So you wanna shoot your air rifle 100 yards…?
I thought that I’d share my story of how I did this for the 1sttime this past Friday. I apologize for the long story, but I wanted to journal this for myself – so I can look back on it as I get better…
Background: I’ve been shooting airguns for about 2.25 years. My first rifle was a Umarex Gauntlet .177 – I’m amazed how accurate it is for the $195 I paid for it. I bought a house a bit less than 3 years ago and it has a great backyard to shoot out to 45 yards. Actually, I could shoot out to 250 yards – but I don’t own the empty land behind me.
I started out shooting groups and then got hooked on the “30 Yard Challenge on AGN. It really helped me improve my shooting and tune my rifles. I’m good at fixing stuff, come from a family of engineers. I tear down all my rifles, polish internal parts, modify parts, make parts (mostly custom springs) – I make them better – I don’t care how expensive they are, they all need work. I’ve got 7 different rifles on the 30 Yard Challenge Leaderboard. I try to tune all my rifles so that I can shoot at least 190 with them. I shoot most every day possible in Connecticut – sometimes in the freezing cold.
Objective: I signed up for the inaugural NorthEast Airgun Classic Event at Sig Sauer in New Hampshire later this month. I thought signing up to shoot would be more fun than just attending. The furthest that I’ve ever shot a target prior to today was 56 yards – and I did that just once about 2 years ago – with the .177 Gauntlet.
So I needed to get to a place where I could shoot 100 yards. Not only so that I don’t embarrass anyone at the Event, I was worried I’d miss by so much that I’d hit someone’s target in the next lane…
The Place: My kid brother lives 12 miles from me – a 28 minute drive through country roads. My brother lives out in the woods – he built his house off a dirt road. He is an avid fisherman and hunter – I don’t think he ever has to go to the grocery store. He marked off 100 yards for me in his backyard. Its flat. He set up a table and a canopy for me! My regular shooting “table” is laughably flexible – the guys on the 30 Yard Challenge have suggested that I need a real shooting bench. So my brother’s picnic table is the best bench that I’ve ever shot off. I took the day off from work – it turned out to be an 84 degree April day in Connecticut – extremely warm for April here.
The Rifles:
RTI Prophet Performance .22 LR – bought new (Athlon Midas Tac 6x24 FFP),
RTI Prophet Performance .25 LR – bought used off AGN Classified (Sightron SIII 45x ED).
Daystate Wolverine RHP .22 (Athlon Argos Gen 2 6x24 FFP) – bought used off AGN Classified.
I chose these 3 rifles cause I’m a barrel snob – and all three have 600mm 32:1 slow twist polygonal rifling Lothar Walther barrels – that will keep pellets stable at velocities up to 1,070 fps – perhaps more (even though I always tune slower, lol). They were all designed for long range pellet shooting.
The Tunes: The RTI PP .25 LR I tuned to shoot 25g FX pellets at 910-920fps. The Wolverine shoots JSB 25g MRDs at 895-900fps. The RTI PP .22LR is tuned to shoot JSB 15.89g at 865fps – perfect for the 30 Yard Challenge targets in my backyard – it sips air with this tune – I made a custom softer hammer spring for it – it cocks as smooth as my Dreamline now. I can shoot all day if I fill to 250bar – I never fill past 250bar (it can be filled to 300bar). I read an article at Hard Air Magazine that 900fps is the velocity with the LEAST wind drift. I was worried about the wind – so I tuned my rifle .25 rifle just a bit above that.
I always have a .177 Barrel on the RTI PP .25 LR. I bought it used with the .25 LR barrel (cause I really wanted that barrel – the .25 LR was only offered the last year of the Prophet Performance V1). However, I found the target strikes with .25 caliber a bit too loud for backyard shooting. Bottom line – I had less than 25 pellets through the .25 LR barrel. The original owner only shot 1 time of pellets and sold cause he didn’t like bullpups.
The Wolverine is beautiful. The original owner only shot one tin of pellets indoors with it. When I received it, it was clipping pellets – I noticed the barrel shroud grub screws were loose on one side. I got a great deal on the rifle – hope this wasn’t the reason. The rifle was a bit loud – but I recently got two moderators from Neil Clague – one for the Wolverine .22 and one for the RTI PP .25 LR – for when I use the .25 barrel. I had only about 25-30 shots through the Wolverine to zero it at 40 yards.
The Experience with these rifles: So, I’m gonna try 100 yard target shooting and my two primary rifles have less than 60 pellets down the barrels (from me) combined…
The Approach: I don’t know squat about Strelok or shooting – so my strategy was to start with the Prophet .25 at 40 yards, then move to 55 yards and click up 10 clicks on scope – keep moving 5-10 yards further and clicking about ten clicks up, shoot a few targets, re-zero at each distance – until at 100 yards.
Conditions: Sunny, warm (84F) and
windy. So windy in the afternoon that the canopy blew away – almost knocking over the shooting table with rifle and hitting my car. I stood there holding it in place for 10 minutes – felt powerless – then ran to the house to get my brother. He had some stakes for it, so we move it back into position and staked it down.
The Results:
40 & 55 Yards: My 1st shot of the day hit my ½” bullseye – it could be a good day! A dime sized 5-shot group at 40 yards and dime sized 7-shot group at 55 yards along with 4-5 scope adjust shots.
