BRK Ghost Review

Played with the .177 barrel
Before I get into the .177 barrel results, I want to note that I shot the Ghost in .22 HP configuration as a single shot for the last 4 months. And that was partly b/c I don't have any .22 mags, but partly b/c I like to single feed for serious target work. So, going back to the .177 Carbine barrel, first thing I did was bust out the nice .177 magazine that came with the Ghost Carbine. Maybe it's b/c I shoot so much single shot, but shooting with the magazine and just having fun put a huge smile on my face during the most recent .177 barrel shooting sessions.

(wind was pretty gusty through all this)
Set up with buckets/traps at 30 and 55 yards


And with a little zoom. In his photo there may or may not be dove decoys on the fence right by what may or may not be a bird feeder on the ground (it all has the desired result )


Shot some with the FX 10.34 first....
Keep in mine that the wind was gusting up to 16mph during this.
Circles measure 1 and 3/8inch.


The two above photos represent 60 shots (8groups x 5shots/group at 30 yards and 4 groups x5shots/group at 55 yards). Those 60 shots, each about 900 fps with the 10.34s, took the bottle pressure from 240 down to 170bar. The reg was around 110-112 here so there were many more shots available in this fill. While that's okay, it's not great. And that's b/c of the tiny transfer port on the .177 barrel. The reg has to be higher than should be necessary for 19fpe in .177 because the small transfer port is throttling power output down so much. There'll be more on that transfer port size @ 20fpe later.....

There's a couple good groups in there but it was mostly when the wind would calm down long enough for me to get 5 shots off. Overall I wasn't very impressed with how much the 10.34grain pellets were blowing in the wind.

So I got a wild hair to tune down to 12fpe and compare the wind hold offs. We hear of "accuracy nodes" and I was curious to see what sort of wind holds would be necessary for 8.44s at 800 (12fpe). So went to the chrono station in the garage and did a little tuning. Darn thing wouldn't let me get down to 12fpe because if the regulator was set for less than 75bar the valve would leak. As soon as I bumped up the reg pressure past 75 bar it would seal and hold just fine. (I've since talked to the guru and he says putting a little preload on the poppet return spring or even going with a slightly heavier spring on the poppet would resolve this). Anyway, at 80 bar I was averaging 810fps with the 8.44 grain pellets, just barely over the 12fpe legal limit. It annoyed me so I shelved that idea and decided to try the JSB .177/13.43 Monster RDs @ just under 20fpe to see how they compared in the wind. Bumped the reg back up to about 112, dialed in a little extra hammer tension with the wheel and voila! 900fps with 13.43s. All of that fiddling and tinkering and adjusting probably sounds cumbersome but all of that, including firing over the chrono, was done in about 20 minutes. The Ghost is just quick and easy to adjust.

So, 20 minutes later I was back outside and shot the following with the .177 Monster RDs...



I can't remember if I tried out any of the JSB 13.43 Monster RDs back in the fall but they were showing more promise in the wind here than the 10.34s!

There's only 3 groups at 55 yards because I spent the next 6hrs in the emergency dept of the hospital where I work. My 5 year old knocked his two front teeth out and destroyed his upper lip. I'd share photos but they might make some squeamish. Got out of there at 2AM, somewhere around 7 or 8 stiches, pulled one of the front teeth that was dangling by a thread, the other front tooth still wasn't in the right place either (luckily they're baby teeth). Suffice it to say that he wasn't born with a cleft palate, but will have a scar between his nose and mouth that looks like a cleft palate repair!

The next installment will be my initial findings from trying out the Ghost in a 3rd caliber. We've done .177, and .22, next will be ______. (Take a guess).
Prelim results with this new barrel/caliber were PHENOMENAL!!!

Aimright said:

Both sets look great to me for 16mph winds! Several of the veteran FT shooters in our club (you know these culprits Cole - some of who have been shooting FT since club inception for 30 years!) often promote the 13.4s wind superiority over the 10.3s and they do in fact usually place very well in the meets. I keep meaning to try some but just haven’t - I have conveniently convinced myself that the more loopy trajectory (roughly 80 less fps with the 13.4s at 20 ft lbs) would cause me more problems with my ranging errors, and I am sticking to it!

Anyway, my hunch your next barrel caliber that is around a .22 and .177 (hmm what could that be ) will be the best of both trajectory and wind worlds for FT- looking forward to seeing the results.

Click to expand...

