So... any of our members here have an interest in firearms?

I won't tell if you won't tell.

I'm amazed that the recoil is only .357 Magnum levels.

My dad had some surplus 303 ammunition kicking around, and when I was a kid I used to take the rounds apart and pull the cordite out. If you light it with a match it burns like a fuse...but a quick fuse!

Primer still in the empty shell made for a fun air rifle target in my youth...I'm surprised I still have both eyes and all my digits...

I have a couple boxes of .303 charged with Cordite. Produced by Kynoch, I recall that it's dated 1952. Curious stuff, the Cordite. Suppose to be close kinfolks to celluloid film. I once read of emergency expedient reloading of .303 ammunition with clipped up bits of movie film by one of the belligerents in a fire fight, I think in India or Afghanistan in the early decades of the 20th century. Can't locate any such incident on an internet search. I'd rather fire Wryfox's .303 "pistol" than .303 reloads using propellant of unknown burning rate and pressures.

Shown with a post-World War II No 4, Mark 2 rifle, seen with its fixed Mark 9 No. 1 bayonet.

I don't know if this is really a fire arm. But out in Montana most property owners have a pest problem with ground squirrels they dig holes all over your lawn get into your garden dig under your fruit tree's or if you have horses a tripping hazard for them or cattle so it's sport to shoot them. When I first moved to MT I did nothing until got I got mad at them destroying my property. I started out with a .177 pellet rifle due to houses to close a real 22 rifle mite stray in the wrong direction. Well I have got 15 ground squirrels this year with that .177 pellet rifle but it some time takes more than one shot to finish them off. So I ordered a 22 cal. Pellet rifle with a 10 round Mag. Link below when you can hit some thing really small from a distance with a pellet rifle you know your a good shot. Think with a 22 cal air rifle one shot will do it. Wish I could use a real 22 but with houses this close a air rifle they way to go. Hope this new pellet rifle will be great for pest control.
https://www.cabelas.com/product/GAMO-SWARM-MAXXIM/2458320.uts?slotId=0

When I was younger I used my old Benjamin .177 pump air rifle to take a lot of rats around the old farm. I think that the biggest thing with hunting with an air rifle is to make sure you have a good one. I prefer pump guns because you can pump them up to where they are pretty zippy for varmits or only pump them once or twice for cans or paper.

With the muzzle brake air rifle you pull the barrel down only once here is a video on the one I ordered.

Yea for Benjamin .177 pump air rifles!

I am much amused at the "serious" discussion I see on some firearms forums about the relative effectiveness of "one's home-defense choice," be it handgun or long arm. At the end of the day it's the mighty Benjamin which realistically provides more actual "home defense" around here and has for decades. I've had the one here since 1969; I think it was a birthday present. Sent back to Benjamin a few years later (after much use) for a rebuild, it's continued to serve "with distinction" ever since. Stock's too short for adult use but the little rifle feels familiar yet. In addition to defending the larder it occasionally serves for informal plinking fun out at our old lake cabin.



One would think that there are enough peaches to share with squirrels but there are not. A single squirrel can decimate a peach crop in a day or two after the fruit becomes ripe. The rascals are terribly wasteful and will bite a plug out of each peach then cut it from the tree and go on to the next one.



The young peach tree began bearing a few peaches after its first years growth. Five peaches first bearing season then a decent crop the next year. The year after that I was really anticipating peaches as they began to ripen only to have them disappearing or being spoiled before they were even fully ripe.

That year we went out of town over the July 4th weekend to visit son and family in Tennessee and there were still numbers of ripening peaches on the tree when we left. I figured on them being just right upon our return. We were disappointed to go outside next morning after we got back to find only seven peaches remaining. We were doing some yard work around noon when some friends drove past and asked us to go to lunch with them at a local restaurant. Upon returning from lunch, the ground was littered with the last of our peaches, all well-holed and ruined.

Standing dejectedly beneath the tree I thought to shake a limb in hopes of dislodging a peach or two that might have been overlooked and absentmindedly reached toward the center fork of the tree ... only to realize that I was about to place my hand on the squirrel which was sitting there with the last remaining peach in his mouth! He was frozen stock still when I realized it and stopped my hand only about 6 inches from him.

I whispered to him to: "hold that thought" and hied myself indoors to fetch the Benjamin. Furiously pumping it the maximum of 12 strokes and loading the rifle I burst out the back door in full attack mode but expecting that I'd be too late to catch the culprit. He had remained though and scampered for a tall (for our part of Texas) pecan tree, still carrying that last peach in his mouth. He climbed to the top and tried to flatten out on the opposite side of a limb that was too slender to provide adequate cover or concealment. What's more, after a few moments, while I waited patiently down below, he couldn't resist poking his head out to see where I was and to taunt me I suspect with the fact that he had the last peach. It proved to be his last error in judgement. He died happy with the peach in his mouth.



Obscure and arcane facts about the Benjamin Model 347 .177 air rifle.

I enjoy handloading center fire cartridges and studying their ballistic performance and accuracy so once thought I'd subject the Benjamin air rifle to "ballistic testing," conducting both bench rest accuracy tests out to 100 yards as well as chronograph testing.

The rifle carefully laid in on a bench rest and using rifle rest with sand bags and sighted on a target at 100 yards distance produced a 6-inch 5-shot group, nice and round, at 100 yards using the Benjamin .177 pellets. Later I weighed these pellets to find considerable weight variance. I regret that I didn't sort them by weight for the tests or else utilize more uniform pellets of another brand. The target back board at the 100 yard berm was simple plywood and the pellets were embedded into the wood to a depth that left their little skirts poking out of the paper target used. I sighted on one target and the pellets struck a second target stapled up about three feet below the target used as an aiming reference.

The literature originally provided with the rifle advertised a velocity of 750 feet-per-second. A 10-shot string fired over the chronograph screens revealed an average velocity of 752 fps with an extreme spread of only 10 feet-per-second variance, high to low. It's nearly impossible to produce handloaded ammunition that would have a similar low extreme spread and the closest thing I ever found to such a low variance is Eley Tenex .22 Long Rifle ammunition which was tested to exhibit a mere 12 feet-per-second velocity variance.

Growing up in a rural setting, the Benjamin air rifle proved to be highly effective against the usual run of small game and varmints including large-ish varmints like the bigger raccoons and gray foxes. Rabbits and squirrels were taken and made tasty meals. As a kid I frequently romped into the fray using the Benjamin to defend my dad's hens and ducks against the onslaught of critters. All that was necessary was to obtain good hits and good hits are golden while bad hits are just that, bad hits no matter the cartridge used. I don't think any air rifles were marketed back then that offered any higher velocities, certainly not the 1000 fps-plus available these days. Even after I was an older and bigger teenager with .22 rifles on hand, the mighty Benjamin saw frequent use.

Peaches are ripening even as I type this and I'm ready for the squirrels. Squirrels have already given their all this season in efforts to decimate the apricot and plum crops and they've collectively "drawn back a nub" to this point. A few weeks back one particularly impertinent pesky squirrel had the gall to fuss loudly at me from the supposed safety of a tree top after he'd been among the apricots. An expedient pellet interrupted his ire in mid-fuss. Lest anyone balk at the thought of slaying squirrels it must be stated that they go in a stew pot with dumplings, bask all day in a bubbling crock pot, battered and fried with gravy on the side, or grill up nicely.

Noelekal, that's a great story. Since we are showing off our air rifles today, here is my Benjamin. It has taken many a rat, squirrel, and other varmit in its day.