I picked up a new air rifle a few weeks ago. It's a .177 caliber Gamo Big Cat 1200. It's a nice low cost spring piston air rifle. I picked it up at Mills Fleet Farm (one of my favorite stores, I may add!) for $119.00 with a nice 4x scope. A friend of mine has a Gamo Hunter with a nice wood stock, but I figure that it's not worth the extra cost. The Big Cat 1200 has a decent plastic stock that works for me.
This thing is awesome. It's super accurate. Many times you can put pellets through the same hole. It took less than 10 shots to zero, and this thing is a shooter. I don't have a chrony, but according to Gamo you can get 1200 fps with their lightweight alloy pellets and 1000 fps with regular lead pellets. I use their regular lead flathead match pellets which are much cheaper. I have a Crosman 2100 Classic which is good, but I get tired of pumping and pumping pneumatic airguns.
I think these spring piston air rifles are good practice for shooting. It's illegal in my city to use an air rifle outside, so I setup a range in my basement. You can get a decent low end air rifle for around $100.00. Even though the cost of lead pellets have gone up quite a bit over the last few years, they are still very cheap to shoot. There are a wide variety of pellets available, from pointed hunting pellets to hollow point hunting pellets to flathead wadcutter target pellets. I recommend a spring piston air rifle as a cheaper substitute for real guns and ammo. I don't know if I would shoot a deer or a hog with this air rifle, but it would work on squirrels, crows, rabbits, and other smaller game. Get one and start shooting more at a cheap price. It's great fun and great practice. You got to get one.