Airguns of Arizona Blog

Benjamin Discovery Shines in .22

2008-11-17T01:52:00.001-07:00

Where I live in upstate New York, this is the time of year when the window of opportunity for 50-yard airgun testing begins to close, at least for me. The days are shortening; the weather is cold and damp; and once the serious snow flies, I won’t be able to get to get to the 50-yard range at the gun club at all. Once that happens, the longest range that I can conveniently manage at home is about 39 yards. (Besides, I rarely do my best work when my teeth are chattering.)

But every once in a while in November, we get a nice warm day like last Friday (November 14, 2008). As the temperature headed toward 60, I called my friend Dick Johnson (an excellent centerfire benchrest competitor). We agree to meet at the range at 2 pm. He brought his Oehler printing chronometer and his “professional” bench rests, and I brought three .22 air rifles.

The first, which I won’t mention here until I get some more time to sort it out, didn’t do so hot. The second was an RWS54 in .22. It turned in entirely worthy performance, and I will be writing about it here in a future blog. But the big surprise of the day was the Benjamin Discovery in .22.

The Discovery is Crosman Corporation’s inexpensive pre-charged pneumatic air rifle. By inexpensive, I mean it can be purchased with a pump for less than $400, and without a pump for less than $250.

Weighing just 5 lbs 2 oz and stretching 39 inches end to end, the Discovery is a bolt-action, single-shot rifle that is available in either .177 or .22. It has the capability to run off either compressed air or CO2. You can fill it with compressed air from a hand pump or tank or with CO2 from a paintball tank using an optional filler hose. In addition, the Discovery is a low-pressure PCP, which means you have to fill it only to 2,000 psi, not 3,000 psi or higher, as is common with other pre-charged pneumatic air rifles.

After mounting a Leaper 6-24 x 56 scope and sighting it in, I pumped the Discovery up to 2,000 psi and settled it onto the rests. I tried 5-shot groups with Discovery .22 hollow points, Dynamic SN-2 pellets, and JSB Jumbo Express Exacts and got mediocre results. Admittedly by this point in the afternoon, conditions were deteriorating. A front was moving into the area; the wind was gusting intermittently; the temperature was beginning to drop; and the sun was dropping toward the horizon.

Then I switched to .22 Crosman Premiers, and magic happened. Five shots landed in a group measuring 1 inch edge to edge (that works out to .78 inch ctc). After the first two shots, there was a lull in the wind. The next three shots really got my attention: they created a single hole in the target measuring .375 edge to edge. That’s .155 ctc. Not too shabby.

Considering that this was an absolutely box-stock, unmodified, factory fresh .22 Discovery, I am very impressed with the results.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

Bragging rights – a reader participation story

2008-11-10T01:09:00.001-07:00

Hang around airgunners for long, and pretty soon you’ll discover they all have stories – stories about spectacularly improbable shots that worked, shots that failed in strange and unusual ways, and times when they were in the zone and everything seemed to work just right.

“In the Spirit of Quigley – Part II,” I related how I twice dropped a field target at 54 yards with a Beeman R1 fitted with a globe front sight and a peep rear sight. I was fortunate to have a fast air rifle and some very good ballistic information from Steve Woodward, AKA “Steve from NC.”

“A Tale of Desperate Measures, Whistling Lead, and a Sneering Bird,” tells how, with the help of an FX Typhoon loaned to me by Airguns of Arizona, I won the New York State Hunter Class Field Target Championship, but the real story for me that day was trying to knock down a target with a 3/8” kill zone at 22 yards. Here again I was fortunate – darned fortunate – because it turns out that I had zeroed the Typhoon at almost the same distance as the #@$% bird target.

But the most spectacular shot – a real “God likes me” moment – was one I have never related before in print or on the web (as far as I can remember). The scene was a field target match at Westfield, Massachusetts, a couple of years ago. I was shooting my Beeman R1 fitted with front globe sight and rear peep sight in the Hunter Class. It was a warm, comfortable day, and my brother-in-law Kyle and I were having a good time. On this day at Westfield, we were shooting two or three targets per lane, over ten lanes, with two shots for each target, for a grand total of 40 or 50 shots for the match.

Things were going pretty well . . . I was knocking down more targets than I was missing. While I certainly wasn’t “cleaning” the course, I was feeling pretty good. We worked our way from lane to lane until about halfway or perhaps two-thirds of the way through the match we arrived at this one particular lane . . .

Now, to really get a feel for what happened next, you need to understand a couple of things. First, when I am shooting my R1 with the globe sight and peep sight on it, I scan each lane with binoculars so I can locate the targets and determine the size and location of the kill zone on each of them. The second thing you need to know is that the folks at Westfield neaten up and repaint targets as needed before each match. That way, the kill zones, painted in a bright, contrasting color, are clearly visible against the bodies of the targets. But once you get halfway through match, the kill zones are splattered with lead from pellets and so is the face of the target immediately around the kill zone. After a while, it becomes increasingly difficult to figure out where the kill zone is, even through a scope.

So I start scanning for the targets, and after a while I find one up in a tree around 30 yards away. The entire center portion of the target is gray with splattered lead, and I really have to work to find the kill zone. When I finally identify it, I can’t believe it: it’s only about the diameter of my little finger. (I later found out the target was 32 yards and the kill zone was a half-inch.)

Just as I was thinking “I’ll never be able to find the kill zone without a scope,” I noticed that the target had a reducer plate. The reducer plate bolts to the face of the target and makes the kill zone smaller, and while the target was smeared with lead, I could see clearly two bolt heads that were used to hold the reducer plate in place. If I could triangulate on the kill zone from the two bolt heads, that might work.

So I cocked the R1, loaded a pellet, and walked the front sight to the right of the left hand bolt head and down a bit from the right hand bolt head. I squeezed the trigger, the R1 went “SNAP!” and the target dropped. I pulled the reset string, popped the target upright, and tried again. I missed, so maybe I just got lucky with the first shot.

Frankly, I don’t remember the rest of the shots that I took that day. But I do remember dropping that half-inch target at over 30 yards with metallic sights. Even if I missed the second time, it still felt pretty good.

So now it’s your turn – you are cordially invited to share the shots over which you have bragging rights or your other strange and unusual airgunning stories.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

The Gamo Compact

2008-11-03T01:08:00.001-07:00

There is something that I really like about target air pistols. Maybe it is the sheer joy of spending a few hours on an afternoon doing nothing more productive than trying to put some pellets through the 10 ring.

The Gamo Compact is an entry-level target air pistol. Weighing a just under 2 pounds, it stretches 12.6 inches from end to end, and delivers a wealth of goodies for a very reasonable price.

Let’s take a walk around the Compact and see what I mean. The first thing you notice about the Compact is the anatomically sculptured right-hand walnut grip with adjustable palm shelf. To the best of my knowledge, the Compact is the only entry level pistol that comes standard with such a grip.

Just forward of the grip underneath compact is the trigger guard, it – and the rest of the receiver and upper unit of the pistol, is made of an engineering plastic. The sides of receiver are reinforced with metal straps that are also part of the cocking mechanism. Unlike some plastic air pistols that I have shot, I have seen no flexing of the plastic while cocking or shooting the Compact.

Inside the trigger guard is the trigger. The first stage of the trigger is adjustable for travel, and the trigger blade can be swiveled to match the shooter’s finger. The manual says the second stage of the trigger is set by the factory at 750 grams, and it is not adjustable. Like many target pistols, the Gamo Compact does not have a safety. Once it is cocked and loaded, it is always live and ready to shoot.

At the front end of the Compact, on top of the upper assembly is the blade front sight. Just below is the muzzle, which is recessed into the plastic upper assembly. Along the top of the upper assembly is a wide plastic ridge. While the ridge is not a dovetail, I have successfully used it to clamp red dot sights to the Compact.

At the rear of the upper assembly is the rear sight, which – like virtually all target sights – is adjustable for elevation and windage. What sets the Compact’s rear sight apart is that the width of the rear sighting notch is also adjustable, simply by turning a screw on the left-hand side of the sight. As far as I know, this is the only entry-level target air pistol that offers such an adjustment, and I find it really handy for matching the sight picture to varying lighting conditions.

Underneath the rear sight, at the extreme aft end of the receiver, is a rectangular gray plastic button. To get the Compact ready to shoot, depress the gray plastic button. This releases the upper assembly which can then pivot forward. With the upper assembly fully extended, insert a pellet into the back end of the barrel. Now return the upper assembly to its original position so it latches. This cocks the single-stroke pneumatic action and requires about 21 pounds of effort.

