't stick with that initial impression and tried out the Stoeger Atac. For the Sale Price; this product is a very fine quality air rifle produced by the Stoeger Corporation. Basically Stoeger took all the solid attributes of the X20 and combined them with a well designed polymer target stock, mounted a better sighting system in the 4-16 Mil-Dot scope and incorporated the awesome Gas Piston power plant. This has proven to me to be an awesome combination.

The gun is rated at 1000 ft/sec, but that is a promotional velocity arrived at while shooting alloy pellets, and anybody who shoots airguns knows how accurate alloy pellets can be...6 inch groups at 20 yards make me puke.

My Atac is in .22 calibre and with only a handful of shots fired, it Chrony's at an average velocity of 853.2 ft/sec; plenty fast for shooting soft lead pellets. This is not a kids toy, this is an efficient adult air rifle. With a cocking force, that I'm estimating to be about ~ 40 lbs +/-.

When I bought the Atac, I was basically looking for a very accurate pellet rifle that I could use for quiet target practise in my backyard coupled with maybe some low end Field Target shooting and a little precision pest control. The Atac rifle was purchased from a local distributor and arrived with the 4-16X Mil-Dot mounted and bore sighted. Out of the box this gun was fairly accurate at 20 yards, which was impressive on its own. The biggest Bad Feature...the trigger just flat sucks and Stoeger really needs to fix this problem. Why is it that airgun manufacturers CANNOT put a decent trigger system on an air rifle? With practice one can "Get Used" to the trigger, but why? ...Build it right the first time Stoeger.

It only took minimal scope adjustments to dial it in to a very fine grouping centered at 30 yards. This is impressive because I'm still in the break-in process with this product; I've had it less than a month. I'm picky with the items that I buy and spend my cold hard cash on...they better meet or "better yet" exceed my expectations. I must say that I am truly impressed with the Atac pellet gun by Stoeger.

I'm shooting primarily Crosman Premier Hollow-Points for the break-in process (they are cheap, fairly accurate and locally available) and "wow"...NICE suprising groups averaging less than an inch and a half to two inches at 30 yards for 10 shots. If you understand air rifle mechanics, then you know that this accuracy will just get better after the break-in process and the gun settles-in. This gun has a lot of promise. For the accuracy testing, I have lined up 15 different brands and designs of .22 pellets and I plan to shoot some YouTube videos of my explorations in this product as I attempt to wring out the accuracy potential of this Stoeger product. I'll post a link once I get that process underway and running. I wish that the TRIGGER was better....I hope that Stoeger reads this and chooses the correct course. I know that I can get an after-market trigger,install it, and see much improvement....BUT WHY? I'm not asking for the moon, even a simple efficient crisp Hunting Quality trigger system would be both a vast improvement in the quality of the product and greatly appreciated by the end user. Seriously...this IS NOT rocket science.

At present my initial impression is this: If you are looking for a Break Barrel air rifle that has all the positive qualities of the Gas Piston power plant coupled with very good quality control in the final product; look no further than the Stoeger Atac. You will be happy, Happy, HAPPY, that you did.

Update #1: I took the day and spent it shooting over a chrony and breaking in the gun. After 200+ pellets through the Stoeger Atac the groups have tightened up considerably. 10 yard groups are just a single ragged hole, while 30 yard groups are a tight one inch with the occasional flyer or two. The velocity has settled in to an average of 657.7 ft/sec. That is much lower than I was wanting or expecting. The scope is now needing to be replaced. The front adjustment ring comes off with most every shot and the scope has shifted in the mounts to the rear by a bit over 1/2 an inch. I knew I would need to replace the scope sooner or later...I was more expecting later. I will need to go with an after market trigger, the factory trigger is just a P.O.S. For the shooting that I enjoy, I like nice crisp triggers that let me shoot nice tight groups. With the current factory trigger system, it just takes a lot of concentration to get the performance that I've had till now. This item is intended as an introductory product to get new shooters involved in airgun. Quality functioning products promote happiness and enjoyment; while faulty products promote frustration and discontent. With a bit of time and some quality range work I've seen the need to lower my rating to 3 stars.

