Gun sales "explode" in Oregon

Probably a Crosman, they were pretty popular also

Airguns

 

Wait! What! I live in NoVa also and know about bow hunting the deer over population, but I had not heard about bow hunting foxes and squirrels. I can shoot either a normal bow or a crossbow , but the crossbow is considered a firearm in FFX country, I think, and thus not allowed in the bowhunting culls. However, truly I would have trouble hunting the fox that roams around here as he keeps down the squirrel population, and he has been absolutely fearless but respectful when he stalks them and birds in our back yard. I had not thought about bow hunting squirrels as there seems to be no challenge in it , although I do have a Colonial-era recipe for squirrel stew if I do. We also have a neighborhood ground hog, and he keeps tearing up the turf in our yard to get grubs, I think, but I cannot perceive of him as either a safety threat or a varmint, and thus could not hunt him.

 

My experience is that there is a big difference in accuracy between a BB gun and a true pellet gun , as the BB does not hold the groove and get spin-stabilized like the lead pellet in a pellet gun like a Crossman or my favorite, a Benjamin. I taught my sons and a troop of Boy Scouts to shoot using both a Crossman (notch sight) and my Benjamin (peep sight) and they transitioned well to shooting 22s at Boy Scout camp that year.
To clarify, a Daisy was only designed to shoot BBs, but had a nifty storage tube for them, so you could quickly pump and re-shoot, which was an advantage. The true pellet guns had to be loaded with a single pellet and the bolt closed, so although they were more accurate they slower for multiple shots. You could use a BB as ammo in the pellet guns, but the loading would still be slow and the resulting accuracy much less.
The Benjamin could be multiply-pumped for higher power and a bit more range, but I don’t think that worked as well or at all for the Crossman, IIRC.

 

If you're a pellet gun fan, and haven't experienced modern generally available break barrel pellet guns that use nitrogen cylinders instead of a spring, you just don't know what you're missing. 1000+ feet per second. Some are advertising 1500 fps for the 177 cal. 850fps+ for the 22. The very high fps 177s use a lightweight alloy pellet and seem to lack accuracy as the pellets tend to tumble more. Those pellets really aren't designed for supersonic speeds. They get much better when you use a lead pellet and get the speed back to 1000ish. Crack the barrel one time, load a pellet, close the barrel. No multi-pump required and deadly accurate. Fun as heck...just don't dry fire one unless you enjoy the sound of supersonic air cracking out of the barrel.

If you want to get adventuresome, there are pellet rifles available that will blow your mind. I believe they even go to 50 cal and higher.

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IIRC, it was a Benjamin that we used to have. It would shoot BBs, but they were no fun. The real fun was the 22 lead pellet. My son killed a ground hog and a rabbit with it. We ate the rabbit. Not the ground hog, but at least it quit digging under our barn. We came close to the scene below with it once. We had a paper target stapled to a chunk of railroad tie. First shot: bulls eye! Second shot was not just a bulls eye. It hit the first pellet dead on and bounced back at us. Yikes!!!

Maybe your dad saw "A Christmas Story" too many times. What a great movie!

 

You'll shoot your eye out!

 

I forgot about the raccoons, moles, black rat snakes, ground hogs, and coyote, and starting to get the rare bear.
The fox and squirrels must have a truce in my yard. Rabbits are a bit less common, I must say. Also no skunks like we got in NJ.

 

Guessing they just meet for dinner every now and then.

 

One of the many adjustments I had to make when I moved to the big city was shifting to a live-trap and pellet rifle for dealing with the local wildlife and using the former I 'relocated' several opossums, raccoons etc.
Felines represented a larger problem since taking a non-domesticated feline to our shelter was a death sentence for the cat.
We have some shelters in neighboring towns that "claim" they they're no-kill shelters, but they're usually run by otherwise out-of-work 'crazy cat ladies' who spent too much of their time reviewing the UHD nuclear grade security cameras monitoring the drop-off cages.
Since the nice elderly lady who lived next door had several bird feeders (which are really CAT feeders!) it took quite a while for word to get out and my yard is just now starting to be cat-urine free (ish.)

I bought a Hatsan .25 cal pellet rifle to deal with the rest of it, and I remain very impressed with this rifle.
It's the most powerful non pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) pellet rifle I found at the time with muzzle energies approaching 31-ft.lbf.
(130-ish is what a .22lr will typically deliver)

PCP pellet rifles are usually used in places where discharging a firearm is discouraged, and as mentioned above they will deliver performance (for a price!!!) that is easily equal to a traditional firearm.

Check your local laws carefully before buying one!!!
Even my humble .25 cal air rifle is considered to be a "firearm" in most nations and regulated thusly.

 

sounds like it can diesel

 

Only if you don't clean it properly.
RTFM

(read the *cough!* "FACTORY" manual.....)

 

The wife sent me to the store to pick up some toilet paper. They were out, so I got a gun instead. If the virus comes, I’ll shoot it.

 

I was talking about :

 

As long as it wasn't for tp substitute.

 

Phew! Quite an assortment! Raccoons are devilishly clever about opening latches on food lockers and so forth, and thus can be a real pest, but I would not shoot one unless necessary as they seem sentient, social, and mostly herbivore or scavenger to me.
Are black rat snakes a protected species in NoVa? If not, I think they should be as I seem them as beneficial snakes. I have no use for copperheads, however ,as they are both poisonous and ill-tempered, and thus I decided to kill the young ones I found in the back garden.
Like our neighborhood fox, I would also “ live and let live” with a coyote unless it started preying on neighborhood pets or endangering humans.
Bears are problematic as they are smart, get too used to humans for their scavenging, and even a black bear is fully capable of killing an unarmed human. However, that said, they are part of the natural ecology in NoVa, so I would choose to call in the animal control folks to do a live trap
Ing + relocation process as they already do for nuisance beavers, I believe.
Thanks for info about modern air rifles, folks! If I had serious varmint problems I would consider one of those modern air rifles (if legal) because discharging a firearm is not legal in my county. Cheers!

 

I'm familiar with the phenom...which is why I mentioned RTFM.
Most high end pellet rifles are fairly finicky critters.
Turning one into a 'spud gun' might add 1 or 2 points to your muzzle energy, for a few shots, but it's not good for the rifle.