Whether you are a seasoned gun enthusiast or contemplating purchasing your first gun, you probably have a lot of questions about air rifles. I know I did before I bought my first one. There are many reasons why you need to add an air rifle to your arsenal.
Why should an air rifle be in everybody’s arsenal? There are a lot of reasons, but keep in mind air rifles will help to improve your shooting skills as well as improve your hunting skills without the same legal hassle. Obviously, there is more to it than that. In fact, we have 8 reasons laid out in this article, but if you wanted a short and sweet answer that would be it. If you want to get more in-depth follow along with this quick explanation.
An air rifle will improve your shooting skills.
If you are like me, you can’t find the time to do everything you want to do. That means heading to the shooting range to target practice with your firearm can be more of a chore than it needs to be.
With an air rifle, you can target practice in your backyard without having to pack up the truck and head to the range. Now, this may not be a great idea if your backyard isn’t fenced, but it is still doable.
How do you get better at anything you do? It is with lots and lots of practice in my opinion. With an air rifle, you can practice pretty much anywhere with a reasonable amount of open land. You can even practice indoors if you have a large enough garage or pole barn. I wouldn’t recommend shooting in your home.
Because of the shorter effective range of air rifles all you need is about 25 yards to get a good practice session in. If you build yourself a pellet trap, like the one I made, you will have no problems.
If you talk to the serious firearms shooters out there, they will all agree that target practicing with an airgun will dramatically improve your marksmanship skills. The way that airguns operate, force you to have proper fundamentals to hit your target time and time again. This is especially true if you have a springer type airgun.
How do you get better at anything you do? It is with lots and lots of practice in my opinion. With an air rifle, you can practice pretty much anywhere with a reasonable amount of open land. You can even practice indoors if you have a large enough garage or pole barn. I wouldn’t recommend shooting in your home.
An air rifle will improve your hunting skills.
Hunting with an air rifle is much more difficult than with a regular firearm. Now, I’m not saying that people using guns to hunt are not skilled, they are, but using an air rifle requires a different set of skills.
First off, the most significant difference between hunting with the two different types of rifles is the effective distance. It is common sense that a gunpowder driven round will shoot a greater range and pack a lot more punch.
Because of the distance discrepancy we have to scale things down for air rifles. A 60-75 yard air rifle shot is a great shot if you hit an animal with a kill shot. This would be the equivalent to shooting a firearm at 300 plus yards and hitting a 3-inch target.
If you don’t have the stand-off benefit of using a firearm, you will need to make improvements in your hunting skills elsewhere. We can tie back into the first reason you should own an air rifle. You will become a more accurate shooter because you will likely be practicing more.
Hunting with an air rifle will also require you to get closer to your prey. So you will get to develop your ability to walk quietly through the area to get close enough. How close you need to get depends on the caliber of your air rifle and your ability to make a kill shot at that distance. This is your Rambo training, but you won’t be using an M-60 to mow down squirrels.
One thing to remember, LOW POWER = HIGH SKILL.
An airgun is a great way to teach your kids.
A few years back my son received a 410 shotgun for Christmas; he was somewhat excited about it. Since we live in Minnesota, he had to wait until spring to try it out. So we decided to do some trap shooting.
All three of my kids were interested in shooting a gun for the first time. That quickly changed after my son’s first shot. The kick from the shotgun was more than he anticipated and he decided that once was enough. My middle daughter quickly backed out of shooting. The youngest daughter decided to try it and managed to get through two shots.
I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t enjoy it, but I realized it was my fault for starting them off with a gun that had a kick. I would have been better off starting with an air rifle so they could learn the fundamentals.
We would have started with shooting close range targets so they could gain some success at first. I genuinely think that would have kept them interested. The noise and the kick quickly discouraged them. They have never asked to shoot a gun again.
An air rifle is a useful pest control tool.
If you live in suburbia, shooting pesky squirrels with a .22 long rifle will get you in trouble with law enforcement officials. If your neighbors are like mine, they will be calling the cops in a matter of seconds after the first gunshot.
I have to say one thing if you have enough squirrels running around your yard that you can spend the day shooting them. You have more significant problems, and you may need to cut down on your nut consumption.
I use my air rifle to control the gopher population on my farm in northern Minnesota. They seem to go in cycles and this year; their numbers are increasing. Shooting pests in the field make you a better shooter. There is a huge difference between shooting a stationary target and a fidgety little critter.
To get back on point, an air rifle is a better option for pest control because the maximum range of a .22 cal pellet is far shorter than the maximum range of a .22 long rifle. I feel much safer using my air rifle when my kids are buzzing around on four-wheelers with our dogs chasing them.
You won’t need to fill out paperwork to purchase an air rifle.
If you purchase an air rifle, you won’t have to go through the licensing process as you would with firearms, except in the state of New Jersey. Check your state’s air rifle laws here and see if your state has any specific restrictions on the use of air rifles.
With this in mind, if you get the urge, you can hop on over to your local sporting goods store and pick one up today. You can even purchase one from the comfort of your couch. Since they require no paperwork, you can get one online and have it delivered. How easy is that?