Thanks Scott. I didn't even realize I was quite a bit hot for 20fpe at 900fps with the 13.43s. What I was shooting was more like 24fpe. Perhaps that played into why the .177 MRDs were doing so much better than the 10.34s!!! And that all makes more sense to me know b/c the little hammer weight I made was still in the gun at that point.

Shooting the Ghost right now and pulled my eye off the scope to grab a pellet and noticed something on my irrigation berm maybe 8-10 feet to the right. Panned over with the scope to get a closer look and.....a dove had landed while I was shooting.

Had to turn scope power down to 8 to get it and the pellet trap in the same frame...



He got a pass. Pretty sure it's a Mourning Dove and not a Euro. He wasn't too concerned about the sound of the Ghost or the pellets hitting that peach colored paper.

Just giggling to myself right now. ACCURATE airguns are so dang cool....

Pellet trap at 26 yards. Fly lands right on the bottom edge of the bucket. So of course I take a shot at him! No explosion and no fly matter on the paper, but got a new hole right on the edge of the paper RIGHT where the fly had been. Kept shooting and see something hopping around in the gravel in front of the trap. Focused on him and it was the fly. Took a couple more shots and he was still hopping. Wait a second, flys don't hop....walked out there to check it out and found this....


Zoom in a bit...


I had shot his wing off when he was on the edge of the bucket!!!! Guess I gotta work on my shot placement, I was a bit high for a vitals shot hehe.

I'm always amazed by the kind of accuracy these high end airguns are capable of. Had a big silly grin on my face for a few minutes now. AWESOME.

If you follow me on instagram (backyard_precision_airguns) you know that I spilled the beans about the new barrel/caliber earlier today. Otherwise, here it is.

Yes it's a .20. (That red arrow is pointing at the pellet trap @26 yards where the fly lost a wing and maybe a little portion of abdomen earlier today).


And it's not just any .20, but a very special old stock barrel that a dear friend supplied and machined to fit the Ghost. It's a kinda long story.....

Bobby and I became friends when I attended my first field target match, one he hosted at his property. This would have been about 6 years ago. I still remember how he closed the email he sent with directions to get to his house. He said, "if you like shooting, you'll like field target." Truer words were never spoken. That all stands out in my mind as the point in time when I became truly addicted to this airgun sillyness.

On top of the general shared interests of airguns and field target, Bobby and I seem to share a fascination with the WHY behind the anecdotal experiences that we've both had where some barrels/pellet just shoot better than would be expected. He has spent decades trying to learn and understand airgun accuracy. While he would never admit it, he possesses the accumulated knowledge to show for all that investment of time and effort. He is also a machinist, which has allowed him to fit barrels of various physical parameters into various guns for testing. He is also part of Daystate's Accuracy Research Team. He has direct involvement with real-world testing of prototype barrels that are being evaluated for potential inclusion in Daystate production guns. Our shared interest in barrels finds us comparing notes often (95% him sharing his knowledge with me, 5% me telling him what I'm seeing with whatever I happen to be shooting at the moment).

A few years ago during some prairie dog shooting fun, I asked him if he was interested in having me pay him to machine a .20 barrel for my Veteran Short. I even had a .20 barrel already. He agreed but contacted me a few days later, asking how I felt about going with a different .20 blank, one from his personal collection. I gave the green light and had the .20 Vet in-hand a few weeks later. From day one that barrel has impressed me. After the first shooting session I asked him what sort of magical fairy dust had been sprinkled on this barrel to be so dang good. He told me it was one of a few blanks he'd been hanging onto for 20+ years. He'd bought them as the Sterling airgun company went belly-up. So they are Lothar barrels that were at one point destined to be installed in Sterling guns, and that never happened. They are lightly choked and very consistent in bore diameter, throughout their length. They also seem to have less aggressive rifling than current production LWs. The rifling is 12 land and groove type. REALLY good barrels.

For the last couple years I'd comment to him every once in a while that he should machine himself a .20 barrel like mine, my rationale was that somebody that appreciates remarkable accuracy as much as him NEEDS to experience what I've been experiencing. About 6 or 8 months ago @zx10wall consulted Bobby about his recommendations for what would make a good sub 20fpe pistol for the Extreme Field Target pistol division at the Texas matches. Long story short, one of the Sterling barrels ended up in Derrick's EFT pistol. And shortly thereafter Bobby machined himself a .20 for a Delta Wolf (or for his prototype Ghost). A couple months ago he mentioned to me that he had one last Sterling .20 blank. I told him I'd like to buy it, and pay him to machine it for a Ghost, as long as he didn't have an otherwise intended gun for it, and didn't want to hang onto it for a special project.

