.177 Slugs for Starlings

[Luis Leon]

I have hd complaints in my own shooting with the JSB pellets and others for that matter in that we need some better expanding pellets for pesting.
I have shot into water jugs and they just dont expand not even the hades I tied at 20 yards and at 30
no issues with doing the jib of killing but they most often go through

The whole expanding slugs? At airgun speeds, on thin bone starlings or, small pest birds, is . Why not simply schawk them with pellets? Heck you are still drilling a .177 hole through the vitals of a starling. They really are small, fragile critters. Heck, sending .22 CPHPs at 725 FPS for me? Simply devastating on starling and sparrows out to 50+ yards. Upping it to JSB Exact Jumbo 18s at 30+ FPE? Kills on pigeons out to 104 yards, consistently. Good conditions apply of course, am not testilfying to shooting in gale force winds… For certain critters, good pellets simply get it done… Looking for consistent expansion on thin skinned critters at airgun velocities, particularly the .177 seems like… A solution in search of a problem…

 

[Bladebum]

I am shooting 21fpe which gives the 12.5gr NSA 880fps. Accurate w/o having to break 900fps, really nice, in that regard.

Ahh i see. If it was me and I was trying to keep speeds down I would run pellets. I know you are bucking the wind better with the slugs, but that is a tad slow for long range stability and expansion.

 

[Pumacarl]

Ahh i see. If it was me and I was trying to keep speeds down I would run pellets. I know you are bucking the wind better with the slugs, but that is a tad slow for long range stability and expansion.

That's why I am going to go down to 10gr. If I lose the accuracy I might just go back to pellets because they shoot lights out too, but they get blown around a lot easier. It is a tough call because the starlings are already starting to smarten up, so I really need the range. It is hard going back to pellets once you find an accurate slug.

 

[Pumacarl]

The whole expanding slugs? At airgun speeds, on thin bone starlings or, small pest birds, is . Why not simply schawk them with pellets? Heck you are still drilling a .177 hole through the vitals of a starling. They really are small, fragile critters. Heck, sending .22 CPHPs at 725 FPS for me? Simply devastating on starling and sparrows out to 50+ yards. Upping it to JSB Exact Jumbo 18s at 30+ FPE? Kills on pigeons out to 104 yards, consistently. Good conditions apply of course, am not testilfying to shooting in gale force winds… For certain critters, good pellets simply get it done… Looking for consistent expansion on thin skinned critters at airgun velocities, particularly the .177 seems like… A solution in search of a problem…

The problem is that I don't want big (comparitively) heavy (comparitively) .22 anything, flying through the air or bouncing off of stone walls or tree branches around a house. .177 is a solution to a problem, that being, too much energy for nothing but mayhem out of anything bigger, for what you said are "a thinned skinned critter." I like slugs simply because they do way better in wind and distance than pellets. Between getting expansion out of a slug, or not, or missing, I'll take ice picking them every time. And with that being the case, I want as small and light of projectile as possible going through. If I get a 10gr slug that will expand, even better. I'm not going bigger than .177.