Now you’re good to go. Take aim at the target, ease the first stage out of the trigger, and squeeze a bit more. The Compact gives a muted pop and launches medium weight pellets down range in the mid-300 fps. I find the trigger to be pleasingly crisp.

The Compact is not a powerful pistol. I wouldn’t use it for hunting anything bigger than hornets (or perhaps mice at very close range). But it is quite accurate. The factory says it will deliver .20” groups CTC at 10 yards. I seem to recall a test in IHMSA news in which a fellow achieved nearly the same size groups at 20 yards indoors under windless conditions.

In the end, I find the Gamo Compact an entirely worthy air pistol that I enjoy shooting very much.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

Barrel Cleaning

2008-10-27T01:17:00.001-07:00

When I got my first serious adult precision air rifle, I naturally wanted to take good care of it. I recalled that back in the days when I shot rimfire a lot, you cleaned the barrel after every shooting session. That was part of being a marksman – maintaining the equipment.

So I was suddenly seized with a wild urge to grab the old rimfire cleaning kit, assemble the metal cleaning rod, fasten the brass brush to the end, douse it in bore cleaner, and have at it.

It’s a good thing I couldn’t figure out where I had stashed my old cleaning kit. Why? Because an uncoated metal rod and/or a metal brush could have damaged the rifling in my airgun’s barrel.

Repeat after me: “I will never use an uncoated metal rod or metal brush to clean my airgun barrel.” Good. Remember that.

Nevertheless, when you first get a new airgun, the urge to clean the barrel is a good one. That’s because there may be grease and oil left in the barrel from the manufacturing process, and if you don’t get it out, it could affect accuracy.

So here’s what you do: get yourself a flexible boresnake-style cleaner – a pull-through. I can highly recommend the Crown Saver Cleaning Kit, which includes a flexible pull-though, cleaner-degreaser and instructions.

Run the pull-through down from the muzzle to the breech. Slip a patch that has been moistened with the cleaner-degreaser through the loop in the pull-through and pull the patch from the breech out through the muzzle. (Note: the patch does not have to be dripping with cleaner, damp will work just fine.) Now pull several dry patches through – from breech to muzzle – until the patches come through looking clean or almost clean. Because the patches get crumpled up as they are pulled through the bore, you can reuse them by folding them so the clean areas are outward and pull them through again. If after four or five dry pulls you’re still getting a lot of dark stuff out of the barrel, run another patch with cleaner-degreaser, followed by more clean patches.

If you can’t use a pull-through, then use a synthetic coated rod with cleaner-moistened patches and repeat the procedure as you would with a pull-through. If you are cleaning the barrel of a springer that has been stored for a long time, you may have to use a nylon bristle brush and Beeman’s MP-5 oil to clear oil and grease that has congealed and dried.

How often do you need to clean the barrel of your airgun? The short answer: not often. Unlike firearms, there is no need to clean the barrel after every shooting session. Most competitive airgunners that I know clean their barrels only when they think they may be having an issue with accuracy. Otherwise, they leave it alone. And that would be my recommendation to you.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock

Elliott’s First Law of Pellet Perversity

2008-10-20T01:15:00.000-07:00

A while back I got a telephone call from an airgunning friend. He was testing a new airgun, and he was frustrated.

“You would think,” he said, “that a gun built by Crosman would shoot at least one Crosman pellet well.”

“No, I don’t think that at all,” I said.

He was astonished that I could have such a thought, and he said so. Clearly, he didn’t understand Elliott’s First Law of Pellet Perversity, which says:

“Any airgun built by any particular airgun manufacturer will rarely, if ever, shoot well with pellets made by that same manufacturer.”

There you have it. The short version of the Law is: if you have a Brand X airgun, it will inevitably shoot Brand Y pellets the best. I’ve been messing around with adult precision airguns for a while now, and I’ve seen the First Law of Pellet Perversity play itself out with creepy consistency time after time.

Now, just in case you are new to adult precision airguns, here’s a thing you need to know: every airgun will “prefer” a particular type of pellet and deliver the most consistent accuracy with that pellet. Sometimes, if you are lucky, an airgun will have two different pellets that it shoots will really good accuracy. To find out which pellet(s) your airguns “likes,” you usually have to try several different kinds of pellets, shooting them for groups at the same distance until a clear winner emerges.

So, how does the First Law of Pellet Perversity play out in real life? Currently, in my gun closet, I have two rifles from Beeman, an R7 and an R1, both in .177. Does either of them work best with a pellet from Beeman? No, of course not! The R7 works well with either Crosman 7.9 grain Premiers (also known as CPLs, for Crosman Premier Lights) or Daisy Maxspeed wadcutters. The R1 prefers CPLs and isn’t happy with anything else.

Also in my gun cabinets, I have two RWS 54 recoilless spring-piston air rifles, one in .177 and the other in .22. Neither of them “likes” pellets from RWS. The 54 in .177 is very happy with 10.5 grain Crosman Premiers (Crosman Premier Heavies, or CPHs), and the .22 version seems very well pleased with JSB .22 Jumbo Express pellets.

None of my Benjamin or Sheridan multi-stroke pneumatic rifles delivers their best accuracy with Crosman, Benjamin, or Sheridan pellets, but boy do they love any pellet made by JSB! I will admit, though, that all of the .20 caliber Sheridans shoot Benjamin cylindrical pellets with decent, but not their best, accuracy. My Steroid Sheridan Blue Streak delivers very good accuracy with non-lead Dynamic SPC-5 pellets while my Sheridan Silver Streak (surprise!) thinks these same pellets are downright indigestible and sprays them all over the place.

Just to keep me on my toes, there are exceptions to the Law. My Crosman Discovery shoots CPLs pretty well, but I have the feeling that somewhere out there is a non-Crosman pellet that will produce even better results. Cliff Tharp, the producer of the “Airgun Hunting the California Ground Squirrel” DVD, tells me that his Discovery shoots best with a Beeman pellet that was discontinued years ago, but he bought up a supply at bargain basement prices when they stopped making them.

The bottom line to this bit of fun is that, to achieve the highest accuracy with your airgun, you’re going to have to test a bunch of different pellets to see which one gives you the best results. And when it turns out that it doesn’t shoot worth a darn pellets from the same company that manufactured the gun, now you know why.

The Noise in the Attic – Part II

2008-10-13T01:07:00.001-07:00

I carefully surveyed the attic in the flashlight’s glare. The squirrel had, indeed, left the building. Good . . . but how was he getting in?

Standing in front of the house, I could see that a small piece of the aluminum on the overhang of the bathroom roof had pulled loose. A few minutes later, with the help of a ladder and my son holding it steady, I could see how the squirrel had managed it. The aluminum was springy. Somehow Mr. Bushytail had discovered he could pull it down a little, slide in, and the aluminum would return nearly all the way to its original position.

Our unwanted furry guest was clearly planning to make a winter of it. Already there was sizable stash of edibles to see him through. I could imagine him chatting up the lady squirrels: “Why don’t you come over, babe . . . I got a heated condo over the Elliott’s bathroom. On Tuesday nights, we can listen to the latest episode of Bones.”

I tacked the aluminum back into place, called the guy who could repair the underlying wood that had rotted, and prayed that my lick-and-a-promise patch job would hold until a “real” repair could be done the following week.

There were no noises in the attic that night, but the following day when I stepped out the front door, headed to the mailbox, I heard a noise overhead. There was Mr. Bushytail, trying to “pick the lock’ on his pad. Clearly he hadn’t taken the hint.

I would have to take sterner measures. So I kept the P1 close at hand while attending to my writing chores.

Finally, I caught him part way up the spruce tree by our bird feeder. I flipped on the red dot. The distance was about seven yards. I gripped the pistol tightly with my right hand, pulling it back into the web between my thumb and forefinger. I wrapped the fingers of my left hand over the middle, ring, and little fingers of my trigger hand. (Unlike some folks, who allow springer pistols to freely recoil, I clamp mine in a Ninja Death Grip.)

I extended both arms, so that my arms and chest formed a triangle. I centered the red dot over center mass, eased the first stage out of the trigger, and squeezed a bit more. The P1 bucked in my hands, and the squirrel dropped like a stone. I suspect he was on his way to that Big Oak Forest in the Sky even before he hit the ground.

And since then there have been no more noises in the attic.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

The Noise in the Attic

2008-10-06T01:50:00.001-07:00

Every fall, as the temperatures start to drop, uninvited guests show up at El Rancho Elliott. Mice, in particular, decide it’s oh so much more pleasant inside the walls of our house than outside in the freezing cold.