There are many states with laws against children purchasing air rifles so again check your state’s rules and regulations. While researching to write this article I ran across a few people who said one benefit of air rifles is the ability to open carry in a vehicle (not in all states). I, do not recommend this. In today’s world, it is not advisable to have any pistol or rifle laying around in your vehicle. You are inviting potential trouble from law enforcement if you do.
My final word on the laws regarding air rifles. Keep them away from schools. Most states have some type of law regarding bringing an air rifle on or near school property. Taking an air rifle on school grounds is the quickest way to get yourself in trouble, so don’t do it.
Air rifles are safer than firearms.
Let’s be clear on this. The level of safety for any weapon, be it an air rifle or firearm, depends on the person using it.
When it comes to safety, we are talking about accidental discharges of a round. Growing up my dad always told that a .22 long rifle bullet could travel over a mile, so never randomly shoot a firearm. We could do the math to calculate just how far a .22 bullet would fly but I’m not Sheldon Cooper and physics is hard.
I always thought this was a bit dramatic, but I did watch an unsolved crime show where a guy fired his rifle while on a boat in the ocean. The bullet traveled far enough with enough velocity to kill a woman driving down the highway. The odds of calculating that would again take Sheldon Cooper.
Accidentally firing an air rifle, depending on the caliber, would not be able to do the same thing unless you were standing close to someone, hitting the person in a vulnerable spot. It’s going to be a nasty wound but not to the degree of getting struck will a large caliber firearm round.
I think everyone should have to go through a military firearms style training course. I went to Army basic training, and I am unable to carry a firearm without pointing the barrel downrange. It is always in the back of my mind that a drill sergeant will appear out of nowhere and slap my Kevlar with a range paddle. I never experienced the smack down but saw enough of it to know I didn’t want to.
Another reason airguns are safer is due to the fact they are single shot weapons versus semi-automatic. No rapid fire is going on here. Having to load after each shot will slow down the whole process allowing time for the person to think about what they are doing.
The other day, Dana and I were watching a Youtube video about firearms exploding while people were shooting them. I don’t think anyone in the videos was severely injured, but it was scary.
It is hard to say whether the round or lack of maintenance caused the issue. If it was due to a gunpowder round exploding in the chamber, that is not something you have to worry about with an air rifle. That lead pellet is not going to combust spontaneously.
Air rifles are much cheaper to own and operate.
Depending on the caliber of air rifle you buy you will see that they are slightly cheaper than their firearm counterparts. The lower calibers such as .22 are comparable in price. As you increase the caliber of a firearm, the cost rises significantly.
The actual cost savings of an air rifle is in the ammunition. Pellets are very cheap compared to firearm ammo. Many pellets are less than a penny a piece. You can’t buy .22 long rifle ammo for that price. If you could, you would never find another .22 round available.
The cost of air rifle pellets versus rifle rounds is incredible. The amount of money you will save by shooting pellets will pay for your air rifle in no time.
Remember the big scare of not being able to buy firearm ammo? I remember searching for .22 rounds one day and found one place with one box. Guess what the price was? It was triple the regular price, well that’s how supply and demand works.
With that being said, airgun pellets are easy to find. Every hardware store, sporting goods store or Wal-Mart has air rifle pellets to be found. You can even have them delivered right to your door because they are readily available on Amazon.com.
Pellets are much more versatile than bullets. A .22 caliber birdshot round will not work for plinking, unlike pellets. If you are out plinking in the backyard and you notice you only have hollow point pellets to use. You can still plink away. There are slightly different flight characteristics, but they still get the job done. Same with hunting, any pellet will get the job done, but a .22 birdshot is not going to take down that monster raccoon rummaging through your garbage.
Another benefit of pellets is that they last forever so you can hoard pellets without the worry of them going bad. Have you ever picked up a bullet and upon further inspection didn’t feel safe putting it in your rifle. Gunpowder ammo can go bad, lead pellets not so much.
An air rifle won’t contribute to noise pollution.
Some people say that air rifles are loud. In my opinion that is not the case. In comparison to Crosman 760 BB/pellet gun of the 70’s today’s airguns are louder. Nowhere near the level of a firearm that uses gunpowder.
We have an excellent article on the noise levels of air rifles, you can read it here.
Depending on the caliber of air rifle you are shooting, the need for hearing protection will be your call. When firing my .22 caliber Benjamin Trail air rifle, it’s quiet enough I’m comfortable not using hearing protection. You may feel the need for some protection if you get into the PCP realm.
If you are using a firearm, in my opinion, you will require hearing protection, especially if you will be shooting more than one round. I’m joking; no one can shoot just one round.
An air rifle should be quiet enough that if you have a wooden fence around your backyard and with strategic placement of your shooting position. It is likely your neighbors won’t hear a thing.
Conclusion
Many gun enthusiasts may think an air rifle isn’t a useful addition to their collection, but I beg to differ. An air rifle may not provide the range or knock down power of a firearm, but it does give you a variety of options and options are good.