(Maybe wondering why I think I need another .20....Well my 9 year old son decided the .20 Vet is HIS gun. So when we go to summer ft matches and both of us want to shoot for fun or practice during the camping weekend I can't shoot the .20 Vet b/c he's shooting it!)

Fast forward to last Monday. I was off work and Bobby and I have been trying to connect for an exchange. I needed to get the .22 slow twist barrel back to him for comparison against some new prototype barrels, as well as return a book he'd lent me. And he had some pellets for me, that we'd gone in on together. So we arranged to meet up at his house, about 2.5hrs from mine.

Turns out that he'd machined up that last .20 Sterling Lothar blank for me! I threw a couple guns in the truck before I left home (can't think of a time I've ever hung out with Bobby and didn't shoot), one of them was the Ghost. I swapped over the shroud (also made by Bobby) and dropped it in the gun. He had his Labradar set up and had actually been out putting up fresh paper to shoot when I got to his house so we shot the Ghost .20 a bit.

First shot over the chrono was 974, and I think that was with the 15.89grain .20s. We were both surprised since the reg pressure was the same 112 bar that produces 19fpe with the .177 barrel. Just goes to show how much that tiny port on the Carbine .177 barrel is throttling down the power, like an engine governor). So I pulled out the tiny little hammer weight I still had in the nose of the hammer and fps came down to 935 with the 15.89s and power wheel on MAX. I could also get about 810-815 with the 13.73grain .20s with power wheel on MIN. We shot for a bit, discussing the velocity decay from both of the .20s and remarking how they hold their speed so well (essentially they have a high BC relative to similar weight pellets in other calibers at similar speeds). Labradar is pretty cool for that, giving shot by shot muzzle and downrange speeds.

I was also grinning ear to ear because all 5 of my first shots were in the same 3/8 inch hole at 30 yards, and nearly that good at 50 yards. I knew I had another Sterling .20 on my hands, and was ecstatic!

Here's the gun, with the .20 Sterling and in field target configuration. It'll be set up like this until winter.

33.75inches overall length.



I'm not needing any additional moderation, even with the Heavies around 30fpe. And most of that is because there's so much shroud in front of the barrel. The .20 barrel is 18.75 inches long so there's about 9.5 inches of shroud in front of the end of the barrel (barrel ends at 18.75 inches on the ruler in this photo). There's the option of pulling the shroud and putting the 110 0DB straight on the barrel to make it an overall length of about 27.75 inches. But since I like the looks of the shroud and I'm happy with the hushing I'm getting from it, I'll likely leave it just like it is.



I've had some more extensive chronograph sessions in the last week and have learned more about the Ghost from them. Nearly all of my .20 Ghost shooting will be with the two JSB weight: 13.73 and 15.89. I am restricted to 809fps with the 13.73s to keep it under 20fpe for field target. There is an allowance of 2% in the rule books, which would make it 825fps and you'll see why that's relevant in a moment. So the goal is to keep it under 809fps with the 13.73s for field target use, and around 915fps with the 15.89s for whacking pests and generally reaching WAY out there (for a pellet). For the 15.89s I've found the best accuracy from the Sterling .20 barrel in my Vet from this pellet at 915fps. With Bobby's Labradar, the 15.89s were still going the same speed at 50 yards with a 915-920fps muzzle speed as they were with a 935fps muzzle speed. ie, with this particular pellet, there's no benefit to a muzzle speed higher than 915-920.

For the sub 20 fpe field target tune I started with a reg pressure of 112 bar and hammer spring tension wheel on MIN. The spread was from 805-820fps, making some of those shots need to rely on the 2% variance to be legal. I thought I could also maybe get a tighter spread and more efficient "tune" at a lower reg pressure. So I lowered it to 80, and fps went up to 850. Huh? So I increased the hammer stroke distance, and fps went up another 10 to 860fps. Double huh? Either or both of those changes (lower reg and/or longer hammer strong) should have reduced the speed, but instead they increased it. I worked my way back up to 112 bar reg pressure and the fps came down to where it was before, average 815fps. My thoughts on all that: the transfer port in the .20 is appropriate to caliber, making it bigger than the tp in the .177 barrel. There's also a bigger base for the air to act upon with the .20 than the .177. So BRK is relying pretty heavy on the tiny tp in the .177 to restrict power. That may be for the UK market. With the .20 I'm able to get much greater FPE out of all the same settings, than I was with the .177. So much power with the .20/13.73 that it's actually making it troublesome to keep it comfortably under 20fpe. As for why a lower reg pressure is increasing the pellet speed...I think that's because the lower reg pressure is exerting less effort on keeping the poppet closed, so an equivalent hammer strike at a lower reg pressure is allowing more air out the valve, propelling the pellet faster. In that same vein, a higher reg pressure is shutting the poppet quicker, keeping pellet speed down. In this case, that higher reg pressure of 112 is keeping me just barely legal for sub 20fpe field target. And a lower reg pressure is increasing the fpe even more, and a higher reg pressure is increasing the fpe even more, with the additional downside of a worsening extreme spread.

