I'm thinking of buying an air rifle for shooting ducks and pidgeons etc. incase I end up in a survival scenario. I'm looking at the Gamo Swarm Magnum 10X Gen3 .177 caliber as it's the most powerful air rifle available in my country, but the downside to it is that it has no iron sights. I've previously owned the Gen2 version of this rifle and it's very powerful and had iron sights, but Gen2 is no longer available and Gen3 only has scope. Should I get the Gen3 scoped on or look into less powerful rifles with iron sights?
>>65632495get buis.
>>65632543>buisHuh?
>>65632543You mean backup iron sights? I don't think that's possible to attach to this rifle.
>>65632495Why, exactly, would you want irons on an air rifle, of all things? If it's for LARP purposes you can just say so. From a practical standpoint there is no benefit, hence why they are cut from the newer design.
>>65632572Well I figure it's a nice backup feature if the scope gets busted in SHTF scenario and I can't get a new scope.
>>65632577Buy a decent optic and anything that will destroy it will destroy your gun of choice. Buis are stupid unless you're poor.
Why not go for .22 if you want to go break action? Or do you live in a country where .177 is the max allowed diameter?
>>65632607>Why not go for .22Can't get it in my country.
>>65632495I've had the gen3 .22 for about a year. The scope kinda sucks. The gun is very accurate out to like 75 yards, but there's no focus adjustment on the scope so the crosshair gets very blurry at that distance at 9x power. Also, get some extra 15/16" ID 1-1/16"OD O-rings for the magazine. They're simple to replace when the one that comes with the magazine breaks.Honestly it's perfect for keeping rabbits out of my garden at night without waking anyone up.
>The gun is very accurate out to like 75 yards That's beyond what I expect to use it for, but I suspect it's not the same with .177.
>>65632649Target distance should have no effect on the sharpness of the crosshairs.
>>65632495>incase I end up in a survival scenariodon't get a gas piston break barrel with a magazine, the gas inside the piston can escape either over time or instantly if a gasket fails on you, and it's going to perform like an airsoft gun in cold weather or like a steam engine in hot weather. there is no way to diy the gas piston refill with nitrogen and customer service will gladly not fix it for you. Gamo overally is japan made, high quality and reliable (considering the quirks? it is) but it's most certainly not good at all for a SHTF situation, good choice but you missed the point.i have a copperhead 900 and it's 100% reliable every shot no matter what kind of pellets i use. since it uses a STEEL SPRING PISTON instead of some whacky nitrogen actuated pneumatics, i can do sketchy stuff with it like jamming an 8 grain pellet in there with a pencil (it doesnt fit in the breech without forced persuasion) and filling the back of it with vaseline (i don't do that btw since it's technically illegal, but i know i can if i ever need to for defense), the gaskets while not very precise, are durable enough to sustain it. since it's unaffected by weather, has a very repeatable shot pattern and a good trigger, i can load competition quality wadcutters in there to get as accurate on my shots as possible. or i can load very light steel nylon sheath pellets and shoot through a steel bucket with it, both front and back without dieseling. On top of all that i can DIY mods on it like custom sights (i plan on iron sights delete and instead have a barrel mounted pistol red dot), ball bearings suspended trigger and increase or decrease the length of the steel spring with a homemade spring removal tool, hacksaw and sandpaperi don't like about it is the cheap plastic sights that i have to zero all the time and it obliterated two cheap scopes i tried on it so i got the cheapest chinsy airgun red dot and that works good enough as in it keeps zero and better than the "iron" sights.
>>65632495off topic shit belongs in >>>/toy/
>>65632799if you care about placing consecutive shots and you don't want to handle lead with your fingers all day, just get a pellet pen, a glove or two and a shirt/jacket with convenient to reach pockets.>>65632649>>65632543I don't know what these dudes are blabbering about like simple to replace O rings? Backup iron sights? It's mechanically same as a nailgun and if someone tried to sell me a nail gun with "easily replacable O rings" or "backup features" i'd take my business somewhere else because i can't be bothered with field stripping my tools when i'm being contracted to build a house frame or in this case shoot rats at night, malnourished, with a busted scope and in minus degree weather. Seriously just get a simple spring piston break barrel with iron sights, put a nice scope on that and don't bother with anything cheap, it will 100% get obliterated by the spring "recoil". If you can afford an IR NV camcorder/photocamera and flashlight with mount after that, it's a huge advantage for night and indoors ratting and DIY route is the best choice for price and image quality and you can simply take it off when you don't need it or batteries run out
>>65632926example picture of "pellet pen" i was talking about. if i was looking at magazine fed break barrels, i would just get one of those instead just to avoid all the janky shit that might happen between the magazine and the breech.i personally just use my fingers and wipe my hands into a piece of wet fabric or tissue afterwards. wash your hands properly after handling lead, i mean get them properly scrubbed up to code, or use a rubber glove so you don't have to just don't get this shit on your hands, under your fingernails and possibly in your mouth or eyes, otherwise on top of malnourishment, you will be dealing with bad eye sight, tooth rot and lead poisoning induced mental illnesses or possibly progressing bone desease and that shit will never go away even if you try treatment. if society collapses, minor shit like that will inevitably filter you out of the gene pool, unless the bow chad's tribesmen impale you on a spear and cook you over a bonfire.
>>65632915>off topic>/toy/It's an airgun. Air GUN. Not a fucking toy. It will kill small things well. Airsoft BBs bounce off small birds, steel BBs can't kill a rat (fuck steel BB airguns in general they just suck) but a pellet gun will dispatch animals up to a size of a cat if you get your shot placement right or use an appropiate pressure and caliber for the task.I'm stuck with airguns coz i'll just kill myself with a real combustion gun or someone might steal it and it's going to be on me if they hurt themselves or someone with it. I would never aim one of those airguns at myself or someone when 1/99 times it can lethally hit an artery or an organ and slowly kill you or worse: leave you physically and mentally impaired for the rest of your life.