Yep.

The tank on these guns is a certified Department of Transportation gas storage device. It’s treated just like SCUBA gear. As such, by federal law, it has to be shipped empty.

So you have to take it from 14.7 psi to 3,000 psi. By hand. With a pump that is sort of like a bicycle tire pump on steroids.

Once it is pumped up, you shoot it until you get to the bottom of the power curve where accuracy starts to drop, and then you “top it off.”

According to the online reviews and comments I’ve read about the gun, the “sweet spot” where accuracy and power is optimal is in the range of 2,800 – 2,200 psi. Although some claim that it shoots very well with lighter pellets down to 1,800 psi.

Anyway, typically you get about 50 or so shots on the lowest power setting and 20 or so shots on the highest power setting before you have to pump it back up again.

So on a regular basis I will likely be pumping the gun up from around 2,000 psi to about 2,800 psi.

Last night it took me 100 pumps to go from 2,000 psi to slightly more than 2,500 psi. So I figure 150 pumps or so to “top it off” so that it remains in the sweet spot of the power curve, after 40 – 50 shots or so.

150 pumps isn’t so bad. To fill it up from empty took me well over 700 pumps. It took over 400 pumps to get it from zero to 1,500 psi, which was not even close to the power zone.

So it’s not as bad as it seems.

For comparison, I pump my 1377 pistol 7, 10 or 12 times for each shot, depending on how much power I want out of it. So for 50 shots of my pistol I am pumping the pistol around 500 times. So in the long run I’m actually pumping the pistol more than the rifle.

You gotta get the air somehow.

Most serious PCP airgun shooters use an actual SCUBA tank filled to 4,500 psi or so to refill their pellet gun tanks. All they do is attach a refill hose, open the valve, monitor the pressure and close the valve. It takes about fifteen seconds to fill a tank.

You can do that at a local SCUBA shop too. All of the experts on the airgun form I’ve been frequenting said to take the empty tank to a SCUBA shop to fill it up the first time to avoid the 90 minute first time fill effort.

But I’m cheap, and I live way the heck out in the mountains, a long way from any SCUBA store. So I just pumped it.

Was a pretty good workout actually.

A wrist rocket would qualify as an “unethical hunting” technique.

I happen to have a pretty nice pellet gun that could be put to use….

Have you considered chemical approaches to your problem? I haven’t looked up poisoning of rabbits, but poisoning of ground squirrels is practiced routinely where I live. And it’s quite effective. There are three major ground squirrel infestations that the Cosmic Wife and I have monitored on our infrequent walks around the neighborhood (infrequent because we generally can only do it on weekends when we’re not otherwise engaged, or else on days when I work from home, which are becoming more and more rare). All three of them are completely barren now when just a few weeks ago there were quite literally dozens of the little pests darting all over the fields. In fact I pelted a couple with my annoying tiny biodegradable wristrocket ammo which is apparently just dangerous enough to get a ground squirrel to cuss you out thoroughly before diving into his den…

Read “Watership Down”. You might get some tips.

I still think that 1322 is your answer. $50 and you can sit out on your deck with a cold drink and invite bunnies to meet their maker for hours… Fun and profitable too.

LOL, do you read my emails?

The Crosman 1322 pump action pellet pistol is one of the most renowned pellet guns in history. I have it’s little brother, the possibly even more renowned 1377. The “22″ in “1322″ refers to the .22 pellet caliber. The “77″ in “1377″ refers to the .177 pellet caliber. Yeah, not real consistent, but I guess “13177″ didn’t have a very good marketing focus group test.

These guns are the workhorse pump-action pellet pistols of the industry. They are cheap too, the 1377 usually goes for about $40 and the 1322 usually goes for about $50. The only real negative you can say about them is that they lack a means to mount a scope. But that can be fixed for a few more dollars (or some duct tape, I suppose…)

These are highly accurate pistols. They have a 12″ barrel, which is as long as many break-barrel pellet guns. Longer barrels means more power and more accuracy.

With my 1377 and a cheap $7 Walmart scope I can hit a quarter at 25 yards pretty regularly. The 1322 packs a bit more punch than a 1377, but either of them would probably handle your rabbit problem.

The 1377 might not take a rabbit down immediately with one pellet though. The 1322 most likely would.

I now wish I had bought the 1322 when I bought the 1377. However, the one positive is that .177 pellets are very cheap.

Geebuz J!

No, it’s not loud. At least the 1377 isn’t loud. If you were using it in your back yard, I don’t think you could even hear it in the front yard.

With your young eyes you might not even need a scope. But I find a scope to be very useful.

My 1377 is remarkably accurate. Pumped up 12 times (the manual says it only should be pumped 10 times, but all the experts say pump it 12 for the maximum power) it will put a pointed pellet about a half inch to an inch into a 2×4. I’ve never shot the 1322, but it’s supposed to be more powerful.

I like to shoot pine cones out of trees, or army men off of logs at 20 yards or so.

The only real downside of the guns is that you have to pump them. And even if you’re pretty good at pumping, pumping 12 times and loading a pellet is going to take you fifteen seconds or so. So you have to make each shot count.

I like the guns. Here’s a link to the 1322 on Amazon. Most stores like Walmart carry the 1377, but I think stores like Sports Authority or Bass Pro Shops probably carry the 1322 as well.

They are well designed, comfortable to hold, pump and shoot and are reputed to have excellent barrels. Mine certainly is, and I bought mine at Walmart.

I would say with a little practice you should be able to put a pellet into a bunny at 15 yards with very high frequency of success.

Get hollow point pellets if you’re going to shoot fluffy, cute little bunnies. Nothing takes the cute out of a fluffy bunny like a gaping hole in it’s chest.

Wow. Really? Never? Not even a dart gun?

I think I detect a little hyperbole…

When I was a youngster hunting with my .22 rifle, bunnies at 20 yards would have been dinner. Squirrels at 20 yards would have been like waving a red flag and saying “shoot me! No, shoot ME!” I would guess most of my hunting was done at distances closer to 30 to 40 yards. It’s not easy to get that close to bunnies or squirrels in the wild jungles of Blanchard, Louisiana…

But scopes are certainly much, much nicer.

20 feet is less than 10 yards. You might have a problem even sighting a scope in at 20 feet. You might be forced to use open sights (“open sights” are sometimes called “iron sights” in case you’ve seen the terminology).

How big are your bunnies? Compare them to squirrels.

One of the reviews on the 1322 on Amazon said the buyer was using his to clean out groundhogs in his yard. I think they are about the same size as squirrels. He said it worked beautifully for that purpose.

If you want to, I’ll repeat my offer. I can bring my 1377 by and see if it does the job. I am pretty confident that it will kill the bunnies, but they might not go down immediately on one shot with the .177 pellets.

But then again, they might. It punches pellets through an old plastic bucket I have on a stump pretty easily. That plastic is pretty thick. If it will go through that, I’m pretty sure it’ll mess up a bunny pretty good.

It sounds like coming by to shoot your bunnies might put me on your wife’s “not good for hubby” list….

But I could loan you the gun and you could try it out yourself. It might take, oh, five minutes or so to teach you how to use it.

Let me know. I don’t want you to start doing internet searches on “how to make napalm.” You might find out how easy it actually is…