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In our Scope – AGT Vixen

This month we are setting our crosshairs on the AGT Vixen. Unique, compact, and balanced the Vixen is produced by Czech Manufacturers, AGT, and are imported into the UK by Regael. Released in early 2021 the Vixen soon became one of AGT’s best-selling rifles overtaking the Vulcan & Uragan.

The AGT range has proven very popular here at Pellpax, hence why we thought we would focus on one of their rifles. Airgun Technology was founded in 2013 and is based in the city of Praha (Prague), the capital city of the Czech Republic.

Light, Accurate & Reliable

The AGT Vixen is one of the newest rifles in AGTs’ range. They are available in two variations, the Vixen or the Vixen Long. The Vixen has a barrel length of 250mm, an overall length of 770mm, and a weight of 2.2kg, whilst the Vixen long has a barrel length of 400mm, an overall length of 920mm, and a weight of 2.4kg. These specifications make the AGT Vixen one of the lightest rifles on the market today.

To ensure the high-quality finish is not compromised, the AGT Vixen comes standard with a 250CC carbon fibre bottle which, is fitted with a neoprene sleeve to act as a stock. The butt pad has a height adjustment feature to ensure the rifle fits comfortably in any shooters’ shoulder.

Packed with features

One thing that is worth mentioning is the ability to change the side of which the cocking arm is on. It is as simple as removing two screws, changing the side, and replacing the screws. Taking around 3-5 minutes in total this is a smart move from AGT as it caters for the left-handed market too. The trigger is incredibly smooth and can have the pull weight adjusted. I personally prefer a light pull however, it’s nice to have the option. I must also praise the positioning of the safety switch. Being located just north of the trigger this can easily be engaged and disengaged whilst you are shouldered and looking down the scope. Again, just a small design feature that goes a long way for me. The switch has a red indicator to make it obvious that the safety is either on, or off.

Filling the AGT Vixen

The compact, custom-made pressure gauge is well located. One of my pet hates includes pressure gauges that are located under the end of the barrel, as I feel uncomfortable having a barrel pointed at my face whilst filling the rifle. The block that the pressure gauge is located on houses the regulator, and you can also find both the air discharge port and the filling port here.

AGT Vixen – additional accessories

**The magazine holder is sold separately**

I really like the AR-Grip on the vixen which, is produced by IMI Defence. The magazines are easy to load and are 15 shots in .177 or 12 shots in .22. An additional accessory, that many owners choose to buy, is the magazine holder. This polymer housing will hold two magazines and attaches to the rifle via a small weaver rail located in front of the trigger guard.

The features go on…

The Vixen is equipped with a weaver rail measuring 195mm. Traditionally, air rifles use a 9-11mm rail, and Weaver / Picatinny rails are more frequently seen on Rimfire / Centrefire rifles however these are becoming increasingly popular amongst the airgun community.

A few, final thoughts

Finally, I would like to mention the shrouded barrel. This again is a feature that is becoming more frequent on airguns these days. The sound moderator is built within this and measures around 90mm. Although there is no option for an additional moderator, I don’t feel the vixen needs one. When I took it out shooting, I was very pleased with the level of noise and wouldn’t feel a moderator would provide much more of an advantage.

The real test

After doing all my research on this gun, I decided to take it out to see what all the fuss was about. I wanted to know whether the Vixen really was worth the £1499.99 price tag and what made this rifle, one of AGT’s most popular. My set-up was kept simple, I used a 3 ltr hydrotec bottle to fill the Vixen, mounted a Hawke Fast mount 6-24×50 AO IR using Hawke Weaver mounts, and set out to see if the Vixen, really lived up to what I had read.

Testing with target shooting pellets

Firstly, I thought I would try a target pellet for those looking to do some casual plinking either at home or down their local gun club. I used the H&N field target trophy .177. I love H&N as a brand simply because I find their quality is always top-notch and they perform in any rifle I put them through. Weighing 8.64 gr I set my targets up around the 25-yard mark.

