.357 airgun shooting an 81 grain pellet at 900fps. Basically a hair less energy that a hot .22LR round. But you'll be hard pressed to see any firearm do it this good

Oh yeah, shot distance was 60 yards.

Damm

Wow. I'm impressed.

Not a fan. Got lucky that time l, but deliberately hunting with an underpowered rifle is a limp dick thing to do.

I'm impressed, but I'm not sold on it. If shot placement would of been off at all, he would of had a wounded deer with no blood trail. Not saying you have to have a 375 H&H to kill a whitetail, but 223 is the smallest I go on deer and some would say that's unethical. If he would of shown entry, exit(?), and wound channel maybe but still probably not.

A lot of deer died from 32-20 and even 25-20 Winchester. You don't need even .223 level energy.

I agree with you wingsnthings, I'm just speaking for myself. I know guys that use nothing but 22 mags. I'm just not comfortable deer hunting with a lesser caliber then a 223.

You are correct that shot placement has to be right, there's little room for a poor shot. But so it is with archery, and the key to understanding airguns it to understand that they are not meant to perform like firearms. Instead they perform like archery equipment, but are more effective at a further range than bows and also edge out crossbows.

As for the allegation that its luck, this video will prove that assertion wrong:



That's not my video, but it shows multiple deer kills with a .357 airgun similar to the one I've using int his video. You'll see that several of the deer expire as the doe did in my video, a few leaps or bounds, then they stop and stare until they flip on their backs and kick like cockroaches. That proves there's a commonality as to how lung-shot deer die when shot with airguns, at least .357 airguns.

BTW, the energy levels in all of these videos are less than a .22 mag. 200fpe and less. But far exceeding a compound bow. You can't deny the airguns are more effective than bows in terms of quiet kills and as effective as firearms at only a fraction of the energy.

One reason is that airgun projectiles are almost pure lead, meaning that HP bullets can expand better at lower velocities. Another possible reason is that airgun projectiles are cold when they hit and not hot like firearms, to the extent that cold projectiles do more damage than hot projectiles. In the case of my video, there was zero projectile deformation. But with a pellet as I was using instead of a bullet, that allows for the skirt to retain its cutting edge and make a surgical wound channel all the way thru the lungs.

There is no comparison between a .30 Cal bullet and a 1" cutting diameter broadhead. Sure, you can kill a deer with a .22 mag, but you're a fucking idiot if you do.

I'm not impressed...

Basically this airgun load is ballistically near identical to a .32 ACP.  Yes, it killed the doe.  Call me less than enthusiastic.  You could also make a video showing a doe cull, using a .25 ACP or a .22 short.  I'm sure both have killed deer.  The fact that it has been done does not make it a great idea....  or even a moderately good idea...

I am an enthusiastic deer hunter.  Like many "hardcore" deer hunters, I have a ton of respect for the animals I hunt.  I want to be as ethical as possible, taking my deer cleanly, with minimal chances of an agonizing, long-term, drawn -out cripple or outright loss. If I choose to shoot at a deer, I want it to expire as rapidly as possible.  No, I do not need a magnum caliber.  However, I do need "enough" caliber....

Unlike many of the internet commandoes found on  websites, I am not an absolutely perfect shot.  I'm a decent hunter, but I'm not some whitetail Simo Hayha...  If I am off by a little bit, I want the caliber, and the bullet, to have sufficient energy and penetration to ensure a quick kill.

Here is the rub:  take 100 similar shots on similar deer at a similar range with any decent deer caliber, using a good bullet.  Take your pick:  243, 6.5 Creedmoor, 7mm 08, 308, heck even the old 30-30.  I am willing to bet you could cleanly take said deer 98 or 99 times out of 100.

Now run the same scenario with the damned pellet gun.  Are you going to get a similar 99/100 clean kill record?  I seriously doubt it.  It's nothing against the pellet gun.  I bet the same situation using .32 ACP, .380 or a .25-20 would also result in 5, 10, 15 , or more less-than-ethical crippling "kills".  Is five or ten times more cripples an acceptable rate?  Not in my book....  I've got too much respect for the animal I'm hunting.

You don't need a 300 magnum to hunt deer.  But you need enough gun....  Deer can be remarkably tough....  If .32 ACP using a fairy non-expanding bullet isn't acceptable as a defensive gun because it lacks stopping power, then its similarly unacceptable as a deer hunting round for the same reason.

The comparison between airgun energy and bow energy is irrelevant.  Bows aren't using energy to kill (they aren't using a target/field point, and relying on energy).  Bows use broad heads.  The mechanism of killing isn't energy, but rather the blood loss due to the cutting of tissue.  The sharpened broached uses cutting edges to kill, not energy transfer.

