You get's what you pay for but...bear in mind UK power limits that mean that an air pistol will be only 6ft/lbs. And that not all air rifles will be even near that 12ft/lbs limit...some may even be less that half that...so try before you buy!
Having been said leads me to suggest "the tin can test" which is take an empty tin can with you. A proper tin can so rice pudding, baked beans, pear halves in syrup or whatever. Your intended weapon of choice with your intended pellet of choice should shoot through this and out the other side at five yards. If it doesn't pass it by.
Of course if the seller has a chronograph that's not needed.
If it doesn't then pass it by. I'd also advise against anything other than a
spring powered or
pump up design as PCP and CO2 may be great until you go to use it and find that it is literally out of gas. It is an expensive PITA to have to use one new cartridge each time if you don't use the weapon for weeks at a time. But note my comment about pump up guns and their seals.
A spring gun or pump up gun is by definition never out of gas as it cam be left with uncocked with all springs relaxed and only when cocked creates air power source at the very very instant of firing. Even a pump up has to store the pumped up propellant air (if but only for a moment before you fire it) a spring gun creates that propellant air AS you fire it.
So by design a spring gun doesn't as such rely on having good seals as does a PCP, a CO2 or even a pump up gun. As long as its piston seal is there or thereabouts it will work. Nothing worse than a PCP, CO2 or pump up where the seals have gone so that it leaks air.
Other than that test (if you don't have a chronograph) of power I'd choose .22 over .177 if simply for humane dispatch of caged vermin. I use a .177" PCP with Bisley Magnum pellets as that is all I have but a .22" is a better choice as the heavier and larger standard 15 grain pellet does the job of point blank shot to the skull better IMHO.
Also in practice an theory a .22" is less likely to shoot through a skull than the .177" which almost always does. Something to consider if shooting against a concrete floor or slabbed tiles that your trap has been placed on. I always for that reason dispatch with my .177" put on a lawn or on a soil bed.
Local to you may be DAI Leisure at Brierley Hill who may have some used items and also should have a chronograph as, for the OP's needs, it is power not accuracy that he seeks. So any old otherwise "clunker" with missing sights will do. Be it spring powered or pump up. Indeed lacking a front sight may be a benefit as it will better fit through the bars of a cage trap if that is wanted to do if using a comb to keep the trapped animal into one place to kill it.
Scroll down the link for DAI Leisure used guns. I haven't bought form them for maybe ten plus years but they do (or did) have a chronograph and as they are a retailer you have Sale of Goods Act protection I think?
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