My new (old) little .177 bullpup.

Been an interesting day of testing…

Rummaged through my old .177 pellets and chose the following 4 to test:
JSB Hades 10.34gr
Gamo TS-10 10.49gr
H&N rabbiter which I weighed a long time ago at 15.56gr
And the Piledriver at 21gr.

The piledrivers are very long and need to be pushed gently into the AA magazine.
I was also worried about them being too heavy to exit the barrel at this low velocity 🫣, but they did.
Decided not to test the gamo TS-10 as it is just a domed version of the hades.



Shot a pellet from each through an apple and put a piece of wood behind to catch incase the pellet made it through the apple. Shot the wad cutter as a control pellet.
The 15.56gr rabbiter was way off poa, so far that it eliminated its self and got no further testing.
The wadcutter, hades and piledriver all penetrated the apple and embedded into the wood.
The pileriver landed next to the hades, and squashed it! what are the chances….?
The take away from this for me was that although all 3 pellets were shot from the same rifle, same power level, the heavy piledriver (which would have been traveling much slower) went deeper into the wood.
So it seems the heavier pellet carry’s more momentum (thats just physics), but it didnt transfer that energy into the target, possibly because of the shape of the projectile?



I then got out Maurice, our fearless volunteer pigeon. I tried to set him up in a position similar to the shot I would be presented with, I.e. steep uphill. I put a piece of paper behind Maurice to tell if any pellets exited the bird.



I fired 5 wad cutters into the crop/breast area, hoping to reach vitals, but not exit.
The good news is…. None of the wad cutters exited!!!
I then shot a wadcutter into the back of the bird, again trying to reach the vitals, followed by a pile driver in the back. Nothing exited.
Lastly I fired 3 piledrivers into the crop/breast area, again hoping to reach vitals. All 3 of the piledrivers exited the bird, through the paper and into the pellet trap!!!
Again, the piledrivers weigh two and a half times more than the wadcutters, but should be traveling much slower, so they should have about the same FPE. But they penetrate like hell!
Imagine if those piledrivers had a huge hollow point and could mushroom and dump all their energy into the target! Deadly!


My fingers are showing the directions the shots were taken in.

So that answered the question of will a 4,5FPE 8.18gr wad cutter exit a pigeon at 8 or 10m.
No, they don’t. Yay!

The next question I have is did they penetrate far enough to reach vitals?
To answer that I had to do a pigeon disection. This was my first time dissecting a pigeon, and boy did I learn a lot!!!
If u intend shooting any pigeons I would highly recomend you dissect one, their anatomy is nothing like what you think it is!!!
So what did I learn?
Well, a pigeons crop extends way further down the chest than what I thought it did!
I thought I was taking crop/breast shots, no, they were mostly crop shots.
When the crop is full it is big, and holds a lot of seeds and corn. This just means more stuff for your pellet to get through before u reach vitals 🤔. Maybe something to think about when shooting pigeons feeding during the day, verses shooting them at night when they r roosting and their crops are empty.
I also learnt the breast meat is thick and red, (and looks delishious!) and is more stuff to get through to reach the vitals, although from a different angle to the crop.
I also learnt that the heart is fairly large and is protected behind a huge shield called the sternum, and the breast mussels. It is also positioned way further down the body than I would have ever imagined! It’s closer to the drumsticks than it is to the neck. Infact, a shot through the back would be much easier to reach the heart and lungs than from the front or from below (typical uphill shot at a pigeon).
I also learnt that what I though was a “in the back shot”, trying to take the easy route to the vitals, was actually way to far down the back, they were actually more like kidney shots!

So where did the wad cutters end up?
One I couldn’t find, 1 I recovered deep in the crop, around the wishbone. One deep in the breast mussel, one went through the crop into the neck, One just into the lung, and the last one was in the heart. I think the one in the heart was the shot from the back. The piledriver sent into the back (lower back) I found at the base of the neck.


Pellets recovered from the pigeon.

So more questions…
This is a very particular situation, steep uphill shot that I do not want to exit.
Will the wadcutters exit? I don’t think so.
Will they kill the pigeons dead on the spot? I don’t think so.
Will they kill the pigeons and solve the problem? I believe so.
Would a slightly heavier pellet, like the 10,34gr hades penetrate deeper into vitals but still not exit? Maybe.
I think we’re making progress and have a possible solution, but I also feel more testing is needed to find the best pellet and set up for this specific situation.
Pete.

Maybe try the heaviest pellet you can. I use 18 grn JSB at around 11 fpe for pigeons. But it does depend on where you hit them, as there's not much resistance inside the bird unless you hit bone or wings.

Miserable day today, but I managed to get out to one of my permissions and asked if I could use their bottom paddock which I turned into a little shooting range. Wind was strong enough to keep blowing our camp chairs over 😡 and the light rain was cold, but it was still nice to get out and do a bit of shooting.
It’s like therapy for me…

So I tested Elly and the apple today…
It was a small apple, only about 60mm diameter. The 4.5fpe .177 wad cutter unfortunately exited the apple, knocking it off its pedestal.
Second shot did the same again.
I then put a backstop behind the apple and tried it a third time. Wad cutter exited, and lodged into the wood behind it. But was only lightly embedded in the wood… 🤔






An interesting side note is that my sons little gamo delta fox shooting a domed pellet at 3.8fpe (so only slightly less power) was also shooting stright through the apple, but didn’t knock it off it’s pedestal.
So both pellets have enough energy to pass through the apple, but the wad cutter is delivering more energy into the apple and thus knocking it over.

Not convinced with todays results, I managed to get out to another permission where I know there are some pigeons and just before dark I managed to bag a pigeon, and a rabbit 😂.
So tomorrow morning I’ll do some pigeon testing 👍🏻

Edited by RangerPete - 15 Jul 2023 at 3:01pm

Put a something equivalent  behind the apple, although a apple is easier to penertrate, feathers are a different ball game. Polymag Predators would be my pick at that distant & speed. Still aim for the thick chest area. Set scope up for the required range so you don't have to think about aim points.

Edited by flock - 14 Jul 2023 at 5:26pm

It's a Wildcat  sniper m3, were cherry picked, shows its capable.

Edited by flock - 12 Jul 2023 at 2:35am