Modern Hunting Air Rifle Advice

animalspooker said:

Seeing a number of large caliber (.45 and up) air rilfes being used to kill hogs and deer and African game. Had a customer ask me what I new....told him I used to have a Red Ryder!?!?

He is wanting something he can shoot, quiet and deadly to larger game, mostly hogs. I see all kinds of brands, Hatsan, Umarex, Air Venturi....the list goes on. Does anyone have any experience with this line of rifles? Obviously, number of shots without an air reload would be one important factor, but energy hitting targer and low sound would by my top qualities.

Experts? What say you?

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There was a member here several years ago that hunted coyote with a 45cal air rifle. Sam Yang was the brand name but it looks like it is now called Seneca.

It's funny you brought this up since last night I was looking at videos on Facebook and there was a guy that was shooting a fully automatic Hastan 30cal rifle. I watched a few of his other videos and he had a 68 or 69cal rifle shooting a 700gr bullet. Thing tore a hole in a steel tank.
I'm not sure how much those ones are though. I'm sure something like that is every bit as expensive as a good rifle.

Watch some of the YouTube videos and see just how NOT QUIET the large bore pellet rifles are


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I looked into big bore air rifles a couple years ago. they are very expensive, louder than what you'd think an air rifle should be and not really all that powerful. needless to say, I gave up on the idea.

These big bore air rifles are nothing more than a weak firearm that has about the same energy as a .17 Rem and that's with a huge .45 or .50 caliber bullet moving at less than 1000 FPS. Imagine how little penetration power you'd have with that large of a surface area compared to the smaller surface area of the .17.

They are louder than a suppressed gun of the same caliber, but not as loud as gunpowder guns.

They all require an external pressurizing device, some use hand pumps and others require a compressor or a compressed air tank to recharge.

Some will shoot up to 20 shots without a recharge, but none will actually have enough energy to kill an animal after 3 or 4 shots. I've seen advertisements claiming that the air rifle gets up to around 250 Ft/Lbs of energy, “enough to kill a feral hog”. I'm not sure that I'd consider that enough energy to kill a feral hog reliably.

Most states do not allow them to be used for hunting.