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So I spent a full day researching pellet rifles. Aside from cost of pellets vs .22 and legalities in some areas, what advantages are there over a .22lr?

From a practical standpoint, at least in the United States absolutely none.

From a pleasure standpoint, for me at least, several.

-Mid to higher end air rifles are far nicer then most off the shelf “typical” .22s
-Mid to high end airguns typically have PHENOMENAL triggers.
-I cannot shoot a .22 in my basement/garage/yard
-With spring guns there is a fairly steep learning curve and being able to shoot them well is an enjoyable pastime for me.
-Being able have challenging shooting all the way from compressed distances of like 7 yards all the way out to 50-60 yards is kinda neat on a single platform
-Pellets are cheaper and take up very little space
-The mechanical nature of slower pace shooting then appeals to me. It’s sort of like shooting black powder or revolvers or driving a stick shift.
-Less/very little cleaning. Just a quick wipe down 99% of the time
-Very easy to shoot on a whim, when you want for as long as you want.
-safer and quieter method to introduce new shooters
-They are friggin fun. If you are like me and have shot damn near everything under the sun from 20mm to belt feds to muskets etc. you tend to like pretty much anything with a trigger and it’s different then the norm. I have cousin who grew up in a class 3 family and is family friends with most of the Small Arms Review staff etc. so he has shot it all. He comes here and just wants to shoot my airguns and it gives him the giggles every time.

At the end of the day it’s simply another hobby or subset of the shooting hobby. It comes with its own skill sets, guns with certain prides of ownership etc. etc. Again think black powder shooters as a subset of shooting in general.

All that said for any practical purpose outside of legalities there is absolutely no reason not to go .22LR. MAYBE, in very specific pesting applications such as inside a building etc. the airgun would be the safer alternative but these would be fairly specific needs.

The downside, especially to us gun guys, is that cheap air rifles tend to suck and you are going to spend REAL gun money to get into the nice stuff. We also get hung up on velocity and POWAAAAA!!! When the reality is you want a lower powered airgun for most fun uses, which most of us gun owners want an airgun for, fun. We have real guns for power needs. Don’t buy a super powerful airgun in most cases.

The Weihrauch HW30S/Beeman R7 in whatever stock or configuration one desires is just about the PERFECT airgun. Super accurate, phenomenal trigger, easy to shoot, easy to cock, light weight and built incredibly well.