But that's where you erring, due to not really understanding how airguns work. Airguns also kill exactly the same way as a bow, by the mechanical wound channel created by the projectile, not by dumping energy. You're fooled because airguns superficially look like firearms. But in physics they're like bows, and the bullets are like broadheads (often like mechanical broadheads that extend inside the animal).



The above are 3 airgun bullets shot at 50 yards into modeling clay with an impact velocity at or below 800fps. The bullets are .45, .300, and .308 calibers.

The depredation season is about to start on my blueberry farm. As I start knocking the deer back I'll film the kills and post them here.

And here's a video I did shooting various airgun loads into clay like the bullets above. I start with weaker .25 loads and move up to deer-appropriate bullets about mid way thru the video. The .308s make fist-sized wound channels about a foot deep and the .45 makes a head-sized channel.

Hate to tell you but an airgun is nothing at all like an arrow.  There isn't a single thing that is similar to them other than they travel through the air.  Shoot an airgun in city limits and have the police show up and you will be charged with discharging a Firearm within city limits.  Don't believe me? ask my neighbor who was given a misdemeanor for said discharge.  The other neighbor didn't like him shooting the pigeons.

Airguns are classified as a firearm and operate with the same principals.  A charge of air is the propellent rather than a charge of powder.  They use a bullet just as a regular firearm or black powder firearm does.    They kill the same way a firearm does and nothing like a broadhead.  They only operate at much lower velocities than modern firearms do.

I have seen countless videos of large game taken with airguns, up to and including American Bison.  The .458 caliber airgun is closer to that of an original black powder 45 Colt fired from a handgun.  Which by the way will shoot through a deer, elk, or even a moose when loaded to factory specs.  A dear friend of mine who has since passed on had many pictures of him taking all the above mentioned animals with an Original Colt SAA using black powder loads.  We have been lead to believe that we need a minimum of some sort of magnum just to kill a deer.  It's just not true.  The old black powder calibers were killing deer for many many decades.

So you acknowledge airguns are up to the task, you just don't believe they function as firearms. We can agree that airguns are up for the task, but I have to respectfully disagree as to your argument as to why they're like firearms.

Most of your argument seems to rely on the notion that airguns are legally firearms. That's actually not even a correct assertion. Under Federal law and most state laws, airguns are not firearms. Definitely in the state of Florida airguns are not firearms, and airguns are not firearms under Federal law under U.S. v. Crooker, where it was held that ATF doesn't have authority to regulate airgun suppressors. That's why detachable airgun suppressors are sold openly on the internet. So long as there is no evidence of design or intent to use the suppressor on a firearm, ATF has no authority over it. Felons may also have airguns, at least under Federal and Florida law.

But more than that, the method of propulsion is irrelevant for our discussion. Firearms fire from an explosion. PCP airguns fire from a released of compressed air. Bows fire from the release of a string. None of that has anything to do with how they kill.

What matters is how the airgun kills. What the airgun projectile does when it hits to kill an animal. You believe that an airgun kills by dumping energy when it hits? All 150fpe of it? That's how the multiple deer are killed so cleanly in the videos I posted? Between the two videos there's a good 5 or 6 deer demonstrated to die cleanly from shots with less than 200fpe of impact energy. In the case of my shot, I wasn't even using a deforming projectile. It kept its form perfectly all the way thru the deer. You must believe the dumping of 100 to 200 fps in a deer is fatal from the energy shock or else your argument fails. Do you believe that? I don't. It makes more sense that the projectile is cutting a wound channel thru the deer and that's why the deer dies. And that is exactly how archery projectiles work, and that's why my logic stands and is correct in this matter.

I don't acknowledge they function as a firearm?  Where did I say that?  They are basically a firearm.  While they are not regulated by the ATF, there are ordinances in many cities that prohibit the discharge of them within city limits, just as my neighbor found out.

A regular bullet doesn't kill by dumping it's energy into an animal.  If that were true you could shoot an animal anywhere and dump a bunch of energy and the animal would die.  They don't kill by dumping energy.  They kill by either destroying the vital organs leading to blood loss or destroying the central nervous system.  An airgun works in the same way.  Arrows rely on sharp blades to cut through vital organs to cause major blood loss.  
You only need enough velocity and energy to penetrate into the vitals.  22lr. will kill deer just as an airgun will.  Same exact principles.  There is no difference other than propellent.

