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All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General > BB Guns and Such

frangible BBs for starling control?

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HOSPassassin:
We have a small chicken coop that houses 8 chickens, 3 ducks, and unfortunately several dozen starlings. I have been slowly picking them off and gotten up to 16 or 17 kills. Then the memsahib (who does most of the chicken chores) came to me this afternoon to tell me one of the ones I had wounded was flapping around inside. I thought he would quickly freeze to death after he was hit but somehow he managed to hop up inside the house where it is warm and there is plenty of food.  >:( So, out I went with the Daisy 901 and a pocket full of pellets.

To make a long story short, it was a rodeo in there. I shut the doors and started picking off birds up in the eaves when they became visible. The body count rose by ten when I was finished.

The question: Are frangible BBs a viable pest control option on starlings or HOSPs at a distance of no more than 8 feet? There were pellets bouncing around inside the coop even though I kept the power level down to 2 pumps/370 fps/~2.5 fpe. If frangibles will do the job without whizzing around inside an enclosed space that would be fantastic.

lillysdad621:
on Hosp, im sure they are plenty hard.

Blowpipe Sam:
Try shooting some into a roll of paper towels or a full plastic spring water bottle and see how they penetrate.  They should penetrate about 3/8-1/2 inch into the paper without breaking up.  If they penetrate the plastic water bottle they will probably kill a Starling.  This is based on my tests of a CO2 powered BB pistol that I thought about using to kill snakes..  I used steel BB's for the serious tests but I did test some Dust Devils and they would not penetrate a (full) cheap disposable water bottle from ten feet but at five feet the BB's broke up after penetrating.  Velocity was between 325 and 375 fps.

desertplinker:
I wouldn't count on it. Killed a lot of starlings back in the day, they are tough buggers. Got a strong will to survive.

Doug Wall:
At low velocities frangible BBs will only break apart on really hard things like steel.

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