air guns for hunting Coues whitetails, bighorn sheep, pronghorn and black bear. They are putting out a minimum of 470 foot pounds of energy.”Īrizona allows. They are all American made and offer plenty of power and a nice-size entry wound. “It is the caliber that Missouri went with and it has worked well for several years,” Rowland said. That’s also the smallest legal diameter for muzzleloaders in Arkansas. is the smallest diameter that is dependably adequate for deer-size game. 22-magnum, which is not a legal round for deer. air rifle, Rowland said, are about equal to a. Except in the hands of expert marksmen, that’s also true for bigger calibers, like. Rowland acknowledged that small-bore air rifles are ineffective and unethical for anything but small game. Seth Rowland is one of a small group of hunters who hunt white tailed deer and wild hogs with big-bore air rifles.He also makes custom air rifle ammo. Comparing those guns to bigbore models is faulty. They don’t want greenhorns and knuckleheads trying to plink deer with their little Daisy and Crosman. Wildlife biologists with the AGFC see an ethical problem with them. There appears to be no compelling biological reason to pass such a regulation. Only a few hunters use them to kill deer, and the tiny number of deer they kill is biologically insignificant. Superficially, passing such a regulation isn’t a big deal. Given the history of the air rifle in American history, it’s curious that the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is considering banning air rifles for deer hunting because they are considered “new” technology.

45 ACP, and Lewis is believed to have used it to kill animals as large as American bison and elk.Īn example of that rifle is now on display at the National Firearms Museum in Virginia, and it provided at least some of the 9 pounds of meat that each member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition is said to have consumed every day. The rifle’s ballistics were roughly equivalent to those of the. Lewis’ “wind rifle” was important to the expedition for many reasons, not the least of which was killing game at times and places when detonating percussive firearms was imprudent. 46-caliber repeating air rifle during the Corps of Discovery’s journey to the Pacific Ocean and back in 1804-1806. The big-bore air rifle is absent from that conversation, even though it has a storied place in the exploration of the West.

Traditional firearms means flintlocks and black powder with patched balls, although percussion caps are acceptable in some circles. Crossbows offend them as unsporting and modern, even though the crossbow was in service, at least for military purposes, since the middle of the fourth century. Hunters have some interesting ways of defining “traditional” weapons.įor example, traditional archers only respect a handmade longbow made of bois d’arc and handmade arrows.

Airgun styled like a flintlock