30-Yard Challenge

[tommyb]

Prepping for an August 9th tournament

Rifle: FX Panthera 700mm Superior Heavy Liner
Scope: Athlon Midas TAC 5-25x56
Pellets: WS (Warren Sumaylo) 22.3+gr unsorted @965fps
Bipod: ACCU-TAC FC-4 G2 Arca Spec
Rear rest: Protektor rabbot ear rear bag
Wind: 20-40mph according to the weather app

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Nice card Ricky!

Ironically, I too shot a 199-17x 30Y Masters yesterday with my RAW HM1000x .22. But my winds were 5-7 mph. Looks like your heavier pellets bucked the wind pretty well.

Interesting that your Panthera also likes those 22.3g at 965 fps and mine likes the JTS 22.07g at 995 fps. Similar pellet weights and high velocities. The .22 cal rifles seem to do as good or better than the 18.1g with the JTS and AEA 21.9 and 22.07g weights.

Tell us a bit more about the upcoming tournament. I.e., target distance, venue, etc.

Tom

 

[TheAirgunnero]

Nice card Ricky!

Ironically, I too shot a 199-17x 30Y Masters yesterday with my RAW HM1000x .22. But my winds were 5-7 mph. Looks like your heavier pellets bucked the wind pretty well.

Interesting that your Panthera also likes those 22.3g at 965 fps and mine likes the JTS 22.07g at 995 fps. Similar pellet weights and high velocities. The .22 cal rifles seem to do as good or better than the 18.1g with the JTS and AEA 21.9 and 22.07g weights.

Tell us a bit more about the upcoming tournament. I.e., target distance, venue, etc.

Tom

Thanks Tom!

My Panthera with the STX Heavy liner loves a certain batch of JSB 25.39gr MRD (#67540023 5 5.52) @980-1008fps depending on the density altitude at my location which is only 43ft above sea level.

The Philippine made WS 22.3gr that I was using was delivered to me today for testing purposes and an alternative for the last few remaining JSB redesigned tins that I have left in stock.

Our tournament on August 9 will be held at another island and will consist of WRABF BR25 and BR50 meter Open Category (only .177 and .22 pellets allowed).

Ricky

 

[tommyb]

Thanks Tom!

My Panthera with the STX Heavy liner loves a certain batch of JSB 25.39gr MRD (#67540023 5 5.52) @980-1008fps depending on the density altitude at my location which is only 43ft above sea level.

The Philippine made WS 22.3gr that I was using was delivered to me today for testing purposes and an alternative for the last few remaining JSB redesigned tins that I have left in stock.

Our tournament on August 9 will be held at another island and will consist of WRABF BR25 and BR50 meter Open Category (only .177 and .22 pellets allowed).

Ricky

Thanks for the insight.

Let us know how you make out on August 9th.

 

[EPG]

Leaderboard Submission:

Date: 7/23/24
Target: 40-Masters: 198 11X
Rifle: RTI Prophet Performance V1 - .22 Long Range (1:32 twist LW) barrel
Scope: Sightron SIII 36X ED
Pellet: JSB 20.83 MRD Lights @ 933fps
Moderator: Neil Clague

I own 2 RTI Prophet Performance V1s. I love these rifles. Super simple, minimalistic designs. Super accurate. Great triggers (without a trigger job). Super solid builds and super short without a moderator. As you may have seen in the Benchrest thread, I've been having great results lately at 100 yards with one Prophet set up with .25 Long Range barrel shooting AEA 29.5g pellets.

I few years ago I had Neil Clague make a moderator for my Prophet when set up as .25 caliber - I wanted it to be quiet enough to shoot in the backyard as I was practicing for a competition. When Neil sent me the .25 moderator, he also sent me a .22 cal moderator that he had laying around to try. Super nice guy. I never actually used the .22 moderator on the Prophet, probably because his mods are long, and I didn't like the look - which is weird because you guys know I'm a function over form guy - don't care how something looks if it performs.

On the 22nd I put the .22 moderator on my .22 Prophet, turned up the hammer spring a bit and shot a 197 13X 40-Masters! To make sure it wasn't total luck, I immediately shot another 40-Masters in dim light and shot a 193. I was really happy with the 197 - didn't think I would top it easily...

Yesterday I shot just one card with the Prophet, and it was this 198 40-Masters. The sun was beating on the rifle so the velocity was actually about 8fps higher than the 197 card the day before.

Note that I was shooting at 933fps. The history of the Prophet Performance V1 was that in .22 caliber it had a proprietary slow twist 1:32 barrel designed by RTI and machined by Lothar Walther. This barrel was designed to win 100 yard benchrest competitions - it was designed to keep the JSB 25.39 "MRD" pellet stable at velocities exceeding 1,000fps. (the .25 Long Range 1:32 barrel came later - in the last year of production of the PP V1 - prior to that year the Prophet came with a CZ barrel in .25 caliber).