So when the temperature drops below 40, you can expect to hear the occasional scratching in the walls at our house. We become accustomed to it after a while, and our cat thinks it is high quality entertainment. Sometimes he gets sufficiently motivated to go on the hunt. It’s at this point that you have to be careful, because you never know where you will find a “do it yourself mouse kit” left by our cat as a trophy someplace in the house. I can tell you with absolute certainty that if you happen to be padding barefoot across the kitchen floor in the middle of the night, you really don’t want to step on the remains of kitty’s latest victory.

Anyway, from fall through winter to early spring, odd noises in the Elliott house are simply part of our acoustical landscape. As a result, I thought it unremarkable when my wife announced, “I think there’s something in the ceiling over the upstairs bathroom.”

“It’s probably a mouse,” I said absentmindedly while pecking away at an assignment.

“I think it’s bigger than a mouse,” she said. “Maybe you should come up here and have a listen.”

I trudged upstairs and stuck my head in the bathroom. It sounded like Seal Team Six was conducting close quarter combat drills overhead, complete with Pointy Objects of various sorts.

Outwardly, I tried to sound casual: “Yeah, it sounds bigger than your average mouse. I’ll take a look.” Inwardly, I was flipping out. It sounded waaaaaaay bigger than your average mouse.

Now at this point, you need to understand something about the layout of our house. It’s small cottage with two bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor. At the top of the stairs, there’s a small landing with a bedroom to the right, another to the left, and the bathroom dead ahead. To access the attic, there a small hatch directly over the landing. You push the hatch up, slide it to one side, and then, standing on a chair or stepladder, you can look around the attic.

Standing on a chair, I pushed up through the hatch and shined a flashlight toward the attic above the bathroom. There, just under the edge of the roofline, was the culprit: a squirrel. Not just any squirrel, mind you, but a highly successful squirrel, judging from the plumpness of his physique and his glossy coat.

As I trained the flashlight in his direction, Mr. Bushytail stopped what he was doing. He looked at me. I gave him my best Clint Eastwood “this attic ain’t big enough for both of us” stare and slowly retreated back down through the hatch, pulling the cover in place behind me.

My mind was racing. Clearly this squirrel needed a pneumatically-induced “retirement.” An air rifle would be too cumbersome. Getting it through that 2’ x 2’ hatch with me and then drawing a bead on the squirrel would be laborious and time consuming, but at the same time, I didn’t want to take the chance of wound the squirrel and having it go berserk in the attic.

Finally, I grabbed my red-dot-equipped .177 cal Beeman P1 pistol and loaded it with Gamo Raptor PBA ammo. Even though the distance was less than a dozen feet, I wanted a flat trajectory and excellent penetration. I pushed my way back through the attic hatch and flipped on the flashlight.

The squirrel was gone. Now what?

To be continued.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight!

- Jock Elliott

Tackdriving fun – the HW 97

2008-09-29T01:07:00.001-07:00

I generally have the most fun when I am shooting an air rifle that is really, really accurate. Whether I am competing in field target competition or simply plinking in the back yard, it’s more fun when the gun is a tackdriver.

And when I say “really, really accurate” I mean three things. First, that, once you find the right pellet for the rifle, it will shoot very tight groups consistently. For me, anyway, in field target competition, I’ve found that confidence in the gun is critical when you get to the shooting line. If I know that the gun will do its job – if I do mine – that gives me assurance I need to do my best. By contrast, I’ve had the experience of having an air rifle produce “mystery shots” that missed the target, but I had no idea why. That is a pure nightmare and no fun at all.

Second, the rifle has to maintain a consistent correlation between point-of-aim (where I am aiming) and point-of-impact (where the pellet actually lands), so that I have confidence that the gun will shoot where it is aimed each time I use it. This is not a trivial matter. I once owned an air rifle that had to be re-sighted-in each time I used it. It drove me nuts. Some guys like to fuss, fiddle around and tweak their equipment all the time. Not me – I’m a shooter. I want take the gun from the case, shoot a couple of shots to confirm it’s still “on,” and get to work.

Third, the air rifle has to be easy to shoot well. Some air rifles (springers in particular) are notorious for requiring that you do everything “just so” for them to deliver their best accuracy. Some folks call this “hold sensitivity” while others insist that there is no such thing as hold sensitivity, there are only “shooter problems.” Okay; I’ll concede the point and rephrase: for an air rifle to be really accurate, it has to be tolerant of my mistakes.

Just a few days ago, I had opportunity to shoot an air rifle that fits my definition of a tackdriver, the Beeman HW97, MkIII. Weighing 9.2 lbs and stretching just over 40 inches long, the HW97 is a fixed barrel, underlever air rifle. It has Weihrauch’s excellent Rekord trigger and a Weihrauch barrel. At the end of the barrel is a handsome muzzlebrake. The righthand hardwood stock has a rubber recoil pad at the back, a raised cheekpiece, and checkering on the pistol grip and forend. The HW97 is available in .177 and .20 cal. I shot the .177 version.

To get the HW97 ready for shooting, you push a button on a latch just under the muzzlebrake. This releases the underlever for cocking. Pull the lever down and back until it latches. The cocking effort is around 35 pounds, and the cocking stroke is very smooth. The cocking stroke slides open the breech and also activates the automatic safety. The sides of the breech are cut down on both sides, so it is easy to slide a pellet into the aft end of the barrel from either side.

All that is left is to return the underlever to its original position (which also closes the breech) and push the button, located at the rear of the receiver, that de-activates the automatic safety. The HW97 is now ready to shoot.

Ease the first stage out of the trigger, and you’ll feel a distinct “wall” where the second stage begins. Squeeze a bit more (how much depends on how you adjust the Rekord trigger) and the shot goes down range. On the sample that I shot, the shot cycle ended with a tiny hint of vibration – tungggg – but it was vibration that was heard and not felt through the gun. As a result, that slight bit of vibration was a non-issue for me.

The HW97 is wickedly accurate. Some time ago, a nationally ranked field target shooter sent me a target he had shot at 50 yards from a sitting position with his HW97. You could cover the five-shot group with a dime! The HW97 launches 7.9 grain Crosman Premier pellets at 847 fps, producing 12.6 foot-pounds of energy.

When I shot the HW97, it had been quite a while since I had launched any pellets with a recoiling spring-piston air rifle. I was delighted to find that HW97 made it easy to produce pleasingly small groups.

In my opinion, the HW97 is an excellent choice for any shooter who wants to have some fun with a bona fide tackdriver.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

HW90 – Smoooooooth!

2008-09-22T01:32:00.001-07:00

One of the great things about doing a blog like this is that it lets me give free reign to my curiosity. If an airgun looks interesting, I give the good folks at Airguns of Arizona a call. If they have a sample of the airgun I’d like to see on hand, pretty soon it’s on the way to me. (Some of the extremely popular guns are just about impossible to keep in stock, so for those I’m on a waiting list.)

One of the air rifles I’ve had a hankering to shoot is the Weihrauch HW90, which is an air rifle equipped with a Theoben gas ram powerplant. I had seen a lot of favorable comments on the airgun forums about the RX-2 (which is the Beeman equivalent of the HW90), so my curiosity was on high alert.

My first impression on taking the HW90 out of its box was: “Boy, this looks very, very familiar.” And indeed it does. The HW90 is extremely similar in appearance to the Beeman R1, which is one of my favorite air rifles. Both the HW90 and the R1 are just a bit over 45 inches long, weigh 8.8 pounds, and have a 20-inch barrel. And both are extremely pleasing to look at.

The HW90 is available in .177, .22, and .25 calibers. Of course, what really sets it apart is the gas ram system. But what is a gas ram? Well, if you’ve ever seen a “lift back” truck or automobile that had pneumatic struts that lift the back hatch and hold it open, you’ve seen the basic working innards of a gas ram. That pneumatic strut operates on the same principle as a gas ram: compressing and decompressing gas within an enclosed space.

On the practical side, a gas ram air rifle works exactly like a spring-piston air rifle. With a spring-piston you break the barrel or pull a lever that drives a piston back and compresses a spring until it latches. When you pull the trigger, the latch is released, the spring and piston go rocketing forward, compressing air in the compression chamber and launching the pellet down range.

With the gas ram, when you cock the gun, you’re compressing the gas ram, increasing the pressure inside of it, instead of compressing a spring. When you pull the trigger, the gas inside the ram is allowed to expand, pushing the piston down the compression tube, compressing air in the compression chamber, and sending the pellet toward the target.

From a shooter’s perspective, the HW90 feels different. When you cock the rifle, there is no spring noise whatsoever. Further, unlike a springer, where the cocking effort tends to increase toward the end of the cocking stroke, the effort to cock the HW90 feels constant throughout the stroke at around 46 lbs.

