.17 HMR for shooting rats

[lucusloc]

I will echo the sentiment that an airgun is far more appropriate for this application than .17hmr. Maybe not a single shot spring powered one, as you may want to take several rapid follow up shots, but a CO2 or compressed air gun with a rotary mag would be pretty damn good. I would get a small caliber with a decently high velocity for the job, and then select the appropriate pellet type with special consideration for the backstop. There are lots of options here, from standard hollow points all the way up to steel tipped fancy stuff.

 

[Tlock]

Re ".22 useless against rats"

I don't buy that for 1 second. 22lr is around 90-125 ft lbs of energy and I have killed lots of rats and much larger critters with .22.

Ask @Tlock about .22 for killing critters. He probably has more experience than anyone here with that I would guess.

I have killed somewhere on the order of 1500 squirrels (mostly fox squirrels) with my 14 ft lb airgun. What he is saying is just not true unless the guy is an idiot and shoots them in the butt or something or has a POS gun where the bullets come out of the muzzle tumbling or something. A 14 ft lb airgun is more than enough for rats, and of course a 100 ft lb .22 is just fine.

I've taken everything from a 560# black bear to Canadian geese at 200 yards with a suppressed 22 using sub sonic loads. Lots of beaver and deer and nutria. Rats? No problem

 

[RVTECH]

ricochet off the concrete wall and go through the car window.

Or back at him.

This is literally one of most ignorant things I have ever heard of doing, gun related that is, and the guy needs to be talked out of it

 

[Mark W.]

GO to the local feed store and buy a box of Rodentex rat poison. Break one of the blocks into 2x3" cubes and put them anywhere you have seen a rat by the next morning your rat problem will be very close to over. We had a rat show up in the house I did this and in a single night one of the blocks was carried off and Not a single lick of peanut butter or the other block of poison has happened since.

NOW once you do this expect a period where if you share air with the dead rats the smell of something dead. Then about 3 weeks later a bunch of flies. But those only lasted a few days after the hatch before we sucked them all up with a vacuum. Sadly the laundry room in our house is actually built on what was once a back side walk and there is a hole in the house foundation where plumbing passes through. So it is how the Laundry room got smelly in a Garage unless the nest is in the garage you might be OK. We killed all of them at once its pretty obvious.

 

[Mark W.]

Re ".22 useless against rats"

I don't buy that for 1 second. 22lr is around 90-125 ft lbs of energy and I have killed lots of rats and much larger critters with .22.

Ask @Tlock about .22 for killing critters. He probably has more experience than anyone here with that I would guess.

I have killed somewhere on the order of 1500 squirrels (mostly fox squirrels) with my 14 ft lb airgun. What he is saying is just not true unless the guy is an idiot and shoots them in the butt or something or has a POS gun where the bullets come out of the muzzle tumbling or something. A 14 ft lb airgun is more than enough for rats, and of course a 100 ft lb .22 is just fine.

As a kid of 14 my dad had me stand at the window of the chicken coup (wire mesh only) and when I heard the rats come up through the hole in the floor I would pop on the flash light and fire at the hole I killed a LOT of rats with a single shot .22 using shorts.

 

[Tlock]

I would trap and not poison. I didn't read the "in the garage" part.....I wouldn't use any firearm in a garage on rats! If he wants to be sporting he can buy a blow gun!

 

[ilikegunspdx]

Poison can potential kill anything that eats the rats, Fe your or neighbors dog, so not ideal Imo.

 

[Tlock]

Poison can potential kill anything that eats the rats, Fe your or neighbors dog, so not ideal Imo.

I had a bear get into a shed the county kept rat poison in.....I had at least 5 calls of a bear in a neighborhood that was rabid the next day. It was dead when I got there a hr later. It ate at lest 10# of this blue bait

 

[gmerkt]

Re ".22 useless against rats"

I don't buy that for 1 second. 22lr is around 90-125 ft lbs of energy and I have killed lots of rats and much larger critters with .22.

Ask @Tlock about .22 for killing critters. He probably has more experience than anyone here with that I would guess.

I have killed somewhere on the order of 1500 squirrels (mostly fox squirrels) with my 14 ft lb airgun. What he is saying is just not true unless the guy is an idiot and shoots them in the butt or something or has a POS gun where the bullets come out of the muzzle tumbling or something. A 14 ft lb airgun is more than enough for rats, and of course a 100 ft lb .22 is just fine.

I completely agree. I'm just relating what he said; of course at the time I wondered why he would say / do such a thing but he did own a .41 Magnum. He later killed himself with a .45 pistol so end of story.

 

[Twodogs]

He needs an A-24 rat trap, they will kill rats all night and all day long.

 

[DirectDrive]

Sounds like the old man is deep into a series of "thinking errors".

1) How are rats getting into the garage ?
2) Why is wet garbage being put into the garage ?
3) Now he's going to shoot up the garage with a .17HMR

I don't think there's any hope for this guy.