The bad thing with shotgun's is noise and developing bad shooting habit's by flinching. Many a shooter has been messed up using shotgun's and over powered rifle's and developing the fear and anticipation of the recoil and therefore, developing poor shooting habit's. A .22 rifle or good pellet rifle, train's you to maintain good form and follow through.
I use a scoped Ruger 10/22 with excellent result's. I have killed sparrow's beyond 50 yard's and Starling's out to 70+ yard's with it. The main thing to remember is that a .22 rifle bullet can travel over a mile, so one must keep this in mind.
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