When you pull the trigger on the HW90, the action feels quick – super quick – and smooth, a bit like a custom-tuned springer on 28 cups of coffee. I tested a .22 cal. version of the HW90, and I really enjoyed shooting it off-hand with the iron sights that came with it. Even though I wear old-guy glasses (no-line bifocals), I had no trouble with the sight picture, and when I triggered a shot standing up, the HW90 just felt supple. When I was shooting from a sitting field-target position, I felt more of a jolt from the gas ram action, but I still really liked this air rifle.

If this were my air rifle, I’d keep it simple and shoot it with the iron sights or perhaps fit it with a peep sight. It seems like the perfect airgun for a stroll in the woods and fields. Slip a tin of pellets in your pocket, and you’re good to go.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

Pumped Up with Pride – Part II

2008-09-15T01:16:00.001-07:00

Recently, a fellow ham radio operator and writer called me. He had just bought a place in the country, and he wanted an airgun for pest control: squirrels in the nut trees, rabbits and woodchucks in the garden, and possibly raccoons in the garbage.

“At what range are you going to shoot?” I asked.

“Not more than 15 yards,” he said.

“How are your eyes?”

“Fine.”

“How ‘bout your arms?”

“Fine,” he said. “Are you going to recommend an airgun or give me a physical?”

“Just one more question: how much do you want to spend?”

“Not a whole lot,” he said.

In the back of my mind, an answer was lurking. . . and it was obvious, too. What he needed was my go-to gun.

Before we get to just what my go-to gun is, you need to know a couple of things. First, I am not a big-time airgun hunter. I spend most of my time punching paper or shooting field target. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have anything against hunting; I just don’t spend much time doing it.

Second, many of my neighbors know that I am an airgunner. As a result, occasionally I get phone calls requesting that I do a pest control “favor.” When that happens, I reach into one of my cabinets and pull out either a Benjamin 392 or a Sheridan Streak.

Both are multi-stroke pneumatic air rifles that stretch a hair over three feet long and weigh around six pounds. The chief difference between the two is that the Benjamin 392 is .22 caliber, and the Sheridan is .20 caliber. Both will generate around 13 foot pounds of energy when pumped up with eight strokes.

Whenever I’ve used either of these guns to do a pest control favor for a neighbor, I’ve been successful. So I told my friend to get a Benjamin 392 or a Sheridan, keep the range short if it is a bigger pest animal like a raccoon, and be selective about his shots, because with a multi-stroke pumper, he won’t get a fast second shot.

Recently, I had the chance to check out two of the latest crop of Crosman Corporation’s multi-stroke pneumatic pumpers. The first is a Benjamin 397, which is the .177 version of the 392. The other is a Sheridan Silver Streak. Both of these guns are, in my opinion, among the best-looking Benjamins and Sheridans that have ever been made. That’s because of the restyled stock that has been created for these guns, with a slightly raised cheek piece and a slanted “cut” between the forestock/pumping arm and the rest of the stock. The overall effect is very sleek and elegant.

I ran into a curious problem with the Benjamin 397. I could not get the gun zeroed at 13 yards with the Williams peep sight mounted. With the peep sight bottomed out, the gun was still shooting 1-2 inches high. I tried shooting with just four pumps in the gun, but that didn’t work. I called the factory, and they acknowledged that they sometimes see this problem. Further, they are looking into a solution, which may involve increasing the height of the front sight.

Ultimately, I solved the sight problem with the 397 by mounting a Bushnell Trophy Red Dot sight out on the middle of the barrel, scout rifle style. I used a pair of Crosman intermounts, which clamp to the barrel, and a pair of 30mm scope rings to attach the red dot to the intermounts. By mounting the sight midway up the barrel, it leaves me room to grab the 397 just forward of the breech when I am pumping it up. The result is an air rifle that handles well, swings easily and can be sighted with both eyes open.

In enjoy both of these pumper air rifles. The 397 launches 7.9 grain Crosman Premier pellets downrange at 741 fps average. That works out to about 9.6 fp of energy. I wondered what kind of penetration I could get with that kind of energy, so I nested three tin cans inside each other (a soup can inside a vegetable can inside a fruit can) so there were potentially six layers of metal to penetrate.

At eight pumps, the 7.9 grain Crosman Premiers blew through two layers of metal and several deformed the third. So I tried Crosman Silver Eagle lead free hollow points. They penetrate two layers and ripped a ragged tear in the third layer but did not fully penetrate. Finally, I tried Dynamic SN-1 7.9 grain non-lead pellets. They punched a hole through all six layers of metal like a hot knife going through butter.

The Sheridan Silver Streak was problem free. With a Williams peep sight mounted, tt zeroed just fine at 13 yards with eight pumps, sending Benjamin 14.3 grain .20 cal cylindrical pellets through the chronograph at an average of 640 fp. When I’m not shooting the Silver Streak, I like to look at it. It certainly is one of the prettiest air rifles I’ve seen in a long while.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

The FX Ranchero Pistol – Part II

2008-09-08T01:36:00.000-07:00

To get the FX Ranchero ready for shooting, charge the cylinder up to 200 bar (you can do this on or off the pistol). Put the safety in the non-fire position (full back). Pull the cocking lever full back, now pull the magazine release knob back. You’ll find that, with the exception of the cocking lever which has a small click-detent when it closes fully, everything moves smoooooothly, like it is on oiled bearings.

When the magazine release knob is fully back, the magazine will slide out of the breech. Load it with the nose of the pellets facing toward the flat side of the magazine. Slide the magazine back in place and push the cocking lever forward. This will also return the magazine release back to its original position with the first pellet slid into the barrel, and the magazine locked firmly in place.

Now you’re good to go. Take aim, flick the safety off, ease the first stage out of the trigger and squeeze gently on the second stage, and, at about 14 oz. of pressure, the shot goes down range. Pull the cocking lever back, push it forward again, and you’re ready for the next shot.

Now, an aside: when I was ready to trigger my first shot with the Ranchero, I was all ready to flinch. Why? Because I have had experience with other precharged pneumatic pistols that were raucous beasts that annoyed my ears. But I was shooting the Ranchero on low power and that, combined with the shrouded barrel, made the report remarkably docile. It wasn’t dead quiet by any means, but it was much quieter than I had expected and quieter than even some CO2 pistols I’ve shot.

I tested the Ranchero at ten meters, shooting with a rifle scope mounted and off a rest. I found I was getting the same kind of accuracy you’d expect from a target pistol: shot after shot through the same hole. And the two-stage trigger was crisp and clean, making it easy to get really good results.

In the end, I found there was a whole lot to like about the Ranchero: target accuracy, an excellent trigger, a neighbor friendly report on low power, a pressure gauge (PCPs without pressure gauges force me into counting shots, which I’m not good at), interchangeable cylinders, and the ability to mount a rifle scope, pistol scope or red dot, as your needs dictate. And, yes, it does come in a lefthand version with the action reversed, making it truly left handed..

A pistol like this could take “defending the bird feeder” to a whole new level!

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

The FX Ranchero Pistol – Part I

2008-09-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

Recently I had the opportunity to play around with a pistol that I had been curious about for some time: the FX Ranchero.

Right off, I’ve got to tell that I liked the Ranchero a whole lot, and we’ll get to the reasons why in just a little while, but first let’s take a walk around the Ranchero.

It’s a big pistol, stretching 18 inches from end to end and weighing 3.3 pounds without scope or red dot. The version that I tested had a beautiful sculpted walnut grip with a stippled pistol grip, palm shelf, and walnut trigger guard. The two-stage match trigger is adjustable, and just forward of it, underneath the forend, you’ll find a gauge that tells you how much air pressure is left in the reservoir.

Moving forward again, there’s a lip at the end of the forend. Above that is the air cylinder which can be unscrewed when it runs low and replaced by another so you can keeping on shooting during a day afield. At the end of the air cylinder is the quick-fill charging port, and you can fill the cylinder on or off the Ranchero. Above the air cylinder is the shrouded Lothar-Walther with a threaded muzzle for mounting a silencer where those are legal.

Moving back along the barrel, you’ll find the receiver, which is handsomely finished in gloss black and has scope dovetails along its full length except for the breech opening. At the mid point of the receiver is the breech, where a removable 8-shot magazine slides into place (in only goes in one way, so you can’t get it in backwards).

On the left side of the receiver, just forward of the breech, is a small power adjustment lever. Push it all the way forward, and the Ranchero is on low power (around 8.5 fp for the .177 version, about 9 fp for the .22). Put the lever in the middle, and the pistol is on medium power (12 fp for .177; 13 fp for .22, and when the lever is all the way back – bingo! – high power (15 fp .177, 16.5 fp .22). Unlike many other power adjustment systems, which rely on changing the loading on the hammerspring, the Ranchero varies power by changing the size of the transfer port through which air flows to the barrel. The result is very high shot-to-shot consistency, regardless of what power setting you select.

