range of a air rifle 177 break barrel

skywalk

hi all .
what,s the max range of a 177 . break barrel air rifle . and the f.p.s please .

Vegeta

Depends what energy the air rifle outputs. They're not all the same, is it a 12 ft/lb rifle?

from the net somewhere:
A 12 foot-pound rifle in .177 caliber shoots a 7.9-grain pellet at approx 826 f.p.s.

Sparks

It's now quite as easy a question to answer as it is to ask because it depends on the rifle, the condition of the rifle (is it still putting out the same energy as when it was made), and the pellet you're using (both its weight and its shape).

skywalk

well its not shooting at 826 fps more like 400fps with a 49g /7.56gr pro magnum penetration pellet / 12lb 6lb 3lb 2lb sorry i,m i don,t know what you mean by lb,s what are they and how can i tell . from what i can gather 4 joules is 2.95 lbs . .

Vegeta

Air rifles are tuned so that they fire pellets with a certain energy. 12 ft/lbs is common but my father has a 30 ft/lb air rifle.

The 30 ft/lb air rifle will fire the pellet faster than a 12 ft/lb one. Therefore to answer your question with any reasonable guesstimate you need to know how powerful the air rifle is.

Have you fired the pellets through a chronograph? Is that how you got the 400fps figure?

Sparks

Joules and Foot-Pounds are both measures of energy skywalk, one is the modern SI unit (the Joule) and one is the old English Imperial unit (the foot-pound). Outside of the US/UK, you don't tend to see ft/lb used much. 1J = 0.7376ft/lb.

skywalk

yes i got the 4 joule reading useing a chronograph machine not sure what fps it was shooting at can,t remember it was around 400fps . this is a elgamo expo do you know much about them .

skywalk

any more info on this .

skywalk

anyone ? .

Sparks

It depends on what you mean by range. Accurate range, as in can-hit-the-target-I-aim-at range, can be up to 70-80 metres with hunting air rifles (and even more with some of the really heavy-duty ones, but they're really more about going through their target than just hitting it so they don't get used very far past 70-80m either). Thing is, I'd never heard of the expo before so I went and looked it up, and it's not a hunting air rifle (well, it's been used for hunting squirrels, but usually from the base of the tree the squirrel was climbing at the time). It's about 4ft/lb in power (about 5.4J), and yours is probably a bit less than that because these things were made in the 1970s and they didn't have synthetic seals back then, but leather seals in the mechanism and those can degrade if they weren't stored carefully, so your rifle might need a bit of love and attention from someone who knows what they're up to.

As to accurate range, well, it's about as powerful as my IZH air pistol, and that's accurate-ish out to 25m, but I wouldn't push it much past that.

Tackleberrywho

I fired some lovely air rifles with the defence forces a few years ago (you had to crank a lever to charge them), very light crisp trigger and very accurate on teh indoor 25 yard range.
But you had to be very careful feeding them or you could jam them.
looked a bit like this
http://www.acme-firearms.com.au/Used%20Rifles/Anschutz%20Match%20Mod%20250.htm

I'm not 100% on the make as it was a few years ago now.
If I was to buy an air rifle, I'd get a repeater as break barrel are a PITA.

Sparks

Break barrels are fine for what they're meant for - vermin control. You can get really good target air rifles using the same mechanism internally (but usually with a lever to pull instead of using the barrel, so as to save the sights from an accidental knock), like the Feinwerkbau 300 series, which happily set records in their day and which will (if well maintained) still outshoot most people today.

skywalk

thanks lads