I'm Dave Caesar, based in Arrowtown, Central Otago.

I work in invasive animal pest control so I'm in a bit of playground with plenty of targets running around.

Rabbits would make up about 60-70% of my workload with the odd occasion to get out on a goat or deer job now and then.  I haver the use of a PCP for my rabbit and bird control and rimfire and centerfire rifles for everything else. 

I'm here to share my knowledge and experience as well ask questions and learn from others.

Cheers,

Dave

Thanks for making the effort to join.

cheers

Paul.

I have been testing loads of slugs recently and once I've collated the information I'll post a few results.

As I'm in the business of pest management I collect a lot of video data, some of which goes to the client and some of it gets shared.  If the forum is ok with this I'll post a few of those videos with a backstory for each.  

Otherwise I'm mostly here to engage in common interest conversations.

Cheers

May I assume this is the one and only Paul Blades?

I thought I might run into here.

It's been a busy winter on the guns and with spring coming early, no rest for the hunter.  From one job to the next it's all I can do right now to keep the numbers from getting out of hand on my customers properties.  

I have had some time recently for testing slugs.  I ordered in a decent selection from Krale and found an afternoon a week or so ago with very lite winds to have a play.  JSB, Patriot, H&N, Nielsen, Zan, even Brian send down a few samples of his Spyda Slugs.  With plenty of air supply on hand I would have spent about five hours going through the whole lot.  The chrono was even plugged into an external battery bank. 

So far, all the slugs in the 30gn neighbourhood have performed well through the FX. I have found my barrel prefers .217" diameter projectile, but for the odd few, the .218" performed better.

I'll clean the barrel and carry out this test again, when time allows.

My own experience so far... and I open suggestions and advice.

Although the 25gn pellets that have been in use for a few months have been great to about 75m, I'm needing to find a slug that shows consistent accuracy to around 125m and still carry enough energy at that distance for a clean kill shot. The other issue I have is shot count.  I don't want to have to be a slave to returning to the vehicle after every 30 shots to top up the FX.  There is balance and breaking point to everything and with air rifles that point is around 125m.  Past that I need a slug heavier than 35gn to carry the energy  for a clean kill shot but my shot count per fill is lower. This is point where I return to using the 22lr for consistent accuracy past 125m, and I can carry several hundred round if necessary.

I am newby on the PCP scene, so perhaps I need a bit of professional tuition to what I could be doing better before I develop too many bad habits. 

Cheers.

Ranger Pete has done a fair amount of testing for similar work too, so i'm sure you guys will nut out some great info. I know I have a lot to learn with slugs and consistent longer range shooting.

It's not ammunition that I'm running back to the ute for, it's air top ups.

I have several magazines for the pellets/slugs, however, it's reg pressure that I'm running the 30gn at chews up a bit of air.  I reckon I would get about 35-40 shots before needing to top up the FX bottle before running too low.  I don't like dripping below 150BAR on the FX bottle so I'm getting approx. 40 shots for 100BAR of air.   

The PCP is still much quieter than the 22lr. Having said that the PCP does make noise when releasing that much air under that sort of pressure.  At times, the only my 22lr makes is the firing pin hitting ther back of the cartridge and the bullet hitting the intended target.  So in some ways there about on par with each other.

As far as scope go, I use an Element Helix for sighting in projectiles and bit of bird work.  I also have a HikMicro Alpek 4K LRF for most of my bird work and twilight shooting of rabbits that I sometimes do.

My main go to scope that sees about 90% of the work is a HikMicro Steler 3.0 LRF.  

Once you go thermal it's hard going back.

Greeting from a frosty Arrowtown.

I went with the 700mm "Sniper" version, as this will be used almost entirely for rabbit/possum (pest) control.  Up until recently I have been keeping Hornady and CCI fanatically buoyant with all the 17HMR and 22lr ammunition I have been using, so I thought it was about time to send my dollars of support to a few european lead smelters instead.

How about yourself Pete?  Where abouts do you hail from and what's your pellet-pusher look like?

Warm regards

Dave

Thank you for the warm greetings. 

I could use them this morning as Arrowtown wakes to another frosty start.

I have the latest FX Impact M4 for slinging slugs around.  Probably a bit too sophisticated a rifle for this airgun newbie to start with but the learning curve has been steep and fast, and I'm truly enjoying the consistent accuracy.  

How about yourself Pete?  Where abouts do you hail from and what does your pellet-pusher look like?

Dave

Good link Kruza, well done Pete.

I have hours of NV and thermal kill shots but wouldn't have a clue how the share them.

The PCP is the FX Impact M4, with a few aftermarket mods.  

Quite a serious rifle for a newbie to the PCP world.

Rabbits keep me pretty busy but the rest of the "invasive animal" list keeps my entertained outside of the day-to-day rabbit control.

Tell me please, how and where to share videos. I have a number of N/V and thermal vids to share.

Youtube makes it pretty easy to share them, so basically edit the video on your tablet or pc, then upload to youtube. You can make the video puiblic, or only available to those that have the link.

There are videos on YT on the basics of Youcut.

Cheers for that.

I was on a job the other day taking dozens of pigeons from around a milking shed.   I used an 18gn JSB for that with insane accuracy out to around 125 yards.  The pellets were still sub-sonic but only just as I was throwing them at around 1050fps.  

The slug liner in these FX's are so versatile that I have no reason to swap back and forth to the superior liner.  It's there if I need it but it collects dust for now. 

I have a cousin living up your way with a property that backs onto the Cambridge Jockey Club.  Beautiful part of the island for sure.   I help out with the rabbit control on several equine properties down this way.  The use of the PCP sure makes those jobs so much easier and loads safer.  Not that I shoot around the horses themselves but using a tool that has zero report is a real game changer.