On the left side of the receiver just aft of the breech is the cocking arm. Pull it straight back, and it cocks the pistol and rotates the next pellet in the magazine into position. Push it forward, the action closes, and a bolt probe pushes the pellet into the barrel. At the tail end of the receiver, you’ll find two brass disks. The first slides back and forth as you activate the cocking arm. The second you pull back to allow the magazine to be removed from the breech. On the right side of the breech is a forward-and-back safety lever.

Next time, we’ll talk about shooting the Ranchero.

Til then, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

Going to Extremes

2008-08-25T01:06:00.001-07:00

What kind of a nut would shoot 85 yards with an air pistol? You’re about to find out.

On the surface of it, Calvin Lewis of Lakeland Florida seems like a regular guy. Forty-one years old, married, a couple of kids, he works as a quality control manager for a construction company.
But Lewis has a secret: he suffers from a rare, incurable disease: airgunitis fanaticus. He is, in fact, a beady-eyed, unrepentant airgun enthusiast. “I’ve been into airguns my whole life,” he says. But about eight years ago, the enthusiasm ramped up significantly – he started building his own airguns.

Starting with a Crosman 2240, he added a 12-inch high pressure tube, a Quackenbush .25 cal round beech, modified bolt, Lothar Walther .22 barrel, and a Foster quick fill fitting. Lewis now has several barrels for the gun, as well as several grips and stocks, so that it can be changed from a pistol to carbine and back again in fairly short order. The gun uses a one-piece Crosman 262 hammer assembly with a stronger spring.

Since Lewis is a quality control guy and no dummy, he’s also taken all precautions to make sure that the finished gun is safe: the valve has been secured, and so has the end cap and Foster fitting. The tubing has been hydro tested to 5,000 psi to make sure that it won’t burst. Lewis understands that the compressed air inside a precharged pneumatic airgun represents an enormous amount of potential energy, and he doesn’t want it getting loose without permission.

In the .22 pistol configuration, Lewis’ airgun launches JSB Exact 16 gr. pellets at right around 650 fps average.

When Lewis first heard about the UJ Challenge, he was intrigued. He printed off the target, and shooting from a rest, managed to hit the target 3 shots out of 5 at 50 yards with JSB pellets. He tried again and hit the can 4 times. Switching to Kodiak pellets, once again he connected 4 out of 5 times. Pretty good shooting.

Now here’s where things get a little crazy. When Lewis read “The UJ Challenge – Part II,” in which I suggested reducing the size of the target and shooting at it again, he thought: “Why bother with that? I’ve got the room (he can shoot to 105 yards), I’ll just stick the can out farther.”

And so he did. Lewis put the can target out at 85 yards. The first time, he hit the can 3 times out of 5. Amazing. Just shows what can happen when you go to extremes.

While I was interviewing Lewis, he was telling me how hot and windy it can get in his part of Florida. I felt sympathy for him, sweltering in the blazing sun, sweat rolling down his face, paying his dues to the gods of accuracy. . . but Lewis had one more surprise for me.

He was shooting from indoors . . . from a rest in his computer room . . . his air conditioned computer room . . . launching pellets off a rickety TV table with a pillow on top . . . probably with a nice cool drink handy. It’s hard to feel sorry about shooting conditions like that, but it’s easy to admire the results.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

- Jock Elliott

Additional Experiments with Dynamic Non-Lead Pellets

2008-08-18T01:22:00.001-07:00

A while back, I mentioned the good luck I had trying Dynamic SN-1 non-lead pellets in my Beeman R7 air rifle and RWS P5 pistol. A while later, I had the opportunity to chronograph the SN-1 pellets shot out of the P5 pistol, and I found that they were averaging 532 fps and varying no more than 2 fps from shot to shot! When you realize that the P5 is a spring-piston pistol, all of a sudden the light bulb comes on that this is truly astounding consistency.

Emboldened by this success, I decided to try the Dynamic SN-1 and TM-1 pellets in my recoilless RWS 54 .177 rifle. I set up the range in my yard at 39 yards (the farthest distance I can safely shoot at home). Shooting from a rest, I banged off a few shots with Crosman Premier Heavies (CPH, nominally 10.5 grain), the pellet that had produced the best accuracy with this rifle in the past. Then I shot the TM-1 pellets (9.5 grain) and the SN-1 pellets (7.95 grain).

Measuring the groups, I found the three different pellets produced very similar results. The groups from the CPH and TM-1 pellets measured 25/32”, while the group from the SN-1 pellets measured 26/32”. When I chronographed the three pellets from the same rifle a few days later, I got the following results. CPH: high 813 fps, low 798, average 804. SN-1: high 989, low982, average, 986. TM-1: high 835, low 825, average 832.

Okay, I thought, how will Dynamic pellets work in another of my favorite guns, a Steroid Sheridan Blue Streak? I shot groups at 13 and 25 yards with both JSB .20 pellets (the pellet that the Steroid ‘Dan “likes”) and Dynamic SPC-5 and got very similar accuracy results at both distances. When I got to the chronograph, I forgot to bring the JSB .20 caliber pellets (shame on me), but here are the results I got. At eight pumps, the Steroid Sheridan was sending Benjamin .20 cylindrical pellets (14.3 grain) downrange at 672 fps average (high 677, low 669). It was launching .20 Crosman premiers (14.3 grain) at 673 fps average (677 high, low 671). And it was blasting the SPC-5 pellets (12 grain) through the traps at 721 fps average (high 724, low 717).

I got excellent accuracy from the Dynamic pellets in my R7 rifle, P5 pistol, RWS 54 rifle and Sheridan Blue Streak, but not every airgun shoots them well. I got just awful accuracy shooting SN-1 pellets in my FWB 150 match rifle, and, oddly, the same thing happened with my modern vintage Sheridan Silver Streak.

From my small experiment, I conclude that some air rifles and pistols will shoot the Dynamic non-lead pellets very well, producing good velocity and higher penetration than lead pellets. While they are more expensive than conventional lead pellets, compared to match grade rimfire ammunition, the Dynamic pellets are a downright bargain and worth experimenting with.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

-- Jock Elliott

Pumped Up with Pride

2008-08-11T01:11:00.001-07:00

I’m not quite sure why, but I have a special fondness for multi-stroke pneumatic airguns. They remind me, in a way, of muzzle-loader black powder rifles and pistols. Each shot takes time; you have to work for it. That builds a kind of deliberateness into the whole shooting experience that you don’t get with cock-‘em-and-shoot-‘em or semiautomatic airguns.

When you get right down to it, multi-stroke pneumatic airguns (also known as MSPs or pumpers) have a whole lot going for them:

They’re self-contained – no pumps, tanks or powerlets required. All you need is the airgun and some pellets.
The power and velocity can be varied with the number of pumps (usually 2 or 3 to 8) – the more you pump, the faster the pellet goes down range.
They’re virtually recoilless – that means they are easy to shoot well and not fussy at all about how you hold them or rest them. Just point and shoot.
They tend to be very reliable – What’s not to like about that?

They also tend to be very consistent –MSPs deliver nearly constant velocities shot after shot when pumped to the same number of strokes.
They can be left pumped-up all day without fear of damage – this is particularly handy if you are intent on defending the bird feeder or the garden.

True, you have to keep pumping them up and they can be a little loud when pumped to the maximum number of strokes, but on balance, it’s not surprising that MSPs have a substantial group of devoted fans in the airgunning community.

Recently, I’ve been enjoying a pair of MSP pistols: the Benjamin HB17 and the Benjamin HB22. Outwardly, the two pistols are identical: both weigh two-and-a-half pounds, stretch 12.25 inches overall, are single-shot bolt action, and are made of metal (including a brass barrel) and American hardwood. The only difference between the two is that one is .177 caliber (the HB17), and the other is .22. With 8 pumps in them, the HB17 will launch pellets a little over 500 fps, and the HB22 will propel them a bit more than 400 fps. The thing I really, really like about these pistols is that they are incredibly solidly built. They feel like they will last generations with moderate care.

To get the most out of either pistol, I’ve discovered a couple of tricks. First, lubricate the gun before you shoot it the first time. The manual recommends Crosman Pellgunoil, but you could use some light machine oil or non-detergent 20 or 30 weight motor oil. Put a drop of oil at each spot recommended in the owner’s manual. This will help considerably, since the guns are shipped nearly bone-dry in their factory packaging. And give your pistol a little lubrication before each shooting session.