The Result

Although I’m not Chris Kyle, I managed to get a 25mm grouping, which for comparison is about the size of a 2p coin. Considering I’m a clay shooter and don’t tend to do much airgun shooting, I was very pleased with this result. I’m confident that a dedicated shooter could get this grouping down to a 20mm grouping, which is around a 1p coin. For those of you, who prefer a larger calibre the H&N field target trophy is also available in .22.

Testing with hunting pellets

Next, I thought I would try a hunting pellet for those of you who carry out pest control. For this, I went for my go-to hunting pellet, the H&N Baracuda Hunter .177. Now as I previously mentioned I’m a clay shooter and only shoot airguns a handful of times outside of work however, even with my lack of practice I still manage to hit rabbits at good distances with these. Weighing slightly heavier than the H&N field target trophy, the Baracuda hunters are advertised at 10.49gr. I like these pellets as the hollow point ensures enough stopping power to counter the higher velocities of the .177 without affecting the flight of the pellet too much.

The Result

Once again, I set my target out at the 25-yard mark, and the results were the same. This time I got a 28mm grouping however, this could be down to the hollow point creating drag or could be down to the absents of my skills with an airgun. Like I mentioned previous I’m confident when I say a more experience airgun shooter could lower this group, but even at 28mm, it’s accurate enough to headshot a rabbit and/or rat. Once again for those of you who prefer the larger calibre, these pellets are available in a .22 calibre here.

My conclusion of the AGT Vixen

Overall, the Vixen is packed with many attractive features that any airgun enthusiast would be looking for when purchasing a rifle. Ok, the price for one is £1499.99 but this is really an investment as the rifle will last you years to come, and the quality of the AGT Vixen easily warrants the price tag. As standard AGT provides 2 magazines, a filling station, spare O-rings, a user manual, some souvenirs, and a soft case. If you would like to check out the Vixen and the Vixens’ accessories, please click here.

Best .177 Hunting Pellet 2022

We put some of the best 177 hunting pellets to the test to find the best airgun ammunition.

The smaller 177 calibre has long been neglected by hunters as an ineffective pest pellet. The reasoning behind this is easy to understand, more mass = more power but this not strictly true as power is actually a relationship between mass and speed. Think about it this way, if I were to throw a tennis ball at a window, chances are it bounces straight off but if I were to launch a steel ball bearing at that same window through a sling shot it would punch a hole clean through despite the BB having much less mass than the tennis ball. This is because of the greater speed.

The UK limit for muzzle energy on an air rifle is 12ft/lb no matter what the mass of the pellet is. This equates to ~500fps in a .22 and ~700 – 750fps in a .177, around 50% higher! This added speed means that under the right conditions a 4.5mm pellet can be just as, if not more effective than a .22.

OK, with that out of the way, what criteria are we actually looking for? What makes an effective hunting pellet? When hunting any live animal, the most important factor to keep in mind is respect for the quarry and to minimise suffering. Therefore, the most important thing we are looking to achieve is a reliable one shot dispatch. This is usually achieved via a head shot but can also be possible via a heart and lung shot with the right pellet. Let’s see if we can find it with some of the options below.

All pellets tested with .177 Zbroia Hortitsia running at between 11.5 – 11.7 ft/lb at ranges between 20m – 35m.

H&N Barracuda Hunter Extreme

Made by H&N, these pellets are some of the most effective one shot pellets that money can buy. Normally in sub 12ft/lb airguns, expansion of hollow points is something that is actually quite hard to achieve as the velocities involved are not high enough to deform the lead, even in the faster .177 calibre. With the H&N Baracuda Hunter Extreme all of this is flipped on it’s head thanks to the cross shaped hollow points that these pellets feature. The ingenuity of this design allows the pellet to mushroom out upon impact as contact with the target creates a pocket of air that, instead of pressing against a thick wall of lead surrounding the hollow point, instead is forced against four thinner walls and allows for rapid expansion even in lower velocities. This leads to a much larger wound channel and more of the pellets energy being transferred into the target. This is what we want and what this translates to is, not only will a head shot be enough to reliably kill vermin in our desired one shot, but also a heart and lung shot will be more than capable.

