RE: air rifle or .22?
alot of people will debate this, but i know as well as many ,embers on here shot many MANY birds and chipmunks with the old 10 pump BB guns that are going around 600FPS. but for serious small game hutnting with an air rifle id say at least 800FPS, my 22. air rifle is going 800 and it has NO problem taking out squirels, chipmunks, ground hogs, racoons opossums...so if you want a 22. cal pellet gun (i personally think they are better suited because they are shooting a much larger projectile that it makes up for the 200FPS loss over the 177 cal) but if you decide you want a 177 because of speed or the more choices of pellets you have id get at least 1000FPS on that so its just shocking the heck out of whatever you hit....