Benjamin Benjamin Bulldog .357 (original) Shooting .35 Seneca Airbolts

bthurman said:

Have you tried the non fletched arrows out of your bulldog?

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@bthurman I have not.

This bag will stop the bolts, but I spend half my time pulling bolts out. I’m to the point where I’m cutting them out now.

I just cut and pulled the last bolt out. I have to try something different to attempt to work around this issue. I have an idea or two. We shall soon see.


And that’s that.

A shot string from earlier. 2800 psi to 2400 psi in four shots.

bthurman said:

I used to buy these but we now make our own here in our shop. . Out of the Taurus doing 651fps. Had to go with a Himus CF shaft to handle the iimpact, blew a few apart testing but we got it figured out. And yes sucks pulling out of a bag sometimes, try a 4 inch tree trunk just have to laugh and cut. We usally cut back the power to 525 -530. But even at high speed they are accurate and dont have to worry about tearing flechings apart.
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@bthurman A few years back I approached Seneca about getting some of the older bolts with the Velcro on them. They claimed they didn’t have any to sell and had no access to them. This was during the pandemic so you may remember supply chain issues. I don't tend to tear up fletching anymore. The bolt with the torn up fletching in my photos is one I tore up a a few years back when I was figuring this all out.

That‘s pretty slick to make your own. I imagine that the Benjamin M357 would bust these bolts up pretty bad. Which is why I use the original Bulldog .357 for shooting bolts. It will get the job done for my style of hunting. I shot one of these bolts from the Bulldog .357 with a broadhead into a tree on a deer hunt once and broke the shaft just below the ferrule. I had to leave my broadhead in that tree trunk. I think it was an oak tree. I have a thread where I wrote about it. Anyhow, yea the goal is to not tear up bolts and broadhwads, hence the hay as a backstop. I have shot at a bunk-ass Block 6x6 target advertised to stop “all broadheads & field tips“, blew through it with field points and broadheads and also blew the plywood backstop behind it. I don’t think the thing could stop a tranquilizer dart. You can imagine how that went if you didn’t read through that thread.

bthurman said:

I used to buy these but we now make our own here in our shop. . Out of the Taurus doing 651fps. Had to go with a Himus CF shaft to handle the iimpact, blew a few apart testing but we got it figured out. And yes sucks pulling out of a bag sometimes, try a 4 inch tree trunk just have to laugh and cut. We usally cut back the power to 525 -530. But even at high speed they are accurate and dont have to worry about tearing flechings apart.
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@bthurman I just read the print on the pictured bolts In the quoted post. Are the ones in the photos bolts that you made?

@bthurman Understood. Thanks for clarifying. I haven’t seen that brand of bolt before, although it looks close to the font and colors that Seneca uses.

markhooper said:

you might just try a paper target on your bale of straw.. it's what my daughter's did.. didn't work for me, I missed the whole stack and it went inside the barn.. ended up moving a ton of hay to retrieve the one arrow I shot .. course that was with a regular bow.. I've stayed clear of arrows since..
Mark

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@markhooper It’s an option I may explore if I get tired of other targets.

markhooper said:

I think you can detune the m357 to the original one if you change the transfer port.. I could make them for you if I had one.. actually if you had a m357 transfer port to copy and the original inside diameter of the old 357.. I believe they just drilled out the port bigger.
Mark

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@markhooper Why would I do that when I own both? Besides, the original Bulldog is lighter to carry than the M357.

Here is a link to my first thread learning to shoot these. https://www.airgunnation.com/threads/35-air-bolts-for-the-357-benjamin-bulldog.1271564/

The DOPE I compiled from a few years ago is still good. I dialed my scope back down to what I recorded in my notes and it was close to accurate. Gotta love good DOPE.

markhooper said:

oh ok well I'm sorry.. absolutely no reason to do that..only reason to do that is if you wanted to make the m357 down to the same power level as original.. sorry for the offer of help.. didn't mean to offend anyone.
Mark

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@markhooper No offense taken. I was puzzled by your suggestion because I didn’t mention tuning down my M357, so I asked “why would I do that?” Then I stated why I would not. In our conversation Brian and I were talking about shooting air bolts from 3 different versions of the Bulldog .357 platform. They have different power levels. You answered my question in the quoted post above.