The sacrifice that is made with this shape is long range & potential accuracy. The hollow point of the pellet whilst perfect for dispatch actually works against the pellet in flight and increases the air resistance, reducing range and causing the pellets to drop sooner than some of the more traditionally shaped diabolos. This has to be factored in whilst aiming as your point of impact might be slightly lower than expected, even if zeroed with domed pellets at the same weight.

Something else to consider is these pellets are not the cheapest on the market and they also only come in tins of 400 as opposed to the usual 500 for other .177s. Still a potential of 400 pigeons in the pot so I’m not really complaining.

QYS Domed

For this test I am using the lighter 8.18 grain QYS Domed pellets as opposed to the 9.56 version. My reasoning for testing these is to try something with a lot higher velocity in an attempt push the effective range as far as possible in a .177. Again, our main priority is the quick and consistent one-shot dispatch but a lighter pellet should carry more velocity out of the barrel and therefore maintain that power further downrange.

The uniformity of these pellets surprised me somewhat. The “Made in China ” slur is a brush that QYS are, I think, unfairly tarred with as the consistency in shape, weight and skirt size is absolutely fantastic. The weight deviation in particular was minimal with a maximum deviation of 0.1 grain either side of the advertised 8.18. This consistency is replicated in your shot placement and I found that these QYS pellets were by far the most consistent when zeroing. Now I am not by any means a professional shooter but whilst zeroing these pellets I was able to achieve just over a 25mm (about the size of a 5p) grouping at 30m. Not Bad.

I found the same thing with the pigeons. The trees I camped up in front of were around 35m from me and, when putting the crosshair of the scope on top of the birds head so that the first mill dot lined up with the eye, I was able to reliably one-hit kill birds with a brain shot. Thanks to the lack of expansion and higher speed, there was a degree of over penetration with these pellets though and I could foresee that, unlike the Hunter Extremes pellets listed above, a chest shot would not be enough to kill a pigeon instantly. If you are not confident of hitting heads then I don’t think these are the pellets for you.

H&N Rabbit Magnum II

On the other end of the spectrum are the H&N Rabbit Magnum II pellets that weigh in at a colossal 15.74 grain. Advertised on the tin as being for guns of around 25J these pellets are recommended for FAC power level guns but I know people that shoot the .22 versions of these pellets in 16J guns and swear by them so I thought they’d be worth a shot. Now, my Zbroia Hortitsia is tuned to around 11.7ft/lbs with 10.6 grain Bisley Magnum pellets so just under the 16J limit and way under the recommended level for these pellets and that issue was clearly thrown up by my testing.

These pellets are domed but are shaped more like slugs than traditional diabolo pellets and that added lead at the neck of the pellet is the reason for the increased weight. This design does allow more lead to make contact with the rifling and hopefully increase accuracy, but I was finding that the weight of these pellets was just far too high. I was almost running out of elevation to zero the pellets on my scope (a Hawke Airmax AO 2-7×32) and had to reduce my range to 20m just to reliably hit the target.

The variance between each pellet was OK, the build quality of H&N products is always very good but there was quite a large weight difference between pellets with some being almost half a grain lighter than the advertised 15.74. Now this weight change might not make much of a difference in a high powered gun but when I’m already pushing the limits of my rifle to zero, this variation plays into shot placement quite a lot.

15.5 gr instead of the advertised 15.74 – Weigh your pellets!

Owing to the unreliable point of impact, I didn’t use these pellets on any birds and I cant recommend you do the same Unless you are using an FAC rated airgun and might have to have a word with my friends using the .22 versions as whether those guns are 16J or not…

RWS Hypermax

And now for something completely different…

So there has been a growing movement in ballistics towards going lead-free. Lead is quite harmful to the environment, even excluding the animals being shot, and has a tendency to build up particularly in water animals and cause severe damage to the food chain. As of 2022, lead shot is not allowed when hunting ducks and other birds and I imagine it won’t be long before this legislation affects pellets. Nothing concrete or confirmed, but call it a hunch. Anyway, thanks to this many pellet manufacturers offer “lead free” pellets in a variety of shapes and sizes. These RWS Hypermax are made from tin and moulded into a pointed shape.