You're right, I didn't word that right. You believe they do function as firearms. I meant to say you don't believe they function as archery equipment, as clear by the next sentence where I said I disagree with your assertion that they function like firearms.

But let's parse your argument:

Not true. Supersonic bullets dump energy in the vital organs. You still usually need a vital organ hit, but the bullet does damage far beyond simply the tissue the bullet touches. The reason vital tissue gelatinizes from firearm hits is because the bullet dumped its energy. And as anyone who's gut shot game knows that a bullet that dumps its energy into the guts often creates nearly vaporized guts. A nasty explosion of gut material and waste inside the gut cavity. That's not just a mechanical wound. That comes from the releasing of energy that gelatinizes the area around the bullet's path. Assuming the bullet expanded and dumped its energy. It just isn't a clean death for the animal. But the energy is dumped and damage is done all the same. Its not a simple mechanical wound channel.

Aren't you saying in a roundabout way that the energy a bullet dumps destroys the vital organs or the central nervous system? If not, then you are arguing that there's no such thing as knock down power. You would be arguing that a firearm bullet's mechanical wound channel alone is what kills, and there you've trapped yourself into arguing that bullets kill just like arrows, from the cut they make. Either you believe bullets and arrows kill the same way, from the cut/tear they make, or you believe there's something different about bullets in how they do damage and the magnitude, and that difference can only be more energy.

That is exactly how airguns work. You only need enough energy to penetrate the vitals and its the cutting edge of the airgun projectile that kills the animal. The bullet and pellets themselves are cutting edges. The pellet's cutting edge is the skirt. The bullet's cutting edge it the mushroomed hollow point. The pellet's skirt or the hollowpoint bullet rips the wound channel, and its that ripped wound channel that kills the animal. Just like with a broached. That broadheads are razors and airgun bullets/pellets are lead cutting edges is just a superficial difference. They both function the same way in how they kill. An airgun's bullet is very much like a mechanical broadhead that's expanding and opening up inside of an animal's vitals. The cutting edges just happened to me made of expanded lead instead of steel razors.

I think anyone watching these videos with hunting experience can see that the deer are dying like they've been shot by arrows.

And I think most would disagree with you concerning how so seem to disregard the reality of the dumping of kinetic energy by a firearm bullet as the major factor in how a firearm kills.

I disagree. Bullets kill by severing vessels. Not by "energy dump."

That's why animals get gut shot and high lung shot and run for miles.

If you want to shoot deer with your pellet gun go for it, but be sure to show all the videos, not just the ones where recovery happens quickly and easily. I would imagine these videos on YouTube are similar to long range hunting videos that never show wounded or lost animals. Interestingly enough, this past fall showed a number of high profile hunters with bad shots resulting in complicated or no recovery.

Then you believe that bows, airguns, and firearms, are all pretty much the same in their killing potential. Therefore you shouldn't expect there to be any more lost animals from airgun hits than from firearm hits of the same caliber, if you're correct about energy not being the primary factor that separates high-power firearm kills from bows and airguns.

I've actually never seen a high-lung or gut-shot deer with a firearm go for miles, at least no deer I've ever shot. On a truly gut shot deer, usually their guts look like exploded poo goo when recovered because the bullet gelatinized them, and I've never seen a lung shot deer that didn't crumple within a couple hundred yards of the hit location, most of the time within 75 yards. The only deer I ever saw go for miles on a firearm hit to the guts was one a fellow in my group with no hunting experience shot in the ham, thinking the ham was the shoulder and looking at the deer backwards in the twilight. It really wasn't a gut shot at all, but a butt shot. It took us hours to recover that deer, but we eventually ran it tired and was able to catch it and kill it.

Now understand I'm not talking about hydrostatic shock, where the energy released from the bullet rides the blood vessels into the brain and causes hemorrhaging. That's a 50/50 shot as to whether that will happen on a firearm hit of sufficient energy. I'm taking about the tissue damage that comes from the release of energy immediately around the bullet. The tissue damage is above and beyond what the literal edges of the bullet are touching...

... or is it? See, my .308 airgun at 200fpe (.22mag power levels) will make a wound channel thru a deer's lungs that indistinguishable from a .308 rifle (8 times the energy). That would actually lend some credence to you assertion that energy isn't what kills even with a high-powered rifle bullet.

But then that would mean that all of the debates people have about FPE and stoping power and the whole subsonic .30 thread and whining about having enough power to kill a deer is completely irrelevant.

So which is it?

Fuck man, I am just not that invested in it.

If it's legal and you think it's ethical have at it.

