posted on Oct, 11 2010 @ 08:24 PM
Lot of info spinning up the manure-o'meter-bs-guage. First AIR RIFLES; The average air rifle, be it PCP or spring piston is just about as loud as a
.22 LR. The quietest ones ARE the Gamo Whispers and they are VERY quiet, but the most powerful Whisper is a .22 cal shooting a 14.5 gr pellet at 950
fps for a grand total of 23 ft/pounds of muzzle energy. In contrast, a .22 SHORT shooting a 29 gr slug at 1045 fps has 70 ft/pounds of ME.
www.chuckhawks.com... I have hunted since I was a kid and would never have tried to down a whitetail with a .22 short
with 3 times the muzzle energy of a 14.5 gr pellet. Now I'm sure deer have been killed with .22 shorts, with very lucky eye shots into the brain at
close range. I have to say that I doubt that many deer are killed on a regular basis with an air rifle, unless it was a slow painful death from an
infection from an embedded pellet in the skull, ear, gums, etc. Two things. First, they do make larger caliber air rifles that can take medium sized
game. Second, they are as loud as a medium caliber, low velocity handgun, so you might as well use one. Now having said that, if I were in a
survival situation I would try it with an air rifle, all you lose is a pellet. If I wanted to kill small to medium game in a survival situation with
more of a certainty, with stealth, I would use a suppressed 10-22. It is quieter and more powerful, up to 183 ft/pounds of ME vs 23ft/pounds. Most
states allow possession of suppressors with the appropriate BATFE paperwork and they already have all the info on you that they want, so why not use
it to your advantage. NEXT; BOWS are very loud compared to what you would think. Crossbows and compound bows make an amazing amount of noise, so
they are not extremely stealthy, better than the air rifles and real guns but still quite loud in the still of the forest. Most people think that
bows are like they are in the movies..."whispering death"...ooohh. No, UNLESS, you have recurved longbows or recurved crossbows but the longbows
take a significant amount of training over and above shooting regular bows and require a lot more strength and recurved crossbows cost over a grand.
Anyway, bows, air rifles, blowguns, slingshots etc. are not the panacea that the movies, or other people, make them out to be. You can spend as much
or more on an air rifle or bow than on a firearm that would give you better service. They have their place, just be sure you can justify the expense
versus what you need.