I have a russian made baikal / IZH mp 513 m(agnum) spring piston rifle I bought 1 year ago.
Fires .22 pellets at 800/900 fps. Ammo is dirt cheap so you can stack tons of it, train a lot, plink, for nothing and most important you can kill small and medium game in the 50/70 yards range; enough to feed a small family if needed. No need to use expensive firearms bullets for this kind of prey, even if I'm considering getting a .22 firearm for home defense / hunting bigger game if required, or a hunting rifle/shotgun, not sure yet, maybe both in addition to the mp513m.
I needed a firearm license to be allowed to purchase it here in canada. Even if you cant kill a human in one shot with that stuff, you can dramatically wound one in the 50 yards range, especially if you aim at the head. In my backyard, it penetrated two layers of plywood stuck together at 30 yards and kept going for ten more meters before reaching the ground... The back side of the second plywood was completely destroyed, I was like...wtf.
To introduce yourself to firearms there s nothing better than a powerful and economic spring piston air rifle. The gas operated ones are useless tho. And you need a while to acclimate yourself to the double recoil ofthose magnum rifles. The key is to hold the gun very smoothly when you shoot it. More accurate that way, well that's the biggest thing that helped improve my groups.
Owning a magnum grade spring piston rifle and a .22 firearm is all you need to hunt and feed a small group of persons. You can also fish and use traps to diversify your food intakes.