In the years I've owned these Prophets, I've never cranked them up past say 920fps in velocity. Even though I knew the design parameters, I always kept to the "880fps to a max of 900fps provides the most stability and the least wind drift" mantra.

So I attribute these 197 and 198 40-Masters to my buddy TommyB (the B must be for "Blaster") - as Tommy has shown that you can achieve some great scores on our Challenges "blasting" pellets as high as almost 1,000fps with his RAW .22. I think that upping my velocity on the 20.83s with the Prophet has improved accuracy - especially as I wasn't shooting in ideal wind conditions. Its also possible that the Neil Clague .22 moderator has helped accuracy - so I'm leaving both Prophets with Clague mods - despite the length, lol.

Picture below of both Prophets - the .25 has the fatter mod. I also have .177 and .30 barrels for the Prophet - those calibers also shoot well.

Sadly, RTI has gone the way of slug shooting with the .22 and .25 barrels in the Prophet 2, Prophet 3 and now the Mora. Those .22 and .25 barrels still shoot pellets well, but they have faster twist rates optimized for shooting slugs. I've got one .22 LR barrel and two .25 LR barrels (the .25 LR is rare as only one year of production - so I stockpiled one, lol). IMHO, the Prophet Performance V1 with the LR barrels is destined to become a "classic" air rifle. I highly recommend trying one if you haven't yet - they come up in the AGN Classifieds at a reasonable (sub $1k) price point.

Of the 20+ PCPs that I own (most "higher end"), I'd say the Prophet V1s and the Crown Mk2s are the last ones I'd sell. The Prophet has a much better trigger than the Crown and much easier adjustability. Caliber swaps are about the same - super simple and quick on both.

-Ed

 

[DaleR]

I shot another 30 yard challenge target today. I got better paper at 65 lbs and it worked in my printer. There was a slight cross wind, but I played the dead wind condition on most shots. I had my best groups last week in testing with the AEA 25.3 grain pellets. I shot a horrible target last week with them and wrote them off. I shot another 5 shot group and it was great, so I gave them a "shot" today. I am glad I did. I broke the 190 goal I had!!! New to me BRK Sniper Sahara .25/ Athlon Heras 15-60x56 AEA 25.3gr pellets at 870 fps. I used 60 power on the scope and played the mirage too. I re-ranged the target and I am closer to 32 yards..ohh well.

What should my next goal be???

Dale R.

 

[EPG]

I shot another 30 yard challenge target today. I got better paper at 65 lbs and it worked in my printer. There was a slight cross wind, but I played the dead wind condition on most shots. I had my best groups last week in testing with the AEA 25.3 grain pellets. I shot a horrible target last week with them and wrote them off. I shot another 5 shot group and it was great, so I gave them a "shot" today. I am glad I did. I broke the 190 goal I had!!! New to me BRK Sniper Sahara .25/ Athlon Heras 15-60x56 AEA 25.3gr pellets at 870 fps. I used 60 power on the scope and played the mirage too. I re-ranged the target and I am closer to 32 yards..ohh well.

What should my next goal be???

Dale R.
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Awesome card - 194 is an excellent score - good shooting!

Brocock/BRKs have posted excellent scores on these Challenges over the past few years.

Suggestion for next goal: see if you can shoot an entire (24 target) 30-Challenge card with no “8s” - all targets scored 9 or better.

Once you do that, move on to 30-Masters cards - trying for 190+

-Ed

 

[DaleR]

Awesome card - 194 is an excellent score - good shooting!

Brocock/BRKs have posted excellent scores on these Challenges over the past few years.

Suggestion for next goal: see if you can shoot an entire (24 target) 30-Challenge card with no “8s” - all targets scored 9 or better.

Once you do that, move on to 30-Masters cards - trying for 190+

-Ed

Darn 8's..but no 7's for me. That was killing me!
I will read up on the masters rules. I need to keep shooting the regular challenge so I can confirm this target was not just a fluke. I have more pellets coming for testing. Just like powder burners, I was ALWAYS testing the next "great idea".

I might need to sort pellets. I had 2 8's. I can't blame wind...I might have had a slight slip with the round bottle in my bag (I have a post in benchrest asking about a front flat fore-end attachment). I will try to search out the best way to sort pellets. I have too many hobbies....

 

[NAProf]

Darn 8's..but no 7's for me. That was killing me!
I will read up on the masters rules. I need to keep shooting the regular challenge so I can confirm this target was not just a fluke. I have more pellets coming for testing. Just like powder burners, I was ALWAYS testing the next "great idea".

