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big for FAC air rifles are controversial
and the ownership can be complicated
many people hate them especially on the
continent where in countries such as
Germany you can't even shoot a rat with
a blinker but these guns do have a big
following in the USA and the Netherlands
where you don't need a license and the
larger calibers are becoming
increasingly popular here in the UK
there has been a whole Woodsworth of
negative press thanks to air Gunners
shooting larger and larger game
prompting the question just because you
can does it mean you should well today
we're going to try and at least partly
address that issue will Roy Lupton feel
confident enough to shoot a fox with
this 30 caliber FX boss to help us
through today's experiments we've
invited a long full price technical
editor of airgun world and air gunner
magazines to give us some specialist
input and some air the whole purpose
today is to see one the accuracy and two
if it's an air rifle that you could
feasibly use in the field to shoot
something and we were thinking along the
lines of possibly a fox
personally I've got my doubts using FAC
air rifles with you know with animals up
to the size of foxes but what's your
thoughts on it
it is spectacularly accurate I will say
that we tested it out to 100 yards it's
probably suited about an inch and a
quarter which is I've never seen an
airgun that accurate right however you
have always what the trajectory to
consider yeah but it does shoot huge
heavy 50 grain pellets huge amounts of
energy and it's accurate yeah I think
just got to be careful how far you're
gonna go with it would you confidently
shoot the Fox with a with this I would
yeah after about 50 yards no doubt it
would have pretty much the same terminal
effect as a rimfire right but I wouldn't
want to go any further than that before
Roy points the FX at anything with a
heartbeat we want to make sure there's
no doubt about its accuracy then we'll
look at its ability to kill animals
outright we're gonna kick off at around
about 50 yards which is about the
maximum range that I'm happy to shoot
foxes that with a Tootsie rhythm fight
so we're gonna get them both deer out
there we're then gonna drop the target
back a little bit and just see what the
drop-off is
at 50 yards the rimfire and the FX have
no problem hitting the center of the
target at 60 yards without holdover it's
a different story so then we've moved
back out to 60 and we've got a hell of a
drop-off there so just within the ten
yards we've just got two and a half
three inches of drop so that really has
sort of fallen away quite a lot so if we
move back up to the room fire so first
shot just clipping on the ten there at
fifty and then we've dropped about an
inch so if we had a Fox coming out you
just bring it up a little bit and just
aim on the top of his head
whereas you've got a lot more margin for
error using the 30 caliber air rifle
right time to move on to the Fox heads
and Phil thinks the FX is going to
deliver at the right distance yeah I'm
confident it will fully penetrate the
Foxes skull clearly we know the rim fire
rounds work enough people use them we've
all done it we know it's an effective
round and I think it's short range I
think the boss is going to give it a
good run for its money
we're going to try some with skin on
some with skin off and we're going to be
shooting them both the different
calibers at 50 yards we're gonna do the
the sub 12-foot pound air rifle at 250
just to show how inefficient a sub
12-foot pound air rifle would be at a
fox and just to show that it's not
something that we recommend we are going
to shoot the FAC air rifle which is
pumping out at around about 77 foot
pounds so hopefully we're going to get a
full penetration and if it's lodged in
there then we'll try and have a delve
about and see what we can find so we'll
start off with a couple without skin on
and then we'll leave a couple with the
skin on as well we're going to start
with the Webley Raider air guard in two
- the reason for using a soft 12 foot
pad air rifle this to show its
weaknesses not its strengths it's a
fantastic tool but it's not accurate or
powerful enough to kill a fox and
certainly not at 50 yards
Roy has three shots at the target one
misses the Fox head completely but the
other two find the head one shot has
gone into the eye the other looks like
it might have bounced off the top of the
skull this is quite soft here and it's a
entered the socket behind the eye but
I'm not quite sure how far it's gone in
still open that up and have a look and
you can see here I'm not sure if it's
penetrated here or just skim the skull
so I'll just take back the top layer of
muscle here and we can actually see that
the pellet has just punched a small hole
in the skull here obviously it's not
gone anywhere else we'll just open that
up and see exactly how far the pellet
went in so that that really has
surprised me from the tutu and it's them
I'm not overly happy because I really
wouldn't want to shoot the Fox with a
tutu like that so just open up and see
where these pellets attract to here we
go that so
if we'd shot here on the Fox you can see
the pellets going here just tracked
along and into the soft tissue bearing
in mind that's the weakest part of the
Foxes skull just on the side of the
muzzle here just in front of the eye
socket
now all that pellet would have done is
to really upset the Fox blinded it in
the right eye but it certainly wouldn't
have killed it that Fox would have been
running about in a lot of pain and a lot
of agony say that again
just confirms that I really would not
want to shoot the Fox with a sub 12-foot
pound air rifle at that sort of range
and we'll just have a look in the side
and see if we can see the other pellets
gone in here there's a shot of led there
so yeah what the pellets actually done
is it's broken up it's hit the Foxes
skull and the pellet has actually split
so we just got a shard of the pellet has
gone into the skull but not penetrated
that deeply it would have probably just
gone in and upset them a little bit so
although it would have been riding
around again it's not I'm not confident
that that would have been an all-out
kill shot so that coupled with the
inaccuracy that sort of range because
the pellets are being affected very
heavily by all the external factors such
as wind really just just go to confirm
that I would not want to shoot a fox
morally or ethically with a sub 12-foot
pound air rifle
time for the FX boss
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the skull has received a devastating
blow and the guys are impressed they're
77 foot-pounds of muzzle some Lord of
energy and the fifty yards that still
carry a hello a load of clay
I'm really genuinely impressed just how
hard that hit that's hitting you mean
that is if humanely humane kill that's
it without without a shadow of a doubt
you can't sir you can't really question
that and a huge you know huge difference
between the year the local two to twelve
foot Bell and you can feel here the rest
of the the skull is absolutely shattered
from the the impact and the energy
transferring through the skull is broken
all the way across here so there is no
way that folks would have been going
anywhere finally let's see what the two
two rimfire has to offer it again does
the job efficiently and there's not much
to separate the last two rifles there
are some who wouldn't use a to two rim
fire on a fox at fifty yards you know
compare ibly to the sort of wind channel
that we got from the air rifle it's it's
pretty much on a par roy is convinced
that with accurate range finding he
would be happy to shoot a fox with the
FX out to fifty yards
I still can't summarize from my own
perspective quite where it fits in
because if you've got a rimfire you'd
probably use the rimfire over over using
this but I mean there are people out
there who just love air guns yeah I've
got a Schloss on their ticket would want
one you know you wouldn't want a 30
caliber a go exactly no yeah tremendous
thing yeah is it better than a rimfire
no yeah but as you say I'm in a
fantastic piece of engineering works
incredible well if you have any thoughts
on FAC air rifles please let us know and
we'll read out some of the clean ones
next week and if you want to find out
more information about the FX boss go to
a - s - I dot co dot uk'