I picked up a couple 22 cal air rifles and took about 20 cottontails and a couple snowshoe hares with them last winter. I was looking at pistols first but was not sure they had the power to make clean kills. I was looking for a 12ft lb minimum which is what everything I read recommended for rabbit size game with airguns.

What kept pushing toward rifles instead of pistols is that pellet velocities listed by most manufacturers are much higher than velocities you can expect to get with a hunting weight pellet. The velocities they list are attained with lightweight alloy pellets. Even when they list a lead pellet velocity its usually a light pellet not intended for hunting.

I learned this with the first "adult" airgun I picked up. It was a 22 cal Crosman Shockwave with the Nitro Piston. They advertised a lead pellet velocity of 800 fps (alloy 950fps). The actual velocity with a 14.3gr pellet through my chronograph was 626fps. That's quite a bit slower than I expected. I didn't want to see that kind of power loss in a pistol which are already listed with lower velocities.

The pistol I was most drawn to was the Benjamin Marauder. There are many videos on youtube of people taking squirrels with them. I prefer a gun with open sights which it doesn't have. My son has a Crosman 1377 thats a fun gun to shoot and very accurate. I prefer a 22 cal and looked at the 1322 but the velocity drops with the heavier pellet. There are shops doing modifications on both the Marauder and the 1377/1322 to increase their power. I'm not trying to push you away from air pistols. This is just why I haven't settled on one yet.