Second, when you’re pumping the HB17 or HB22, the key is to make sure that you don’t grip the forend so that the heel of your pumping hand is over the trigger guard.

If you do, you’ll whack the heel of your hand on the trigger guard with every stroke, and this becomes very annoying very quickly. Instead, grab the forend so that the heel of your hand rests on it just forward of the trigger guard.

Wrap your other hand around the barrel and the trigger guard so the heel of your hand is resting on the breech. Open the forend all the way, then return it to its original position by driving your two hands together. When the pumping stroke nears completion, you’ll be able to wrap the fingers of your forend hand around the barrel to help finish the stroke.

Finally, recognize that these air pistols will break in. The HB22 has been in my possession for several months more than the HB17, and the older gun pumps and shoots smoother.

Til next time,

Aim true and shoot straight.

Jock Elliott

The UJ Challenge – Part II

2008-08-04T01:11:00.000-07:00

Well, it started as a simple enough idea: try to invent a game for air pistols that would be both fun and challenging. With a little bit of luck it would hit the sweet spot: just tough enough to be fun, and not so difficult as to be maddeningly frustrating.

Inspired by Roger Clouser’s 1,000-yard pistol exploits, I proposed the Uncle Jock Air Pistol Challenge, which required shooting at a 12-oz beverage can (or a paper target the size of a 12-oz beverage can) at a distance of 50 yards.

The response, I must say, has been gratifying. Many airgunners have taken on the UJ Challenge, succeeded at hitting the can, and had fun in the process.

Jeremy from Bahama, North Carolina, was the first shooter to step to the line. Surprisingly, he decided he could clobber the can with an unscoped Beeman p-1 pistol, and he did, too!

Here’s Jeremy’s range.

Kevin in Maryland gave it a go with his Crosman 2540.

Russ S. succeeded using a modded 2240 pistol. The gun is a 2240 with the Crosman steel breech, 11.5 inch barrel, red dot sight, power adjuster, and home built "debouncer". Ammo was .22 cal. RWS Superdomes at 590fps. He shot from the Creedmoor position at a measured 50 yards.

Lee in Virginia also succeeded, with a Jim Ayers modded 2240, connecting with .22 Kodiaks. He says he never shot the gun past 30 yards before the UJ Challenge.

Ian took up the Challenge with a modified 1377 pumper converted to .22 caliber, power mod, and other goodies.

Don Mathisen gave it a rip with his IZH46M fitted with a Sportsman 3-9, benchrested. He put 18/22 shots inside the can. Impressive!

Cecil Coale from Fairview, Texas, emailed me with his results. He shot this target with his model 2300 from the Crosman Custom Shop. It has the long steel breech, 10.1 inch Lothar Walther match barrel and a fixed "super sear."

In addition, there were people who were reporting their results with the UJ Challenge on various forums throughout the airgunning community. Apparently, lots of folks are having fun with the UJ Challenge, and it makes me grin!

So, are you ready for Part II of the UJ Challenge? Here it is: print the UJ Challenge target at 75% and shoot it again at 50 yards. Before you get thinking: “well that shouldn’t be too bad,” let me point out a couple of things. First, at 100%, the dimensions of the soda can target are roughly 4 inches by 2.25 inches. That works out to 9 square inches of target area. But when you print at 75%, the dimensions shrink to 3 inches x 1.69 inches, which is 5.1 square inches of target area, about 57% of the original.

Give it a try, and let me know how you do!

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

Jock Elliott

In the Spirit of Quigley – Part II

2008-07-28T01:02:00.000-07:00

That night, as I drifted off to sleep, I decided to watch the movie "Quigley Down Under" once again. In it, Quigley, a Wyoming cowboy who has answered an Australian rancher’s advertisement for the world’s best long range rifle shot, clobbers a 17-inch bucket 3 times at 550 yards with his Sharps 45-110 and iron sights. Later, Quigley angers his would-be employer, is savagely beaten, and two henchmen are assigned to leave him for dead in the blistering heat of the outback. He manages to kill one of the bad guys and recover his rifle as the other attempts to escape in a buckboard wagon.

As Quigley swings his Sharps around, lining up on the man in the buckboard, I saw it: the front sight on the Sharps. It’s hooded, and inside the hood is a thin pin with a small round bead on top. It shows up only briefly on the screen, but it’s unmistakable. Then something clicked in my memory: a vague recollection that some extra sight inserts were included with the R1.

The next morning, I unearthed the paperwork that came with the R1, and a small plastic packet containing extra sight inserts tumbled out. Carefully, I opened it. One of the inserts was a circle of metal enclosing a narrow pin with a tiny metal disk on top – a Quigley sight.

In tests on one-inch kill zones at varying distances, the pin-and-disk front sight proved excellent. At any range from 10 to 35 yards, just put the disk over the kill zone and cut loose. Most of the shots were hitting home. But would it work as well in actual field target competition, where the range to the target varies from 10 to 55 yards, and the size of kill zones may run from a squeaky 3/8 inch to 1.5 inches?

There was only one way to find out – the New York State Field Target Championships were the following weekend, and I determined that I would enter the Hunter Class to see what would happen. It struck me that the challenge would be very much in line with the marksmanship of Matthew Quigley: attempting high-accuracy shooting at unknown targets at unknown ranges with iron sights.

It turned out that the concentric circles of the peep sight, the front hood, and the tiny disk on front sight pin made it easy to line up on the round kill zones of the targets. My first shot on the sight-range was at a spinner the size of a quarter at 30 yards. Whack! – the spinner was rotating furiously. Whack! – the R1 clobbered the dime-sized small spinner next to it. I tried some closer targets; no problem.

The match itself was great fun, largely because I was freed from the need to close-focus a scope, adjust an elevation knob or decide which mil-dot to use. For most of the shots, all I had to do was aim dead-on and squeeze the trigger, and for the really long ones, I had to hold over just a bit. Checking later with the Match Director’s rating of target difficulty, I found I was able to down over 60% of the easy targets, 40% of the moderate targets, a third of the hard targets and a third of the expert targets. Overall, I “killed” 52% of the targets. The highlights of the day were dropping three targets at over 50 yards and “threading the needle” on some close targets with small kill zones. In the end, I finished in first place in the Hunter Class, with a score that would have taken third in the overall piston class.

One thing in particular sticks out in my mind now – a 54-yard shot at an inch-and-a-half kill zone. A buff-colored target surrounded by autumn leaves, it was hard to see. I glassed it with 10x binoculars, getting a decent sense of where the kill zone was. I took aim, held one front-sight-disk-diameter high over the kill zone, and squeezed the trigger. I looked again. Now I was really having trouble seeing the target. “Is it down?” I asked. My brother-in-law grabbed my binoculars, focused on the target, and said something that implied strongly that I enjoyed canine blood from my mother’s side. He hauled on the line that pulled the target upright again. I took aim, shot and it dropped once again. I was amazed at how easy it was to hold steady and shoot accurately with this sight setup.

This small experiment proved that iron sights still do work. With sights that sit close to the centerline of the bore and a high-velocity air rifle like the Beeman R1 (which, with the exception of the Daisy peep sight, was just as it comes from the factory), the result is an extremely flexible and accurate combination that can be used for competition, hunting or emulating Matthew Quigley in some small way.

Maybe you could give it a try -- you know you want to!

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

Jock Elliott

In the Spirit of Quigley – Part I

2008-07-21T01:11:00.002-07:00

Like many airgunners, I am fascinated by the movie "Quigley Down Under." This blog and the next one details where that fascination can lead. Chapter 5 and Chapter 7 In my book "Elliott on Airguns" Chapter 5 - My Quigley Shot, and Chapter 7 - My Quigley Shot - Part II, recount my first attempts at duplicating some of the exploits of Matthew Quigley. What follows is, essentially, the next chapter in the saga. (And if all goes as planned, this September there will be yet another chapter in which you can participate.)

The 2004 Massachusetts State Field Target Championships convinced me that a more powerful air rifle for competition would be a good idea. During the championship there were a couple of long-range shots from my low-power (565 fps, 6 foot-pound) Daisy Valiant where the pellet hit the kill zone cleanly; the paddle rocked back far enough to reveal where the orange paint had not been shot off, yet the target did not fall. (I had been shooting the Valiant because it was so accurate and so easy to shoot well. In fact, I had won my first match ever a short time before while shooting the Valiant.

So I unearthed my big, powerful Beeman R1 in .177 caliber with a large scope from the cabinet and began practicing in my side yard. In my view, the R1 is a classic. It is big, overbuilt, understressed and shoots quite pleasantly right out of the box. I love this gun because it is fast and flat shooting.

