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litesong wrote:

vtsnowedin wrote:The last working firearm in America will probably be a bolt action 22LR.

& after the .22 LR bolt rifle stops functioning, the air rifles with keep on "keepin' on". With a supply of 100,000 good pellets, a Feinwerkbau will outlast the pellet supply.

Well an air rifle is not a fire arm technically so we are both right!
Hard to take a deer or bigger game with one. I'd go to my crossbow first.
When it comes to saving powder such rounds as the 6mm PPC are quite efficient as well as amazingly accurate if you can find one and enough brass. For myself I'd just load the 7x57 with 25+/- grains of any of several powders behind a cast gas checked bullet for around 1700 fps.

vtsnowedin wrote:.... air rifle......Hard to take a deer or bigger game with one.

Lewis & Clark had an air rifle for deer on their expedition. Presently, air rifle manufacturers make quite powerful air rifles. One is 45 caliber with muzzle ft-lbs of energy, above(?) that of a 40 S&W pistol cartridge. Think I'd stay with a regular very quiet air rifle for small game survival. Doom, doom, doom....all is doom!!!

litesong wrote:

vtsnowedin wrote:.... air rifle......Hard to take a deer or bigger game with one.

Lewis & Clark had an air rifle for deer on their expedition. Presently, air rifle manufacturers make quite powerful air rifles. One is 45 caliber with muzzle ft-lbs of energy, above(?) that of a 40 S&W pistol cartridge. Think I'd stay with a regular very quiet air rifle for small game survival. Doom, doom, doom....all is doom!!!

Not sure how the thread went from gas mileage to air rifles, but I got to shoot an "Airforce Texan 45" recently. That's one beasty air rifle. I was quite impressed. The only problem is the equipment you need to charge the cylinder to 3000 psi. Anyway, here's a guy testing various grain slugs with their velocity and ft lbs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDC3eRHx2LQ
885/487 for a 280 GR hollowpoint @ 3000 psi. Not bad at all.

I still have my old Crossman .177; the original with the wooden stock. 10-12 pumps and it'll take down a rabbit at 30 yards. Many a squirrel has met its fate with that old Crossman. Maybe I'll look into something more up-to-date.

A couple of years ago I ttried hunting ducks from a kayak with an air rifle up here in Alaska. There are some other cabins on the lake, and I didn't want to fire off a shotgun at 6 am so I wondered if an air rile would be quieter but still effective. Well--- I didn't have much luck-. Maybe the standard air rile pellet can't punch through the feathers? ---I'm going to check out that "Texan" air rifle and see if it can do the trick.

I love how threads wander away from the original question and get annoyed by people and moderators that can't deal with it. Sometimes a thread needs a new or double title so members can find it but other then that people should just let it be.