Help with groundhog elimination! Which (quiet) rifle?

Heya GLP!

I hope this is the place to come for some info.

My mom has a groundhog (and to a lesser extent squirrel) problem. We’ve blocked off all of her fences with bricks and rocks, but she’s in a condo-type area. So they can get into the neighbors’ yards and dig under the house and still ruin her foundation. Pest control/animal control/whatever has been called in and has trapped them for the last three years, but they are back every year.

I can sit out on her deck and see them walking to and from the neighbors’ houses in the afternoon. We bought our own trap and baited it with apples, tomatoes, nuts, berries, cracked corn (stuff that animal control used before) and have had no luck.

I have a Daisy lever action spring BB gun and brought it over and popped a few of them, hoping that they would get irritated enough to move away (I know nothing about groundhogs. Think of me as Jon Snow in the groundhog department – never even saw one until this year). That method has somewhat worked for me in the squirrel department as far as keeping them away from my bird seed. The groundhogs will jump in surprise, but continue on their way after the nuisance of a BB bouncing off their fur.

Anyway, obviously the little F-ers barely felt a tap from a BB. So I spent $40 on a Powerline 880 pump air rifle pellet gun (redundant, I know).

Same thing. BBs bounce off them. I haven’t actually tried a pellet with that rifle, but from my new research it would only be slightly better at deterring them since that air rifle lacks the power.

Sorry for making a short story long!!!

HERE’S MY QUESTION =)

How can I kill these groundhog diggers cleanly – or wound them enough to get to them to kill them cleanly – in a condo-like neighborhood? Mom is on the back strip of the condos – her backyard, where we see the groundhogs, is facing the woods.

A .22 would be too loud. This is what I’m considering so far:

I have a .22 semi-auto Marlin rifle. Get the Aguila Colibri ammo and try to take the rodent out (My research tells me that this might not even do it w/o a head shot).

Build a silencer for my .22 and get sub-sonic rounds. YouTube makes it look pretty easy to build a silencer for a .22.

Buy a better air rifle / pellet gun. Surprisingly, my brief research on the ‘Net has said that this would be the better option over the .22 fixes.

Please! Any suggestions =)

• Powerful enough to kill a groundhog
• Quiet enough to sound like a staple gun (don’t disturb neighbors)
• $300 range for either option (modify .22 or buy new pellet gun)
• Distance – about 20 yards max

PS – I just noticed something about CCI ammo – I’ll check that out and update.

And thanks GLPers! I know this is the place to come. I actually did try to do some of my own research into this – but it is freaking incredible how many pellet guns are out there now-a-days! Shit son – there’s one for like $750!!! And probably the one I need, but I’m not spending that money for three F-ing groundhogs!