But all was not well. Sometimes I could put the pellet where I wanted from a sitting position, but sometimes I couldn’t. It wasn’t the gun. It wasn’t the scope. It was me. My “hold” – that is, the way that I held the rifle and managed its spring-piston recoil – wasn’t consistent, and the results could be seen on the targets. It was depressing.

In a fit of frustration, I removed the big scope from the R1 and mounted a Daisy 5899 Receiver Sight. It clamps to the scope rail with two screws. There is an extra screw (function unknown) included in the box that I ran through a hole in the sight and into one of the scope-stop holes in the R1’s receiver. This would keep recoil from walking the sight off the back of the receiver.

Back in the yard again, after my usual sight-in routine, I sat down and fired several shots with Crosman CPLs at a paper target at 10 meters. Since I was using a peep sight with no magnification at all, I had no idea how I was doing. I simply tried to maintain a consistent sight picture and trigger control. When I inspected the target, I couldn’t believe my eyes: five shots had fallen in a group that measured just 3/8” edge-to-edge. This was the best group ever with this air rifle. Was I on to something?

Even better, the R1 with the peep sight was remarkably hold insensitive. I could hold, cradle, grip or grab the air rifle just about any way that pleased me and still get terrifically consistent accuracy. A thought was beginning to form: maybe … just maybe … I could compete in Hunter Class field target with a peep sight. It was an idea very much in the spirit of Matthew Quigley.

The R1 was launching CPL pellets at a sizzling 931 fps average, generating 15.2 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle. I ran the data through a ballistics program and emailed it to Steve Woodward, who is a consulting engineer and ballistics freak. Woodward came back with a stunning pronouncement: “Here's what you get if the criterion (i.e., vital-zone-radius) is keeping the pellet within 1/4th inch of the line of sight - a point-blank-range extending from 9 to 37.5 yards.” This was amazing: with the peep sight setup, the R1 would be essentially “point and shoot” from 10 to 37 yards.

Back in the yard again, I tried the R1/peep sight combo at 5-yard intervals from 10 to 30 yards. It worked. In fact, it worked like crazy. I was putting better than 50% of my shots in a one-inch circle from a sitting position. There remained, however, one problem to be solved: I wasn’t thrilled with the medium-width flat-topped post in the R1’s hooded front sight. It didn’t lend itself to a sight picture that worked well with the circular kill zones on airgun field targets.

It was a problem, but Matthew Quigley would soon come to my rescue.

To be continued in In the Spirit of Quigley - Part II.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

Jock Elliott

The Eyes Have It

2008-07-14T01:04:00.000-07:00

In January this year, I had what the Brits call “a bloody awful moment.”

The beginning was remarkably un-dramatic: an irritation in my right eye in the middle of the night. I thought perhaps a fleck of dandruff had dropped into my eye. I pulled my upper lid over the lower lid to see if tears would flush it out. No good.

I get up, sluice out my eye with some Murine eye drops. It’s a little better. I get back to sleep.

In the morning, the irritation is back and seems to be wandering around my eye. I try drowning the eye with sterile saline solution with little benefit. That night my right eye is leaking tears.

The following morning my right eye looks like a maraschino cherry, and nothing is in sharp focus through it. By noon, I am at the ophthalmologist’s office, and she tells me I have a viral infection, and it’s a pretty bad one. She prescribes some very expensive anti-viral eye drops ($100 for a tiny bottle) and some anti-bacterial eye drops. Bacteria, it turns out, are opportunists and will freeload on the infection site created by the virus, I don’t have a bacterial infection yet; the drops are a precaution. Sure enough, a bacterial infection shows up a couple of days later.

It takes nearly 10 days to battle the virus and the bacteria to a standstill, and I’m left with a scar on my cornea. Fortunately, it’s not on the visual center. Nevertheless, it was a near thing: I could have lost all visual acuity in that eye and been reduced to seeing not much more than light and shadow and movement. Strangely, very nearly the same thing happened to an acquaintance – he scratched his cornea (he doesn’t know how), got an infection, and came perilously close to losing the vision in that eye.

Why am I telling you all this? For two reasons. First, because that experience scared the poo right out of me. Until January, 2008, I didn’t know you could get an eye infection and lose your sight within days. Second, because you’re going to need those eyes for shooting your air rifles and air pistols! So here’s the bottom line: if you have a scratchy sensation in your eye that doesn’t clear within 24 hours (or if you get abnormal light sensitivity in that eye at any time before 24 hours), get yourself to a qualified eye specialist PRONTO. After 48 hours, you could find yourself with a runaway eye infection, and – trust me – you don’t want to go there.

And that brings me neatly to another point: protect your eyes when you are shooting. I wear big, aviator-style glasses with polycarbonate lenses (the same stuff motorcycle face shields are made of). If you don’t wear glasses, or if you’re not absolutely positive that your lenses are safety lenses, get yourself some shooting glasses and wear them (you can wear them over your regular glasses) whenever you shoot. Buy several pairs and insist that anyone you’re shooting with (including by-standers) wears them too.

Shooting safety glasses cost less than $6.00. That’s a deal – you couldn’t buy another eyeball for ten times that much.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

Jock Elliott

The Beeman P11 & The Lawnmower Guy

2008-07-07T01:30:00.000-07:00

About a half mile from me there lives a fellow whose mailbox says “The Lawnmower Guy.” I contacted him about tuning up my mower and when he brought it back, he noticed the pellet trap with a target on it in my garage, so he asked me if I was a member of the gun club outside of town.

I told him I was a member, but what he really needed was an air rifle or an air pistol, and then he could shoot in his back yard whenever he wanted. All he had to do, I told him, was reassure the neighbors that he would shoot safely into a pellet trap and not plink at their cat.

Pretty soon, I started dragging out some air pistols for him to try, and one of them was the new Beeman P11. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Wow, that’s cool,” he said. I loaded it up for him and let him draw bead on a tiny chipmunk target printed on a piece of paper.

He steadied the P11 in both hands, aligned the sights, squeezed the trigger, and – whap! – nailed the chipmunk dead amidships. “Wow, those sights really light up! Where can I get one of these?” he asked. I wrote http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/ on a piece of paper for him, and he scurried off.

The P11 is, indeed, a cool air pistol. It’s the younger brother of the Beeman P1 but sports a two-tone color scheme, snazzier laminated grips, and fiber-optic sights. The P1 is available in .177 and .20 cal, while the P11 is available in .177 and .22. The picture doesn’t really do the P11 justice; the lower half of the ambidextrous laminated grips are stippled for a better grip and the bottom of the grip flares, providing a little bit of a palm shelf. In any event, I like the way the P11 looks and feels. The overall fit and finish of the matte-gray receiver and black “uppers” are, in my opinion, excellent.

If you’ve never handled a Beeman P1 or P11, there’s some stuff you have to know. First, this is a spring-piston air pistol. That means when you trigger the shot, it’s not going to behave like a Daisy 747 or a Crosman CO2 pistol. Instead, you’re going to get the whiplash recoil that is typical of a spring-piston powerplant. So don’t be surprised when it doesn’t act like a docile single-stroke pneumatic match pistol.

In addition, loading the P11 (or P1) is unusual. You start by flipping the safety (accessible from either side of the pistol) on and pulling what appears to be a hammer at the rear of the receiver. This releases the rear upper half of the receiver where the barrel is housed – the black part on the P11. Grasping the loose end, you pull it up and forward until it latches to cock the pistol. The cocking effort requires pulling the barrel assembly away from you as you open the action of the pistol, and it takes about 18 pounds of effort. Once the action is fully open and latched, slide a pellet into the breech end of the barrel and return the receiver back to its original position, snapping it locked into place.

Now, you’re ready. Just flip the safety off, ease the first stage out of the trigger, and let the good times roll. And The Lawnmower Guy was right: those fiber optic sights really light up like a neon sight . . . and that makes it sooo much easier to align the sights than the plain-old metallic sights on the P1. The P11 that Airguns of Arizona sent me to play with was the .22 version, and I find it smoother to shoot than the .177 version I once owned. I don’t know why that is. Certainly the velocity of the .22 is lower than the .177. For example, you might expect 415 fps with 14.3 grain .22 Crosman Premier pellets and around 520 fps with 7.9 grain .177 Crosman Premier Light pellets (on high power – the .177 version offers two cocking positions for two different levels of power.)

Whatever the reason, I find the P11 in .22 to be one of those “salted peanuts” guns – you can’t stop with just a few shots. You say to yourself, “Just five more shots, then I’ll go in.” The next thing you know, an hour and a half a tin of pellets has magically disappeared. But somehow you don’t mind.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

PS There will be a follow up Blog on the UJ Challenge in the near future.

