.45@less than 950fps on deer....

[BUTCHER45]

Please post your detailed results on deer using .45 slugs going no faster than 950fps here. Can't wait to here the stories.

[Nobade]

Well, a round lead ball from a Ruger Old Army fits your requirements. It goes in one side, through the lungs, and out the other. The deer dies rather soon afterward. I don't know that I'd shoot one in the shoulder, unless I was pretty close though.

[yooper77]

All large caliber slow moving bullets put big game down everytime.

yooper77

[Tom W.]

Don't believe these guys... a bullet moving that slow will just bounce off the deer and probably come back and knock your hat off! That's why everyone wants to load to at least 1200 fps or better.....

[cbourbeau32]

Butcher, cool slideshow. I am assuming that all the shooting done in the slide show is with your air rifle. Do you have a post over in the airgun section regarding your air rifle? If so please pm me the thread I'd like to see more about it. I have this itch for something like that. Charlie

[BUTCHER45]

     Here are a couple of links to some hunts.  If you click on my profile and go thru my posts, you'll find that most of them are about air rifles.

http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,145228.msg1098646610.html#msg1098646610

http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,171268.0.html

     Keep the .45 at 950fps or less stories coming!

[Terbltim]

I had to check my old notes to be sure this one was within the parameters of the requested info. At least the velocity is right.
I thought you wouldn't begrudge me adding it to the soup.
The load was a 475-Linebaugh loaded with a Lee 475-400-RF cast bullet stoked with 11.0gr of IMR-PB powder with the bullet seated to the front-most crimp groove. Its one of my pet loads.
A few days before this shot this batch gave an average of 930fps.
A whitetail doe at about 18 steps, broadside, struck on the point of the shoulder.
Bullet punched through as if it was made of cardboard, deer knocked flat, struggled for a few seconds and expired on the scene.
This shot was in '08.

[jhalcott]

 IF you plan on using that airgun on deer, it would be wise to check the regulations where you plan on doing it. I KNOW a 22long rifle WILL kill a deer, but the DNR regs require a certain level of foot pounds to be legal in MY state. In Maine a .22MAG is legal, or was las time I hunted there.

[BUTCHER45]

IF you plan on using that airgun on deer, it would be wise to check the regulations where you plan on doing it. I KNOW a 22long rifle WILL kill a deer, but the DNR regs require a certain level of foot pounds to be legal in MY state. In Maine a .22MAG is legal, or was las time I hunted there.

To me, checking the regs every year is a given. 

I hope to see the airguns in the regulations for deer (cougar would be nice, too) in my state sometime in the future.  Until then, I will have to travel to one of the states where bigbore PCP airguns are specifically allowed in the game regulations.  Maybe Missouri for starters.  In some states, you need your bigbore airgun to be set-up in muzzle-loading configuration to comply with/ hunt the muzzleloader season.  As far as FPE requirements, the more powerful ones typically put out 400-600+fpe.  I've heard of a few special builds putting out well over 1000fpe but they are very rare.

I myself would choose a 250-260grain .45 WFN at 700-950+fps, over any .22rimfire for deer.  250grains is hard to stop even at a lowly 700fps (600page book), and should put a decent hole in a deer (though not like the hole in this book hehe) when shot within airgun range. 

[mdi]

Interesting. I'm sure your air rifle would put down a deer, especially after seeing the slide show with the very dead hog. After all, "killing power" is a function of the speed, weight, S.D., shape, etc., of a bullet and not the means of propulsion.

[jhalcott]

I saw a guy on a TV show shoot a feral hog in the head with a "precision Ballistics Alloy" pellet. It died right there! So it CAN be done,just gotta keep it LEGAL! The bunny huggers seem to influence the game regs more than real hunters do!

[BUTCHER45]

I saw a guy on a TV show shoot a feral hog in the head with a "precision Ballistics Alloy" pellet. It died right there! So it CAN be done,just gotta keep it LEGAL! The bunny huggers seem to influence the game regs more than real hunters do!

     Yea I saw a couple of those stupid videos of the hogs shot with those crap alloy pellets that don't work for anyone I know in the real world.  I saw the hog get shot in the head, and go down, but there's no way of knowing if it was killed, or just stunned.  On one of the video's the hog grunted after a supposed brainshot.  Ever hear a brain-shot pig grunt?  On one of the video's, the hog appears to be both tied-down, and drugged in my opinion.

     I think that those adds are the most irresponsible advertising in the airgun industry.  That is why many serious airgunners boycott that company.  I am sick and tired of hearing about those commercials, and feeling compelled to explain how idiotic they are.

     Why you would even bring that up, then comment "so it CAN be done".  Apples and oranges.  Those alloy pellets/springer pellet guns don't have anything in common with the subject at hand.  I consider shooting a hog with those alloy pellets out of a springer to be a stupid stunt that has absolutely nothing in common with a 250grain .45 boolit@ 950fps.

     As I said before, obeying the law is a no-brainer.

[Sweetwater]

In Maine a .22MAG is legal, or was las time I hunted there.

When did they change that? In 1958, when I started Big Game hunting in Maine, it was minimum .23caliber, minimum 2.0"OAL for a rifle cartridge. Handguns were minimum .35caliber - that hadn't change up to 1985, when I left Maine, and was still in effect in 1996 when I returned as a non-resident for a family reunion November Deer Hunt. That is a question, not an arguement.

I would expect air rifles might need their own "line of legality" in the regs as they don't have a cartridge to meet a minimum requiement with. Just a thought.