My dad just gave me a Gamo .177 pellet rifle. The lightweight pellets it comes with (5.4gr) are supersonic and louder than a .22LR with subsonic ammo. What are some heavier projectiles that are recommended for hunting squirrel size game? I would like to get the velocities to be subsonic so its quieter and still effective.

You need to talk to Aloys Slim. He has the air rifle hunting thing down to a fine art mate.

shooting big rats the flat pointed pellets worked even better than round or pointed ones. they popped nicely. we shot untold number rats over quite a period of time nothing to go through 500-100 pellets a night.

0.177 is good for duck shooting in the pond.

You can get a few in one setting without scaring the rest to flight.
Need to head shot them tho, otherwise the kill is not clean.

Elvis wrote:

shooting big rats the flat pointed pellets worked even better than round or pointed ones. .... we shot untold number rats over quite a period of time nothing to go through 500-100? pellets a night.

Elvis, where in the world did you find that many rats or did you just miss alot?

S.J., when my friends go to the local zoo they shoot around 70 rats in a night.

And for pellets: for close range you can take a flat point, say uptill 20-25 yards. Longer distances ask for round top. You'll never get a decent groupe using flat or spits point at 40-50 yards.
And I'm not sure what you can do with a Gamo, but here they do benchrest matches at 100 meter with airguns.

I myself like the czech JSB pellets a lot. In the Theoben MFR 4,5mm I use JSB Exact 0,547 gram / 8,44 grains of size 4,52 mm. In the BSA Scorpion T10, which is 5,5 mm, I now use the JSB Exact Jumbo 1,030 gram/15,89 grains of size 5,52.
Both are shooting around 270 m/s which is about 885 fps, so the energy of the 5,5 is about double.

My honnest opinion about your rifle? The velocity is much too high and I fear you're not going to improve very much when you take top quality pellets, even the heavy ones. Somebody here who knows the airrifles much better than I do, once suggested that the best thing to start is to cut 1 of 2 windings of the spring, so that your rifle will shoot smoother.
When you cannot hit a cow with a heavy rifle, or you become a veggy, or you try to take a smaller rifle...

When you cannot find JSB-pellets, have a look at H&N and/or Air Arms. Sniff around in what they use in Field Target matches, you don't have to reinvent the wheel to drive a car...

By the way: have fun but be carefull not to become too much addicted

slimjim wrote:

Elvis wrote: shooting big rats the flat pointed pellets worked even better than round or pointed ones. .... we shot untold number rats over quite a period of time nothing to go through 500-100? pellets a night. Elvis, where in the world did you find that many rats or did you just miss alot?

local rubbish dump.
the system worked great. you set your self up 40-50 yards from a face/area that showed lots of rats in the torch light. I sat on a low wooden box with an old school chair in front of me. broke open the wairach and inserted pellet, closed her up and rested across chair, turned on torch found target and fired killing most times, turned off torch to save battery, reloaded and did same again...over and over and over. that rifle was up over 1000fps and was accurate enough to hit rats to 50+ if you held it steady enough. mates diana was a fixed barrel with side cocking lever slightly less speed but more accuracy. mate used both of these for rabbits.
feral cat at 40 yards never knew what hit it.

Aloys, Elvis - thanks for the info. It's going to be like a whole nother world.

A workmate just bought a gamo big cat .177
he couldnt get it to group so asked for my help
set up a box at 40 yards...8 or so inches low...many many clicks later got the pellets somewhere near where needed I can hit the end of a can at those ranges now..he had gamo red fire pellets..what a friggin joke..pure gimmick they have a ballistic tip on them!!!! they hit targets sideways from 10-40yards. I will see if I can get some old school elcheapho wasted airgun pellets tomorrow and have another go. oh yeah went for walk around traps and spotted crouching bunny at about 10 yards so poked pellet in behind its ear...tasted plurry good fried up in breadcrumbs for lunch!!!!

Elvis, I brought home a high performance combo pack

www.gamousa.com/produc...uctID=322.

The red fire pellets shot 1/2" 5-shot group at 25 yards. I was pumped. They did much better than the other 3. They certainly were stable in my gamo air rifle.

weird..... I also tried some copperhead BBs...they fall right through barrel but if you muzzle loaded them and kept it above the horizontal I could still get them onto target

Elvis wrote:

I also tried some copperhead BBs...they fall right through barrel

Elvis, it sounds like there is something wrong with your friends set-up. I can feel the pellets engage the rifling when I insert them.

just the copperhead BBs which are undersized. although...using boresighter it was looser than expected but that could be the micro groove barrel. put a old prone to fog redfield bearcub 2 3/4 power on it as a control and it kept pellets to about an inch at 25yards. put the gamo 4x back on it and it kept to the same. a decent scope should improove it no end,I will suggest it to owner when I give it back on Monday. will see if the wasted pellets improove it any.

SJ, and you will be surprised when you get the change to try some JSB Exact's or H&N Baracuda's.
But you being on the other site of the big wather, maybe you should give the Gamo TS-10 a try. Not as good as JSB, but coming close.
Have fun!
I'm sure I will because this evening wabbits are waiting again

Elvis wrote:

I also tried some copperhead BBs...they fall right through barrel

Elvis, it sounds like there is something wrong with your friends set-up. I can feel the pellets engage the rifling when I insert them.