Jock Elliott

Have you got what it takes? Introducing the “Uncle Jock” Air Pistol Challenge!

2008-06-30T01:10:00.000-07:00

If you want to blame someone for what follows, let’s start with Roger Clouser. He writes from time to time for Precision Shooting magazine. A few years ago, he wrote an article about 1,000-yard pistol shooting. No, that’s not a typo – one thousand yards with a pistol. He was shooting at a big mesquite stump or something, but he was hitting it, at least some of the time with (if I remember correctly) a Freedom Arms .44.

When I first read the article, I thought “That’s just plain crazy,” but it got me to thinking . . . just how far could you really shoot with an air pistol and actually hit something? It’s an interesting question that I turned over in my mind for a while and then told the guys in the back room of my brain to work on quietly until they had something to show me.

About three weeks ago, I was taking a shower when one of the back room guys knocked on the door of my consciousness with an idea that walks the line between backyard plinking and high accuracy shooting.

I call it the Uncle Jock Air Pistol Challenge – or UJ for short – and it should prove to be both challenging and fun.

Here’s what you need:

· An air pistol
· Some pellets
· A 12-oz beverage can
· 50 yards of space

The rest is dead easy: set up the beverage can (or download the paper target below) at 50 yards, try to hit it with your air pistol, and report your results here with full details.

Frankly, I don’t know how this will develop – because I haven’t tried it yet – but here are some that I think are likely to happen. The guys who have one of those cool, scoped, precharged pistols like the FX Ranchero are going to find this pretty easy: figure out the trajectory, rest the pistol, put the crosshairs on the target, and punch holes in the can. The folks who are shooting air pistols used often in IHMSA silhouette – like the IZH 46M or the Crosman 2300S – are going to have a more challenging time.

I suspect that the shooters who will really go nuts are the ones that take on the UJ with low-powered but accurate air pistols like the Daisy 747 or the Gamo Compact. They’re going to need optimal conditions to make the shot, I think. Finally, it’s my belief that the shooters with spring-piston air pistols such as the RWS P5 or the Beeman P1 or P11 will have the toughest time of all. But still, there are a few shooters out there who are geniuses at managing the recoil from these pistols, and they might do very well.

Oh yeah, one other thing: you’re not restricted to your shooting position. You can shoot from a rest, from Creedmoor position, standing, sitting . . . whatever floats your boat. Just be sure to make a note of what position you shot from.

The bottom line is that nobody knows how the UJ will turn out. It might be incredibly fun. It could be incredibly challenging. With a little bit of luck, it will be both.

Oh, yeah -- if you'd prefer to shoot at paper, you can download the official UJ Challenge target right here: http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/blog/photos/SodaChallenge.pdf

Give it a try, and report back here . . . I look forward to your results.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

The Beeman R7 – A Genuine Classic & Some Interesting Non-Lead Ammo

2008-06-23T01:13:00.000-07:00

When I first began to get interested in adult precision airguns nearly 10 years ago, I remember reading a quote from an airgunner who said, in effect, “Of all the airguns I own, the Beeman R7 would be the last one I would sell.”

At the time, I didn’t really “get” what he was saying, but now that I’ve owned an R7 for a few years, I understand what he meant completely. The R7 is a true classic, an air rifle that just about all airgunners love.

Here’s why -- the R7 is a relatively small and light air rifle that generates around 6 fp of energy (the same energy level usually found in Olympic match air rifles). The R7 measures a hair over 40 inches from end to end and weighs 6.1 pounds. The upshot is that there is roughly one pound of weight per foot-pound of energy, and that makes the R7 extremely easy to shoot well.

(An aside: there are two versions of the R7, one in .177 cal., the other in .20 cal. I have experience only with the .177 version. A casual survey of some of my shooting friends indicates you can’t believe the 700 fps velocity figure that Beeman puts out for the .177 version; most untuned R7s shoot in the high 500s, say, 560-590 fps, with “normal” weight pellets.)

To get the R7 ready for shooting, you crank the barrel down until it latches (it takes less than 20 pounds of cocking effort), stuff a pellet into the breech, return the barrel to its original position, click off the safety, and you’re good to go. The R7 is equipped with Weihrauch’s famous two-stage Rekord trigger which is very crisp and nicely adjustable.

My experience – and that of many R7 shooters I’ve spoken to – is that the R7 is remarkably UN-finicky about how you shoot it. You can hold it loosely or hold it tight; shoot it off a rest or from a sitting position. Whatever you do, it seems, the R7 shoots well. One shooter I met said, “Why do I pull my R7 tight into my shoulder like a powder-burning rifle? Because I can!”

And there is a whole lot you can do with an R7, like shoot field target or defend the birdfeeder. My brother-in-law won the Hunter Class at a Field Target match while shooting an R7. He beat me, and I was shooting another R7, and so was the fellow who took fourth place. We’ve spent many happy hours doing high-accuracy plinking with our R7s.

Recently Greg at Airguns of Arizona asked me to try some Dynamic SN-1 non-toxic “air bullets.” “I think you’ll like them,” he said. “We’ve had very good luck with them.”

Frankly, I had my doubts. I had tried some ultra-light non-lead pellets previously and while they were very fast (nearly 100 fps faster than CPLs in my R7), the accuracy was dreadful at anything beyond close range.

Nevertheless, the SN-1 pellets arrived, and I brought them with me the next time I visited my brother-in-law to do some shooting with our R7s. I shot for a while with Crosman Premier Lights (CPLs) and then gave the SN-1 pellets a try. The SN-1s weigh (nominally) 7.95 grains, which is roughly the same as the CPLs. I was shocked to find that, at 50 feet, not only did the SN-1 pellets group very well, they were hitting the same point of impact as the CPLs!

Emboldened by this experiment, I tried the SN-1 pellets in an RWS P5 spring-piston pistol. This time, I did get a point of impact change, but the SN-1s grouped very well, better in fact than the pellet the P5 previously “liked.” Casual experimentation with metal cans indicates that the SN-1 pellets deliver much better penetration than conventional lead pellets.

The bottom line is that I was very pleasantly surprised by the Dynamic SN-1 non-lead pellets and plan further experimentation with them.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

Jock Elliott

Things NOT TO DO with your airgun

2008-06-16T01:49:00.000-07:00

The following story is true. Some of the names have been changed to protect the hopelessly bewildered.

2:00 am. Someplace in Arizona.

Ring . . . ring . . . ring . . . A groggy voice answers the phone. “Hello?”

“Is this Robert?”

“Uh, yeah . . .”

“Robert Buchanan, the guy who runs Airguns of Arizona?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“I just wanted to ask you a question: how do you get the nivelsheave bearings back in the turboencabulator?”

“What are you talking about???”

“Well, you sold me this Zippy-Doo 3000 air rifle . . .”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“It arrived today, and I was taking it apart to see how it worked, and now I’m having a little trouble getting the nivelsheave bearings back in the turboencabulator.”

“Was there something wrong with the air rifle when it arrived?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t shot it yet.”

“Let me get this straight: you spent nearly two thousand dollars on one of the finest air rifles known to man, you haven’t shot it yet, but you’ve taken it apart, and now you’re having trouble putting it back together again?”

“That’s about right.”

“Well, let me tell you a couple of things. First, you have voided the warranty. Second, you’ll have to send it back to us, we’ll put it back together, and we’ll charge you for the repair.”

“Repair? But that’s so unfair – this is a brand new air rifle!”

“It was until you started taking it apart.”

The story above really happened. When Robert told it to me, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, it was so preposterous. It is, however, a superb example of what not to do with an airgun.

If you are fortunate enough to have a brand new airgun, do not take it apart. You will void the warranty. Airguns of Arizona will charge you a fee to rescue you, and it will be sooooo fair.

Here’s another thing you shouldn’t do with an airgun: do not shoot at resilient spherical objects.

I was shooting with my brother-in-law one Sunday afternoon. We got a little bored and decided to see what would happen if we shot at a “super ball,” one of those really resilient, super bouncy balls. I guess we thought it might explode or something.

With the first shot, nothing happened, except we heard this really weird sound: pah-whaaaaaaaang!

We couldn’t figure out what it was, so we tried again. Pah-whaaaaaaaaang-whack! A spent pellet slammed into the deck just above my brother-in-law’s head. The resilient sphere was returning the pellets directly back at us, and with a good deal of velocity. I’ve also heard of field target shooters getting similar results plinking at tennis balls hung from a tree.

So, don’t take your brand new airgun apart, and don’t shoot at resilient spherical objects.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

Jock Elliott