Air Rifle Produces Late-Season, Public-Land Buck

Ronnie Blackburn, of Douglasville, with the 8-point buck he killed using his Umarex Hammer .50 caliber air rifle.

“I don’t think I will ever go back to shooting a regular rifle again,” remarked Ronnie Blackburn, of Douglasville.

Since receiving a Umarex Hammer .50 caliber PCP Air Rifle for Christmas a year ago, Ronnie has been hooked on the air gun.

“It’s kind of like going from regular rifle hunting to bowhunting,” said Ronnie of his switch to taking an air rifle to the deer woods. “The air rifle added something different to my hunts. I have to think more like a bowhunter now for closer shots. And I love how it is much quieter and only kicks about like a .410 shotgun.”

In 2019, Georgia legislators passed Senate Bill 72, which allowed the use of air rifles (.30 caliber minimum) to hunt deer in Georgia. These air rifles are also permissible to use during primitive-weapons seasons and speciality hunts.

“I was watching a shooting show on TV last year, and I saw one of these air rifles featured. I began researching and watching videos about them, and I just had to have one,” Ronnie said. “Right after I got mine last year, I went out to public land and killed two does in two shots.”

Ronnie loves hunting with the Umarex Hammer .50 caliber air rifle he got two years ago.

This season during an early fall hunt at Cedar Creek WMA, Ronnie killed a doe at 65 yards.

“Sixty-five yards is about as far as I will shoot a deer with an air rifle, even though I can target practice accurately at 100 yards,” he said. “That doe was standing broadside, and my bullet passed right through her. She didn’t run far.”

A few weeks later, Ronnie killed another public-land doe, again with a single shot of his .50 caliber air rifle.

Ronnie’s air rifle comes with two two-round clips in case follow-up shots are needed. Once “charged” with air (which takes about 15 minutes with Ronnie’s air pump that he got from Walmart), the rifle can shoot four bullets before recharging is necessary. If you shoot as good as Ronnie does though, you won’t have to worry about the four-shot capacity!

“I’ve been wanting to get my cousin Wayne Blackburn into deer hunting,” Ronnie said, “so I planned a hunt at the Oconee National Forest in Putnam County the first weekend of January. I haven’t hunted that place in 25 years but still remembered it pretty well. I figured there wouldn’t be much hunting pressure because most people quit hunting that area in January since the buck activity usually slows down.”

In the pre-dawn darkness of Jan. 4, 2025, Ronnie and Wayne (on his first-ever deer hunt) carried climbers into the woods full of hope. Ronnie likes to hunt transition zones and had discovered a spot where an open hardwood bottom met a thick pine thicket. Around 9 a.m., three does came through the hardwoods and headed into the thicket. Forty-five minutes later, the three does came crashing back out into the hardwoods with a beautiful 8-point buck behind them.

“The does ran right by me and gave me a 35-yard shot at the buck. The buck only made it about 30 yards, wobbled, then fell over.”

So, that made five deer with five shots in two seasons of air rifle hunting for Ronnie Blackburn.

The late-season rutting activity seems a bit unusual for that area of the state, but Ronnie showed a photograph he took of a fresh scrape in the hardwoods that same day. With only one weekend left of the Georgia deer season, Ronnie plans to return to the same spot.

“My cousin Wayne is hooked on deer hunting now after seeing my buck,” Ronnie laughed. “He’s joining me again for the last weekend. I sure hope he can get him one, too.”

In two seasons, Ronnie has killed four deer with four shots from his new air rifle.