Ok so first thing to say about these pellets is, like most lead alternative pellets, they are extremely light. Weighing in at just 5.2 grain, these pellets are almost half the weight of the Hunter Extreme pellets and through the chronograph the speeds were mind boggling. The hunter extremes were getting about 740fps but some of the Hypermax were getting over 1000fps. Not that far off the speed of sound! I also found that, possibly due to the added hardness of tin compared to lead, the pellets in the tin had low variance in weight and almost no skirt or head deformation, something that can happen to softer lead pellets.

In practice, these perform much like the QYS pellets in that, a head shot is consistent, predictable and effective but the incredible speed and high penetrative power of the pellet means body shots are just going to fly straight through the bird and likely not kill straight away. Also, while testing these pellets the air was relatively still, but lighter pellets tend to be far more affected by the wind which is something to bear in mind.

Tin & alloy pellets are also more expensive than their lead counter parts with this tin costing similar to many others but containing just 200 pellets rather than the usual 500. I understand these tin pellets are relatively new but that’s just not enough for me.

Conclusions

Ok the best performing pellet was the Baracuda Hunter Extreme by H&N but I was surprised by a few, particularly the RWS Hypermax. I do wonder if these lead free pellets become the norm then peoples approach to airgun hunting might change. No longer will you be able to blast a bird or small mammal with a huge lump of lead anywhere in the body and be assured a kill. Instead you will be forced to use a lighter but faster moving projectile that requires a more skilful shot and this would encourage more accuracy and patience when hunting which is always a good thing.

To view our whole range of pellets click here.

Pistol Pest Control

There is no doubt that summer is prime season for pests but it is by no means the only time that pests are around so you need to be vigilant. Rats, unlike many other mammals, do not typically hibernate during winter and as the temperatures drop, they are more likely to be looking to move inside looking for warmth and shelter. This means that they will appear inside barns and garages where range is not so much a factor as manoeuvrability and ease of use.

When choosing a hunting pistol it is important to ensure that you have a pistol that shoots as close to the 6 ft/lb legal limit as possible. Careful consideration must be paid to ensure quick dispatching and the more powerful the gun, the more stopping power the pellet has. A 2-3 ft/lb 1911 is just not going to do the job humanely or otherwise.

There are two main airguns gun calibres .177 and .22. There are others but they are either too heavy for 6ft/lb guns and often more difficult to get hold of. So what is better .177 or .22? Sigh… this is an argument as old as time but here goes :

Relative size of the 2 most common calibres.

Well, .22 is often cited as the “hunting calibre” but, with the right shaped pellets, .177 can be just as effective. Due to power being worked out as a relationship between weight and speed the lighter pellets of the .177 calibre actually fly much faster than their heavier counterparts. This becomes an advantage as their trajectory is much flatter and therefore it is easier to be accurate. Hitting the head or vitals of a rat or small bird means shooting an area the size of a pound coin and so I actually prefer .177 for pistol pest control. As .177 pellets are travelling faster domed or pointed pellets have a habit of passing though the target which not only reduces lethality but can be problematic if shooting without a clear backstop. For this reason I would recommend flat head or hollow points for .177 and domed pellets for .22. That is my case for using .177 calibre anyway, but I have plenty of friends that swear by .22 especially for furry animals such as rats and rabbits which tend to be quite tough.

At the end of the day every hunter will tell you that accuracy is the most important factor when it comes to humane dispatching, you are often aiming for an area no larger than a pound coin so as long as you can reliably hit that, you will be fine. Just pick whichever calibre you prefer, it IS that simple. With that in mind, perhaps the most important aspect of pest control is practice, reliably hitting the same spot with a rifle is hard enough, but with a pistol it will require hours and hours of hard work until it is in your muscle memory. There are some people that will tell you that you hunting with an air pistol is inherently impossible to do humanely but I disagree, reliable expansion occurs at around 4ft/lbs, even less in hollow points, and a pellet that is fired from 6ft/lb air pistol will have this level of energy at ranges of around 15m.

Which Type of Air Pistol?

