Shooting Rats with a .22LR

[JamesK 2]

get a 12 ft lb air rifle or 410 for rats 30yards maximum indoors you don't need a 22 Lr for rats and get a 17 hmr for rabbits much safer than 22 lr

 

my plan is to get a 22lr for the rabbits but the landowner also has alot of rats, i cant buy a good air rifle and a good .22lr rifle so im hoping using the smaller .22lr ammunition will be good enough for the rats.

[CharlieT 32]

Ok, Decision is definite now.

 

Asking land owner if i can use a .22lr there. if yes - get Ruger 10/22. If no - Weihrauch HW100

 

Regardless of this i am still getting my FAC.

 

James, you're not listening.

 

You will NOT get an FAC for a live firing rifle issued, with the primary "reason to hold" as rats. I've never heard of anyone ever having it, and for fairly good reason.

 

Yes, it's perfectly legal to shoot them, but you will almost certainly not get an FAC issued with rats as the good reason (unless you can show that the rats are in a place where you can shoot them with a safe backstop. A building, wall or such is not considered a safe backstop. A good earth bank might be, but if it is just flat ground behind the rat then the risk of ricochet is too high so it cannot be counted as a safe backstop.

 

How can you begin to think that .22LR costs the same as an air rifle to shoot? OK, if you shoot very small quanitities then the price differential between LR cartridges and air rifle pellets isn't going to make up for the higher cost of a good air rifle, but with LR rounds costing around five times the price per shot, it's not long before you've made up the difference.

 

If the farm has land with rabbits on, then you could probably get the FAC issued for that, but I would not mention the shooting of rats to your FEO, he's likely to run a mile!

 

Stubby, apologies, I've just read your post again and I misunderstood it the first time.

 

 

Are you for real or are you just trying to pretend to be superior and put the chap off.

 

It is normal practice to put vermin down as the reason to posses, not rabbits, not stoats and not rats. They all come under the category of vermin and as far as the police are concerned they make no distinction between them as far as quarry species goes.

 

Get a life and give the chap some credit for having a modicum of intelligence.

[JamesK 2]

Ok, Decision is definite now.

 

Asking land owner if i can use a .22lr there. if yes - get Ruger 10/22. If no - Weihrauch HW100

 

Regardless of this i am still getting my FAC.

 

James, you're not listening.

 

You will NOT get an FAC for a live firing rifle issued, with the primary "reason to hold" as rats. I've never heard of anyone ever having it, and for fairly good reason.

 

Yes, it's perfectly legal to shoot them, but you will almost certainly not get an FAC issued with rats as the good reason (unless you can show that the rats are in a place where you can shoot them with a safe backstop. A building, wall or such is not considered a safe backstop. A good earth bank might be, but if it is just flat ground behind the rat then the risk of ricochet is too high so it cannot be counted as a safe backstop.

 

How can you begin to think that .22LR costs the same as an air rifle to shoot? OK, if you shoot very small quanitities then the price differential between LR cartridges and air rifle pellets isn't going to make up for the higher cost of a good air rifle, but with LR rounds costing around five times the price per shot, it's not long before you've made up the difference.

 

If the farm has land with rabbits on, then you could probably get the FAC issued for that, but I would not mention the shooting of rats to your FEO, he's likely to run a mile!

 

Stubby, apologies, I've just read your post again and I misunderstood it the first time.

 

 

Are you for real or are you just trying to pretend to be superior and put the chap off.

 

It is normal practice to put vermin down as the reason to posses, not rabbits, not stoats and not rats. They all come under the category of vermin and as far as the police are concerned they make no distinction between them as far as quarry species goes.

 

Get a life and give the chap some credit for having a modicum of intelligence.

 

 

Thanks for the reply, i appreciate every reply i've had but i dont want this thread to get out of hand with name calling.

I know its hard sometimes when people post certain things but we all need to take it with a pinch of salt.

[matt_hooks 188]

Charlie, I have no intention of putting the guy off. It's fine to put vermin down as a reason, but when the FEO asks the question he'll not be too impressed if you tell him rats.

 

Of course a .22 will happily kill rats all day long, no doubting it, and I understand not being able to afford two rifles. As I said in my second post, if you have access to bunnies then you should have no problems at all. I just foresee problems with the FEO if rats are mentioned in the same breath as .22, FEO's can be funny like that. Once the licence is issued, with the vermin condition, then you can shoot rats to your hearts content, as long as it's safe of course.

 

Oh, and someone mentioned only 2% of applications being turned down. That's 2% of applications that make it past the first interview with the FEO. A lot will be told to go away and rethink at that point, so they never officially apply and so are not counted in the statistics.

 

Anyway James, whichever way you go, good luck with the applications.