75 Yards: 1st Group 4/5 measured .47”ctc – with the 5thshot just slightly lower. Then the wind picked up!
2nd group: 4/5 inside 2” circle. 3rd Group: 5/5 inside 2” circle. 4th Group: 8/10 inside 2” circle – but the other 2 shots blew a few inches left . 4th Group: 4/5 = .44 ctc with the 5th shot ½” right. Adjusted scope. 5th 75-Yard group was 8/8 inside 2” circle – but 4 were very tight – under a dime.
85 Yards: 9/10 inside 2” circle.
90 Yards: 7/10 fit inside 2” circle – wind blew the other 3 left.
95 Yards: 7/10 fit inside 2” circle – wind blew the other 3 left and right – but level with the others.
100 Yards: 6/10 fit inside 2” circle. Group 2: 7/10 inside 2” circle.
Put up a new target – Group 3 (now using 3” reactive target). 1st shot was a bullseye (beginners luck) – ran all the way out to target to take photo, lol. Put 8/10 on the 3” reactive target.
Pellet Switch: At this point I switched from 25g to 34g pellets – didn’t want to change tune as I now had a rifle that was hitting its target at 100 yards with the 25g pellets. The 34s only shot at 777fps. I adjusted the Sightron 73 clicks up – shot 2 2” reactive targets – the wind was pushing them too much at just 777fps – so I switched back to the 25 grain after doing 15 shots with the 34g.
100 Yards Continued: Group 4 (3” reactive target #2): 9 of 10 on the splatter target ! Group 5 (3” reactive target #3): 8 of 15 hit 3” target. I adjusted the scope left for wind. Group 6 (3” reactive target #4) 7 of 11 hit target with 2 just off the edge.
Now I’m getting confident… I put up a 2” blue reactive target. I switch to 30g H&N pellets for a quick 5-shot test. They were all low (of course) but the wind was pushing them into a wider horizontal line than the 25g pellets.
I switch back to the 25g and put the first shot on the bullseye. So my 1st shot at both 3” and 2” reactive targets were bullseyes in the dead center of the targets (beginner’s luck). I ran out 100 yards to take another photo! Group 7 (2” reactive target #5) - 9 of 10 shots hit the 2” target – with the 10th just missing slightly ! Confidence growing – I’m now using paper plates with 2” targets at 100 yards… Group 9 (2” reactive target #6) – 10 of 15 hit the target and the 5 misses were all within ½”.
At this point my brother had grilled us up some fresh rainbow trout – so I took a break. I also refilled my rifle, even though it was not down to reg pressure. So I had taken 191 shots with my 915fps tune at 100bar reg pressure. I started at 245bar and shot down to 130bar – excellent efficiency.
Group 10 (2” reactive target on paper plate) – I only put 5 of 15 shots on the target. The wind was really bad and swirling, and I think bringing the rifle back out from the air conditioned house where I refilled it also contributed to this target being worse.
At this point I put the RTI Prophet Performance .25 LR away and pulled out the Wolverine R HP .22. Daylight was fading, so I had to move quickly to get some shooing in with the Wolverine, which I had hardly ever shot before…
Wolverine with JSB MRDs 25g results:
60 Yards: two 5-shot sight in groups measured .45 and .44 ctc. Scope zeroed and 3rd group was 10 shots. This 10-shot group at 60 yds measured .45” ctc !! Damn, this Wolverine has potential.
75 Yards: 10 shot group measured 1.00” ctc. 9 of 10 measured .72” ctc !! Wow! I guessed the correct number of clicks on scope from 60 yards to 75 - so all shots hit 2” target!
At this point I was going to stop as daylight was low and Wolverine only has 6x24 Athlon Argos scope. My brother says “ you need to try that rifle at 100” – so I ran out to 100 with a 3” reactive target. I tried to guess the scope clicks up needed. One good thing I did was put a white marker dot on the bull of the reactive target – made it much easier to see using 22x. Group 1 with Wolverine at 100: 4 of 5 measured 2.13” ctc, the 5th shot was low. Did 10 clicks up on scope. Group 2 at 100 with Wolverine: 8 of 10 measured 2.28” ctc – the other two shots went wide left and right – could have been wind, or me.
I was done shooting – took a total of 45 shots with the Wolverine.
Lessons Learned:
1 - There is no such thing as too much scope magnification at 100 yards with an air rifle, lol. The 45x Sightron was awesome for 100 yards.
2 - If you follow a methodical approach to working your way out to 100, a newbie can do it.
I did not use large pieces of cardboard, I shot on a very breezy windy day, and I don’t recall ever missing the cardboard – not once. I even switched to paper plates at 100 once dialed in and never missed a plate.
3 – My brother has an awesome 100 yard shooting range – drive right up to the shooting table !!
4 – Next time I won’t be running out to 100 yards to take pictures of bullseyes – I lost 7 pounds that day.
5 – The wind is challenging, but its blowing the pellets inches – not feet. So 100 is doable.
6- The Wolverine has potential. I knew my Prophets would be good at 100.
7 – I had so much fun it should have been illegal. I’ll be taking more days off just to shoot – and eat trout with my brother.
If you are a relative newbie and want to shoot 100 yards, I hope this helps you have the confidence to try it. I had never shot a target at 50 yards (except for the one time at 56 yards with .177 Umarex Gauntlet).
I now feel more confident that I won’t accidently miss by so much that I hit another shooters target at the upcoming NorthEast Airgun Classic in New Hampshire this week.
Pictures of my brother’s drive up “range”, all targets that I shot as well as the memorable bullseyes on my 1st shot of the day, 1st 100 yard 3” splatter and 1st 100 yard 2” splatter.
Happy to answer any questions,
-Ed