So you have your calibre, now what to choose, spring? CO2? Gas Ram? PCP? Single stroke? At least there was only 2 calibres to choose from…

Well, using my uncanny ability to treat my own opinions as fact, I’m going to trim the list down a bit. PCP pistols are undoubtedly effective but you are talking minimum 700 English pounds for a good one and that’s without factoring in the dive bottle and hose that you need to have one and that is probably too much money for a couple of rats so, unfortunately, they’re out.

Gas Ram pistols are essentially the same as spring pistols but use a non fatiguing piston system instead of a spring, sounds great right? Well, to my knowledge there are none close to the 6ft/lb limit that we are after so they are also out. Multi Stroke pistols suffer a similar fate with the majority of the models available being under powered with one exception. The Zoraki HP-01 has a variable power system which means that after 3 pumps the pistol will be powerful enough to be used for pest control. This means that having the pistol ready to shoot as by the time you have pumped the pistol up to full power, the rat or bird will likely be gone.

So that leaves us two viable options CO2 and spring power. As they are the most popular, let’s talk CO2 first.

CO2 pistols

There are a wide variety of CO2 powered pistols available that come in all shapes and sizes but for the majority, there are only a couple that are capable of killing. And the majority are based on one tried and tested design. The originator of the full powered air pistol is a model called the Crosman 2240 Buster which utilised an ingenious bolt action design that was powered by a single 12g CO2 capsule that produced around 5.5ft/lbs of muzzle energy. The 2240 stood as the undisputed king of the pest control world for a long time until a new design came along and took its crown.

The SMK CP1 has refined and ungraded the 2240s original blueprint and has become not just one of the best selling pest control pistols, but also one of the best selling airguns currently on the market. What makes it so effective is not just the power, but also the refinements made to the gun, the bolt has been moved to the left side to allow easier cocking, there is a chequered wood stock instead of the 2240s polymer and both the trigger unit and iron sights have received a significant upgrade. The CP1 also features a dovetail rail for the fitting of external optics and comes in a wide variety of calibres for maximum versatility, there is even a multi-shot version available. When looking for a pest dispatching pistol it is very hard to look past this model.

See more CO2 air pistols

Spring Powered Pistols

Spring powered pistols generally utilise a break barrel or lever system to fill a chamber with air and then release a spring which rapidly compresses the chamber forcing the pellet out of the barrel. The advantage of this design is that everything you need to fire is right there in your hands, no external gas canisters are required so if you can cock the gun, you can shoot it. This does also mean that unfortunately all spring pistols are single shot but with Gamo bringing out an ingenious multi shot spring rifle, the Maxxim Elite, I would imagine that a multi-shot spring pistol is not too far away.

Perhaps the most famous spring pistol is the XS26, one of the stalwarts of recent years that has continued to sell high numbers since its inception and has formed the basis of a lot of spring powered pistols that followed after it. Most notably was SMK’s own XS32 which not only upped the power slightly but improved the trigger system to make the gun more accurate and more reliable. The XS32 is equipped with fibre optic sights which is a plus as pests tend to be more active in low light, and is also surprisingly lightweight which not only reduces fatigue but also makes aiming easier, important when aiming for a small vital area.

The HW45 is a beautiful piece of construction

Whilst the XS32 is a superb choice, the undisputed king of the spring powered pistol world is the Weihrauch HW45. Despite being several orders of magnitude more expensive than an XS32, particularly if you want the fantastic looking Silver Star model, this is the spring pistol I’d personally have. Of all of the names in the airgun industry, Weihrauch is probably the name you can most trust when it comes to delivering high quality construction and overall great performance. The HW45 is accurate to a tee and shoots a shade over 5 ft/lbs making it one of the most powerful spring pistols on the market and more than enough for a rat or pigeon at 10-15m. The pistol itself does require 13mm mounds to fit additional optics which is unusual but other than that I can’t fault it, one of the best pistols money can buy.

See more spring powered air pistols

So there you have it, a list of a selection of the pistols I would consider to be the best for pest control. If you are looking to purchase one be sure it’s here at Pellpax and stay tuned to the blog for all your airgun information.