Update #2: On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I called Stoeger to talk with them about a replacement scope. The representative was very friendly and helpful. I explained that in addition to a faulty scope I have noticed that a coupled of the retaining screws on the stock look to have their heads stripped, so I asked that a few replacement screws be sent as well...long story short...I sent my gun back to Stoeger to have the scope replaced, some damaged screws replaced and to just generally have them look it over for quality control. I should have the gun back by the 16th of December. That means that I will have to wait till then to do my final accuracy testing, as I begin my search for that elusive perfect pellet that matches this particular rifle. It cost $40.00 to ship the gun back to Stoeger...that was a shocker. No wonder the USPS is having financial problems, when you look at the quality of the customer service coupled with the ever increasing rates. They would probably not make it as a private sector company.

FINAL Update #3: I have now had this gun since before Thanksgiving. I have shot over 500 pellets through the Stoeger Atac and experienced several issues (Issues had to do with the poor quality trigger and faulty scopes). Here is my Final update on this product. On Friday of last week the gun arrived back from Stoeger. While waiting, I took the initiative and ordered a Hawke HD 3-9 with a MilDot reticle from Amazon. When the gun arrived, the scope and two exterior screws had been replaced. Due to weather conditions, I had to wait a week before I was able to shoot the Atac. At the range, I was able to get off 3 shots then the gun developed a clanging vibration. As I checked all the screws to see if anything had come loose, the rear optic on the scope came off in my hand. I can only describe that moment as crushing. I went home, took the Stoeger "P.o.S." scope off and replaced it with the Hawke HD 3-9 MilDot and went back out the next day. With a quality scope, the Stoeger Atac was wonderfully accurate out to 45 yards (the limit of the ranges that I shot). The gun grouped 1/2 inch at 35 yards and just a tad over 3/4 inch at 45 yards, all while shooting inexpensive Crossman Premier Hollow Point pellets. I think that the tech at Stoeger touched up the trigger, as it was suddenly nice and crisp...a vast improvement over the way it was out of the box.

Here is my Final Assessment: For the price of this item and the over-all quality of the components, in my opinion this gun is way "over priced" and not worth the $250.00+/- price tag. The inherent accuracy of the gun cannot be reached by the average shooter primarily because of the poor quality trigger. I have used firearms for most of 50 years and was able to achieve fairly decent results with the out of box gun due to my years of experience. But I didn't achieve the total accuracy potential of the Stoeger Atac until the trigger was tuned after I sent the gun BACK to the factory and I mounted better optics in the form of a Hawke scope. Since there are no open sites on this gun, the shooter is completely reliant upon the use of optical sites. Unfortunately, another strong detracting issue is the Stoeger supplied scope is definitely not a quality item. I had 2 scopes fail back to back while just trying to sight-in the gun. The accuracy potential of the gun is achieved with quality optics and a crisp trigger...the accuracy potential of the Atac is impressive, but it cannot be achieved in its current configuration as supplied by Stoeger. As I see it Stoeger has two obvious choices:

1. Put better quality glass on the Atac and continue to sell it as a Gun & Scope Package deal.

2. Sell the gun at a lower price without the Stoeger PoS scope and allow the customer the option of putting a nice quality scope, of their own choosing, on the gun.

Bottom Line: If you buy this gun and use the scope that comes with it, you will be disappointed. My suggestion would be for the buyer to take the Stoeger scope and put it on a nice little .22 rifle, the recoil of a .22 should not be an issue with the Stoeger scope that is supplied with the Atac. Once that is done then buy a good quality after-market airgun scope rated for moderate to heavy recoil for use on the the Stoeger Atac. Once I mounted a quality Hawke scope on the Atac, I have become very pleased with the accuracy potential and performance of the Stoeger Atac. I'm sure that You will definitely find that the Atac is a Tack Driver once a quality set of optics has been mounted and the trigger has been tuned.

6 March 2014: Since before Christmas 2013, I have made repeated calls to Stoeger's customer service and received assurances from Stoeger representatives, yet I still have not received a replacement scope. The Atac Pellet Gun, purchased in mid November 2013, is still under Stoeger's warranty, yet Stoeger is not honoring their warranty in my case. That is a frustration and a regret. I no longer trust the Stoeger Brand.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I will say this...the suppressor on the Stoger Atac is impressive. "Quiet, quiet, quiet" are the only words that really describe the noise level heard when shooting the Stoger Atac.

 

[Cold-Blood]

Currently, I have a break barrel air rifle I have tuned. Gamo varmit, gives a comparatively cheap start. I can kill things out to about 200 yards with it, ground squirrels at largest.
I'm planning on switching to PCP soon.