That BSA Ultra CLX looks great, just a bit more than I wanted to spend. I guess they hold their value pretty well though?
Don’t buy a BSA if you can avoid it, the regulators are crap and they have design issues, pellets dropping into places they shouldn’t and a 10+ weeks turnaround on repairs at present. You may as well just buy a Gammo if that’s the direction you want to go, same barrel manufacturing process, same company, you can get a kit for a few hundred that isn’t awful. Chinese stuff is reasonable, but spares are a pita, Kral although Turkish are not much better on spares but quality is slightly better after the UK importer read them the riot act. Gammo are reasonable for parts and generally inexpensive and reliable.
Shooting rodent vermin single handed is a waste of time if you have the sort of infestation poultry keeping often brings. You could, as someone I noticed already mentioned, find a group to come onto your property to help, but rodents tend to be nocturnal, do you want a load of strangers with guns running around? I tend to favour trapping. Having a lot of dogs precludes poison. If I had small dogs that were decent ratters, like Patterdales, or a local dog club with ratters, that would be an option. My standard poodle is a fair ratter, but too big as slow to make the good grade. But one guy and a rifle has little effect on an exponentially breeding rat population.
A man with a night sight rifle is far more effective ridding foxes than the old hunts. It's horses for courses, sport or effective slaughter. Poison wins with rats, but has awful potential collateral damage. Traps second, they don't tire, or cost much. Then probably a couple of fit ratting dogs.
One rifle? Nah, not going to do much good if you want to break the prodigious breeding cycle of the common rat amidst poultry and grain.
One person shooting from sticks with something like a Pard thermal set-up can easily do three figures a night if the population supports it. A few nights a week and you can easily break the cycle pretty quickly.
In general as this thread seems to have a few examples of people with rat issues over the years, ratting isn’t glamorous, if you have a serious problem (farm, abattoirs, refuse sites), it’s a job best outsourced unless you want to throw at least a grand at kit and spend hours learning your craft and then spending hours on a permission at night. A decent shooter will be friendly/polite, always contact you before attending to make sure you know they will be on-site, present you with confirmation of insurance prior to shooting, do a walk around of the site in daylight to ensure they know where the rats are, check backstops etc. and know where is/is not OK to go/shoot including property boundaries. They’ll re-attend at night for rats, ideally with NV or thermal kit and can easily do 100+ a night on a busy permission. If it’s heaving they may bring a second gun (extra shooter with your permission) and will collect the bodies/dispose of them for you. You won’t be expected to pay for this sort of service, rats are disease spreading vermin and nobody likes them.
Anyone wanting a used rifle AGBBS is great and has a wealth of information, but Airgun Forum is another decent option. Be warned, shooting isn’t cheap, even a mid range set-up will easily run over a grand with gun, scope/mounts, case, air tank or compressor, fittings, bipod, extra magazines/speed loader and a lot more if you want night vision or thermal. Oh and pellet availability is problematic at present (German lead factory flooded, JSB struggling to meet demand), prices are going up accordingly.