I don't like living on the edge so did some digging around online for lighter hammer springs. They came in the mail today and aren't going to work.

Bobby suggested the alternative would be to put a 008 oring on the poppet, acting as a shim to increase preload on the poppet return spring. Or he said I could also find a slightly higher rate poppet return spring than the OEM one in the gun. I've not followed through with either of those suggestions but I'm leaning towards trying the 008 oring shim idea first.

I did however, have some "therapy" this afternoon. For me, therapy is shooting.

Wind wasn't the best for accuracy assessment but I still had fun. This covers the time-frame I was shooting.


The purple are the gusts, the black right in front of it the sustained wind speeds. So call it an average of 15mph sustained and 26mph gusts. Lol, yeah, it was windy for 20fpe.

I've found that shooting in wind like this it's much more informative to just hold dead on and see what the wind does, versus trying to guess where to hold for the gust of the moment. So all the paper shooting was no hold-offs.

Here are 8, 5 shot groups at 26 yards with the 13.73s averaging 815fps. Sterling .20....YEAH BUDDY!!!! (the hole right in the middle at the bottom edge was the shot that took off the flys wing).



And the following is 7, 5 shot groups at 55 yards, again with the 13.73s at 815fps. A litle less impressive here, got some left to right smearing of the groups, d/t the aforementioned 26-28mphs gusts. Although looks like the wind switched to right to left on that third one down in the left column.


Decided to move over to the 15.89s after that, only shot them on paper at 55 yards. Same scope zero but had to take 7 clicks off for vertical to be correct so looks like a 30 yard zero for the 20fpe tune with the 13.73s and a 55 yard zero for the 29fpe tune with the 15.89s. Left column here was "14" on the hammer tension wheel which was 915fps average during the previous chrono session. Right column was with it on "12" on the wheel so probably 900-910fps. To me, seemed to do a bit better at the slightly slower speed. 3 of them are almost covered by dimes.




And the really cool thing is that two of the groups had 4 of the 5 shots in a hole about 2.5-3 pellet diameters wide. The next photo is zoomed in enough to see the lead smears of the 4 pellet strikes going into nearly the same hole...That's at 55 yards in 15-28mph winds with no hold off!!!


I've got 2 inch steel paddles at 72, 82, and 92 yards and had fun smacking them around after the paper shooting. Wasn't too tough to connect, but did require figuring out the hold off for the wind. And I was for sure using the 15.89s and their 0.046ish BC for the longer range shooting on the spinners. I also got Strelok set ups built for both the 13.73 at 815 and the 15.89s at 910-915.

I filled the gun before all this shooting (250bar) and reg pressure is at 120bar after all that. All shots off that one fill. Lots of shots at the steel paddles. Dunno how many but probably up around 200 shots total from that one fill. SWEET!

All in all I simply had a bunch of fun with the Ghost .20. I'm really excited to shoot it at the summer field target matches. And also to take out a bunch of pdogs with it.

(Thank you Bobby).

Solo1 said:

Really enjoying your ghost travels and waiting to hear more so i can compare when my ghost 177 hp finally arrives!

Click to expand...

What's the intended projectile and use for your .177 HP?

I think the HP is a good choice, primarily b/c if I understand it correctly, the HP comes with a polygonal rifled barrel. The poly rifling, plus the additional barrel length (over the 17inch Carbine) will allow you to push heavy stuff if that's your desire, but also should be a bit less wind sensitive at sub 20fpe, if field target is on the menu.

@SorenDrost has been shooting slugs from a .177 Ghost HP for a few months now and the accuracy results he shares are enough to make nearly any airgunners smile. And he stretches it out too, so those good groups are long range.

I wonder where I heard that the .177 HPs come with a polygonal rifled barrel?

@SorenDrost, what type of rifling is in your .177 HP barrel?