I might need to sort pellets. I had 2 8's. I can't blame wind...I might have had a slight slip with the round bottle in my bag (I have a post in benchrest asking about a front flat fore-end attachment). I will try to search out the best way to sort pellets. I have too many hobbies....

Hi Dale,
If you get a chance to read some of my older posts, you will see that I make the argument that sorting pellets really doesn't make much difference. I did some extensive testing of several .177, .22, and 25 pellets in several different riffles and really didn't find any case where the results of sorting were statistically significant. I will put a small caveat on that. In all cases I did get rid of the pellets with obviously damaged skirts or heads.

The above statement needs to be taken with a grain of salt - I was only talking about sorting pellets of the same brand and size. Lots of difference between pellet brands, weights, and shapes. For instance, I found that my Crowns saw a significant (statistically speaking) improvement using the FX (and JSB) 13.4 gr Monster pellets of the old "trash can" shape over the newer JSB 13.4 Redesigned Monster pellets. Also, my .22 Crown liked the AEA 21.9gr pellets a lot more than the similarly sized JTS or JSN pellets. So that sort of search still goes on.

Cheers,
Greg

 

[EPG]

Leaderboard Submission:

Date: Jul 25th
Target: 30-Challenge: 200 17X
Rifle: Reximex Daystar .177 (unregulated - 2.6" hammer spring)
Pellet: JSB 10.3g @ 840fps
Scope: Athlon Argos 10-40x56 SFP Gen2 @ 38X

Hope you guys don't mind my stories, this card has an interesting one - I'll bet its happened to a few of you...

I hadn't shot the Rexi .177 in a while. This thing is laser accurate. I polished it up so that its silky smooth to operate - always beings a smile to my face. It also has a very mild tune - around 840fps at the 180bar mark (unregged) with a very smooth, flat bell curve. Its especially docile with its very long 24" barrel - long barrel for a .177 and shooting at a mild velocity. I'd turn it up, but its so dang accurate in the 830-850 range.

The story:
I shot a 195 with the 1st card. Thought I'd shoot another. Wind conditions got good - becase a big Thunderstorm was rolling in - and it was the "calm before the storm"...

... Shooting from the top rows down, I had what I thought were 3 targets left to complete a Masters (20 targets) card and the thunder and lightning hit and skies started to open. I felt like the Priest in Caddyshack - I was sitting out in a storm trying to complete my "round", lol. Anyway, I grabbed all my gear and ran it into the house...

... but I didn't want my card to go to waste - I knew it had one 9 and the rest 10s or Xs. I ran out, grabbed the card, held it face down so it wouldn't get wet and threw it into the gazebo to protect it. Grabbed my rear shooting rest (last piece of gear outside) and ran into the house.

I was doing a video chat with TommyB during the storm - showed him the pouring rain and that I saved my card - he was laughing...

Anyways, later the rain stopped and the sun even started to come out. I went out and set up again. Grabbed the card out of the gazebo and realized I needed 7 targets to complete 20 for a Masters - not just 3 targets left. I took some sighters, my hold was now completely different (left of 10 ring instead of right of 10 before the storm) but I was hitting my sighters so I started shooting and finished 20 targets. I was pretty sure that it was a 199 and high X count. ..

... If I stopped at 20 targets, I had a leaderboard submission of a 199 30-Masters - a really great score on a Masters. But since I was using a Challenge card (gotta print more Masters cards) I thought... keep shooting and get a 200...

So I drop down to the last row - shooting it right to left - so I'm starting at 12B. I barely shot an 8! I got burned by what I'll call "flag lag". I checked my flag (streamer on a bottle) and it wasn't moving, but after I released the shot I looked at it and it was straight out pointing to the right. There is like a delay between when the wind kicks up and when the flags actually move. I heard more thunder - another storm cloud moved in. I quickly shot 12A and it was still way right. I'm thinking "should have stuck with the Masters card" - now I'm gonna get struck by lightening like the Caddyshack Priest trying to complete the dang card, lol..

The wind slowed down, I took a sighter - it looked good so I finished out the 11 A&B targets. I was holding my breath - I was almost certain that I wouldn't get a 20, lol - but fortunately it was.

7A was the closest 10. It actually looked much closer before I checked it with scoring plug. The card warped a bit after the 1st thunder storm and the pellet hole seems to angle away from the ring - so I was a bit suprised that it just touched the ring instead of covering the ring.

I'm sure you guys have some entertaining storied of crazy things happening while you have a good card going. My Rexi Daystar is really pretty. Attaching an pic from last year with a different scope than I've currently got on the rifle. Couldn't take a picture on Friday with the crazy storms going on.

