Mo: Air Rifles Approved For Deer Season

[jjtroutbum]

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-...-for-old-deer/

By Keegan Hamilton

Published: February 6, 2008

If Missouri deer hunters were like Anton Chigurh, the cold-blooded hit man in the film No Country for Old Men, the animals would soon be considered an endangered species. Luckily for the deer, the state's outdoorsmen have not yet become crazed assassins. But thanks to a new regulation approved by the Missouri Department of Conservation, this deer season hunters will be allowed to kill the beasts with an unusual style of rifle that might appeal to the maniacal Chigurh.

Last summer the six-person regulatory committee of the Missouri Department of Conservation voted unanimously to approve the use of high-caliber air rifles for deer hunting. The weapons, which must be a minimum of .40 caliber, are powered by an external hand pump, or a tank of compressed air. The changes officially take effect March 1, but the rifles will not be legal for hunting until regular-firearms deer season opens November 15.

"It was a request from a small group of folks who used these large-caliber air guns," says Dennis Steward, a member of the regulatory committee who voted in favor of the new rule. "These firearms are not Daisy air rifles. They are high-powered, large-caliber, generally very expensive firearms that carry the foot-pounds of energy necessary to take down large game."

Dennis Quackenbush, who custom builds and sells the rifles from his home in Urbana, Missouri, says air rifles differ from standard gunpowder-propelled weaponry. For one, the bullet is loaded directly into the chamber, generally through the breach, where the barrel meets the butt of the gun.

After pressurizing the chamber of the rifle with air from an external tank, the hunter has only one chance to shoot his prey before having to reload and recharge. The range of the air guns is also significantly reduced; a shotfrom a standard .40 caliber rifle can carry more than a mile, while a round from an air rifle is only lethal within a few hundred yards. They're pricey, too: Quackenbush's .50 caliber deer rifles start at $585.

Air-powered rifles are nothing new. Lewis and Clark carried a hand pump-powered model on their 1804 expedition. Long a popular tool for dispatching varmints, the guns have undergone recent refinements that make them suitable for big-game hunting. Quackenbush says there's no question that the rifles are powerful enough to take down a deer. A picture on his Web site (www.quackenbushairguns.com) shows a customer who used one of his guns to bag a 2,000-pound bison.

According to Steward, for now the rifles will only be permitted for deer hunting, but could eventually be used for other types of big game, such as feral hogs.

As for No Country's Anton Chigurh, Quackenbush says he ought to find another weapon. "These rifles are quite powerful, but the belief that these would make a good assassin weapon or sniper weapon, that's just not true," he says. "They just don't have the range."

Contact the author: keegan.hamilton@riverfronttimes.com

[Crippled Caddis]

<---says Dennis Steward, a member of the regulatory committee---They are high-powered---firearms---.>

And once more an ignorant misstatement is sanctified by equally ignorant journalistic blessings. Both the committeeman and the journalist missed the whole point----they are not FIREarms! Sheesh! By just such factually destitute but editorially blessed declarations are deathless fallacies permanently ensconsed in public perception.

<Air-powered rifles are nothing new. Lewis and Clark carried a hand pump-powered model on their 1804 expedition.>

That much is true. I admit to surprise at encountering a grain of truth in an otherwise factually destitute piece of amatuerish journalism.

<Long a popular tool for dispatching varmints, the guns have undergone recent refinements that make them suitable for big-game hunting.>

Another woefully inaccurate statement. In the late 1700s Napoleon's army of European conquest was harrassed by marksman of the Austrian Army armed with air-powered 20 shot repeaters capable of accurate, deadly fire at ranges over 100 yards. So feared were the snipers so armed that one of his Generals issued an order that those who were captured were to be summarily executed on the grounds that (in modern parlance) they weren't 'playing fair'.

<---Quackenbush says---"These rifles are quite powerful, but the belief that these would make a good---sniper weapon, that's just not true>

In an effort, I'm sure, to contradict another journalistically preserved fallacy dating all the way back to the previously cited reference to the Austrian snipers that stated that airguns were silent. Simply stated---that is totally erroneous. The reason the French General thought airguns weren't 'fair' was that they failed to betray their location by a cloud of black-powder generated smoke. In point of fact they are VERY loud in the larger calibers suitable to killing either big game or French soldiers. The press preserved legend of silence continues yet despite reason, logic and all evidence to the contrary.

Er---JJ? If you were baiting me----it worked! C

[jjtroutbum]

IMHO 99% of what comes from the RFT is only suitable for the bottom of a bird cage. But for them to actually mention a weapon air or not in a non derogatory way is amazing in its self. Not to mention hunting with said rifle.

I'm truly just happy that there is another way to dispatch all these unwanted and quite dangerous Missouri hood ornament volunteers.

[gonefishin]

Heck, I would just like to have an air gun with the accuracy and power needed to kill varmints at about 50 yards range. Power doesnt seem to be as big a problem as accuracy. It has been my experience that at 50 yards most air guns are capable of hitting something the size of a 5 gallon bucket about 40% of the time. Now it might be the shooter but I dont think so because, the same shooter, me, hits the can every time with a .22