I'm not trying to be a jerk. The debate is two tiered as I see it. There is a level where I am calling people out who arrogantly look down their nose at whatever kind of hunting they don't like and throw up arguments against it, but they've never really thought about the arguments enough to see their own contradictions. I'm calling that out all day long. That's moreso what I saw in the .30 subsonic thread.

But on the other hand, I do have an open mind concerning the reasoning why airguns kill deer so well. That they do so is a given. So I presume that where airguns have the energy of a bow, and the game seems to react as if they've been hit by a bow, its more likely the airguns kill like a bow, and that the "broadhead" of an airgun just happens to be a lead pellet or bullet instead of a three bladed razor. That seems like the most likely explanation and so that's what I'm arguing.

But I do acknowledge that the airgun wound channels I've seen made with expanding airgun bullets are indistinguishable from firearm wound channels of the same caliber. Full of bloodshot and a hole much larger than the bullet itself would suggest. That shouldn't be where the firearm bullet has several times more energy.  The last .308 airgun wound channel I examined was a pass thru at 50 yards thru the chest quartering towards, clipped the top of the heart, and went out the far lung and shoulder. The hole that was tore thru the ribs was the size of a walnut and full of blood shot. The impact energy at 50 yards would have been a bit more than a .22LR but less than a .22mag. It looked like a .308 firearm wound channel.

On one hand, that supports the argument that firearms don't make their wound channels by dumping energy.

But on the other hand, that would also mean that FPE is irrelevant (beyond having enough power to shoot into and thru the game and making the bullet expand for mechanical damage) and what nearly everyone thinks they know about how firearms works in terms of terminal ballistics, including myself, is fundamentally wrong. That when you look at a wound channel and see the gelatinous blood shot, that didn't come from the bullet's energy being released during expansion, it came simply from the bullet cutting and tearing and nothing more. Which would meant that 200fpe is just as deadly as 2,000fpe. Nearly everyone is going to LOL if someone makes that assertion. But that seems to be the implication of arguing that bullets don't make their wound channels in large part by the dumping of energy, and also noting that airgun and firearm wound channels can be identical with massive differences in energy.

I don't understand your hang up on trying to prove that your airgun is anything like a bow but whatever.

Ding ding ding.

I'm all for appropriately powered airguns for hunting.

They're guns. They shoot bullets. Get over it OP.

It makes a hole, if the hole lands on something important, the critter dies. It's that easy. The hard part is you as a hunter must make it get there.

A bow makes a hole, and if that hole lands on something important, the critter dies. The airgun has the energy of a bow, not the energy of a firearm. If you believe an airgun kills like a firearm, then you believe a bow kills like a firearm too. You believe energy dump is irrelevant. But I don't think you actually think that. But that's the position you're married to if you're right about an airgun being identical to a firearm despite the energy differences.

None of you can yet answer that argument.

Here, I can prove the difference between an airgun round and a firearm round, where the firearm round is carrying a lot more energy than the airgun round:



The airgun round cuts a big wound channel in the clay. The firearm round "explodes" in a manner of speaking when it expands and dumps its energy and blows the clay up. Both are deadly on a soft target, but for very different reasons. The airgun round is almost entirely mechanical damage, the firearm round is damage by energy that far exceeds the raw mechanical damage.

You can't deny it. Its right in front of you.

I am comparing the Airgun to a black powder rifle.  The exact same.  I'm not talking about modern magnum inline muzzleloaders.  I'm referring to traditional BP.   Low velocities, patched round ball or conical bullets.  They behave in the same manner as an airgun.  They do not have the Hydraulic shock from the higher velocities that modern firearms produce.

It would also be similar to say a 38 S&W not 38 Special.  Low velocity and low energy.

A big slow moving bullet, or a smaller faster moving bullet are both still bullets.

A broadhead cuts its wound channel.

Your lead projectile tears its path like every other bullet.

Nobody cares about the difference in ft lbs of energy, it doesn't matter here.

Cutting and tearing is the same thing for this discussion. The edges of the projectile are interacting with the tissue and making the wound channel thru that contact. That its edges are made of blades or a mushroomed cone is superficial. The edge is the edge and its the edge that makes the wound. Totally different dynamic than when a firearm dumps its energy into tissue.

I can agree with you there that the BP is more like an airgun, but that distinction hasn't been made in many of the comments. Most of the comments have been directed towards firearms in general and denying that in general bullets do their tissue damage by energy dumps.

The reason this matters is that an average Joe who picks up a big bore airgun for the first time to hunt with it needs to be picking shots that are more like what he would take with a crossbow, not with a firearm rifle of the same caliber. The airgun is effective when you treat it along those terms.