-Ed

 

[tommyb]

Leaderboard Submission:

Date: Jul 25th
Target: 30-Challenge: 200 17X
Rifle: Reximex Daystar .177 (unregulated - 2.6" hammer spring)
Pellet: JSB 10.3g @ 840fps
Scope: Athlon Argos 10-40x56 SFP Gen2 @ 38X

Hope you guys don't mind my stories, this card has an interesting one - I'll bet its happened to a few of you...

I hadn't shot the Rexi .177 in a while. This thing is laser accurate. I polished it up so that its silky smooth to operate - always beings a smile to my face. It also has a very mild tune - around 840fps at the 180bar mark (unregged) with a very smooth, flat bell curve. Its especially docile with its very long 24" barrel - long barrel for a .177 and shooting at a mild velocity. I'd turn it up, but its so dang accurate in the 830-850 range.

The story:
I shot a 195 with the 1st card. Thought I'd shoot another. Wind conditions got good - becase a big Thunderstorm was rolling in - and it was the "calm before the storm"...

... Shooting from the top rows down, I had what I thought were 3 targets left to complete a Masters (20 targets) card and the thunder and lightning hit and skies started to open. I felt like the Priest in Caddyshack - I was sitting out in a storm trying to complete my "round", lol. Anyway, I grabbed all my gear and ran it into the house...

... but I didn't want my card to go to waste - I knew it had one 9 and the rest 10s or Xs. I ran out, grabbed the card, held it face down so it wouldn't get wet and threw it into the gazebo to protect it. Grabbed my rear shooting rest (last piece of gear outside) and ran into the house.

I was doing a video chat with TommyB during the storm - showed him the pouring rain and that I saved my card - he was laughing...

Anyways, later the rain stopped and the sun even started to come out. I went out and set up again. Grabbed the card out of the gazebo and realized I needed 7 targets to complete 20 for a Masters - not just 3 targets left. I took some sighters, my hold was now completely different (left of 10 ring instead of right of 10 before the storm) but I was hitting my sighters so I started shooting and finished 20 targets. I was pretty sure that it was a 199 and high X count. ..

... If I stopped at 20 targets, I had a leaderboard submission of a 199 30-Masters - a really great score on a Masters. But since I was using a Challenge card (gotta print more Masters cards) I thought... keep shooting and get a 200...

So I drop down to the last row - shooting it right to left - so I'm starting at 12B. I barely shot an 8! I got burned by what I'll call "flag lag". I checked my flag (streamer on a bottle) and it wasn't moving, but after I released the shot I looked at it and it was straight out pointing to the right. There is like a delay between when the wind kicks up and when the flags actually move. I heard more thunder - another storm cloud moved in. I quickly shot 12A and it was still way right. I'm thinking "should have stuck with the Masters card" - now I'm gonna get struck by lightening like the Caddyshack Priest trying to complete the dang card, lol..

The wind slowed down, I took a sighter - it looked good so I finished out the 11 A&B targets. I was holding my breath - I was almost certain that I wouldn't get a 20, lol - but fortunately it was.

7A was the closest 10. It actually looked much closer before I checked it with scoring plug. The card warped a bit after the 1st thunder storm and the pellet hole seems to angle away from the ring - so I was a bit suprised that it just touched the ring instead of covering the ring.

I'm sure you guys have some entertaining storied of crazy things happening while you have a good card going. My Rexi Daystar is really pretty. Attaching an pic from last year with a different scope than I've currently got on the rifle. Couldn't take a picture on Friday with the crazy storms going on.

-Ed

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Your patience paid off Ed.

Congrats on the 200-17x 30Y card.

 

[tommyb]

Shot 5 cards this morning with Vet2.

Solid head wind and some R-L at times. I figured out a good hold on a head wind and did pretty well.

Found a new velocity for the 21.9g AEA at 929 fps. Or, 920-930 range. Lot of ‘X’s today and only ONE eight.

I included some scoring plug photos for the 200 - 13X Master card.

Taipan Vet 2 .22 cal 700 mm barrel
DNT Optics 7X35X56nm at 35 X
Randolph front mechanical rest
Protector rear bag
AEA 21.9g pellets, no sorting

30Y Masters:

194-10X
197-16X
196-13X
198-15X

200-14X ( Leader board for August )

 

[EPG]

@tommyb - Contratulations - awesome shooting! It’s so tough to get a 200 Masters card - so many variables to manage. Plus shooting straight from the tin puts you at the mercy of the pellet manufacturer, lol.

-Ed

 

[tommyb]

@tommyb - Contratulations - awesome shooting! It’s so tough to get a 200 Masters card - so many variables to manage. Plus shooting straight from the tin puts you at the mercy of the pellet manufacturer, lol.

-Ed

Thanks guys!