Destructive Armadillo in My Yard

[Billm]

Bilm, I had around a 1-year-old, about 120-pound bear knock over my garbage can last Thursday at 11pm.

One of the problems with airguns is nothing is standard. One .30 may put out 60FPE but the next will put out 80fpe and the next 110fpe and so on. All of the calibers are this way. So, for racoons which can be hard to kill I say .25 or .30 50fpe or more for medium to long range. There are vidoes of them running after being shot with a 22mag so they can be tuff if you don't make a good shot in the vitals. Yes, my .22 Condor can make a bunch of power, but I still go with a .25 or .30 to hunt coons. The larger the hole you put in something the faster it will go down and you won't always get good expansion. I have killed them with both calibers. I killed a lot of them in my yard near the chicken pen years ago with a Hatsan 135 .30 brake barrel inside of 20 yards that only made 30fpe but it was always very close range and a .30 hole with a heavy pellet put them down with one shot every time. I don't think I could cock that thing anymore, took about 50 pounds of force.

Florida Bears are getting abundant.

 

[JimT66]

What Air Rifle Caliber and KE Minimum would you recommend for Dillo dispatching just curious? I live In New York Long Island to be exact and we now have a Rabid Raccoon Epidemic! I keep an JTS Air Styrke (.25 26.24 H&N Crow Magnum) at the ready just In

Would depend on the money you want to spend, but I would go minimum .25 AirStryke magnum, with h&n 30 grain slugs, or JTS 33 grain Dead Center pellets. Both will give you well over 50 ft.lbs energy and you can smack them around/kill them out to 50ish yards with a decent scope. The JTS 43 grain slugs will give you mid 60's of energy. The 30 caliber even more. The farther away from a possible rabid coon you are, the better. And either one of these 2 would make an excellent hunter at a distance that will keep you safe. Either will also drop large Coyotes out to at least 50 yards as well.