BRK Ghost Review

[Franklink]

That's exciting! Look forward to more as you begin to shoot a lot & further dial in. That .20 barrel kit--plus your secret sauce--could be a big seller!

Sorry if previously explained, is the function of the buckets to trap & contain lead? Keep targets out of wind & rain? Keep neighbors from seeing what you're doing?

The buckets are just my makeshift pellet traps. Yes they contain the lead and yes they keep targets a little protected from rain. They're kinda dual-use, trap and target holder.

I'm not nutty about lead like some seem to be, but with the volume I shoot, I'd sure have a lot of pellets scattered everywhere if I wasnt containing them somehow.

 

[Franklink]

@Franklink I gotta figure out how you are able to match strelok that closely. I can tweak bc, scope height, velocity, etc and match at one or two ranges but not at all yardages…

It's always close, but not perfect at all distances. With this particular setup, once I got the scope height figured out, it matched from 12-55 yards but 10 and 11 weren't correct. And if I tweaked scope height to make 10 and 11 correct then it skewed the far ones. Seems to always be like this too, no matter the rig. That's why I always shoot actual distances. I view Strelok as suggestions.

 

[Erdb]

It's always close, but not perfect at all distances. With this particular setup, once I got the scope height figured out, it matched from 12-55 yards but 10 and 11 weren't correct. And if I tweaked scope height to make 10 and 11 correct then it skewed the far ones. Seems to always be like this too, no matter the rig. That's why I always shoot actual distances. I view Strelok as suggestions.

Okay, this seems more inline with my Strelock experience. I’ll look at it differently without the expectation that I should match perfectly at all ranges.

 

[rc4fun]

For anyone waiting PalmBeach Airguns has some Ghosts in stock.

 

[rsfrid]

For anyone waiting PalmBeach Airguns has some Ghosts in stock.

So does High Pressure Pneumatics in Michigan.

 

[Franklink]

Had some fun throwing the long bombs this evening with the .20 Ghost.

It was a bit windy but the 15.89gr .20 Heavy @ 915-920fps didn't care. Was shooting from about 530-630pm.

I've got permanent steel at 92, 125, and 135 yards, and the Ghost was cooperating on all of them.

Here's ten shots at a steel post at 135 yards. 0.9mil hold off into the wind, with 5.2 mils of elevation dialed in.
Shiniest ten shots were from this evening.

Walked out to set up some paper @ 92 yards when I took the above photo.....
Shot a couple groups on that 92 yards paper but didn't walk back out to take a close up. First 5 shots on paper were in a horizontal line about 2 inches long-all would have gotten a critter or Xtreme Field Target kill zone.

And while I was shooting the paper the real fun began. Some starlings landed in the top of the tree in the background of the above photo.

Laser rangefinder shows the top branches of that tree @ 168 yards. 8.3mils of dialed elevation and it took me three shots to figure out 2 mils of hold-off for the wind. Gotta admit that I was pretty shocked when the pellet smacked and he flipped upside down, briefly hanging on by his toes before straight-lining it directly to the ground.

Puffed feathers off another starlings chest in the same branches in the next few minutes and scared the doo doo out of a Euro dove when the branch he was sitting on blew apart under his feet. Close but no cigar on those last two.

Gotta love it. Shook my head in disbelief at those three 168 yard shots. If ever there was a time for scope cam....

I've said before and I'll say it again: the 15.89gr Heavy @ 915-920, producing a ballistic coefficient of just under 0.05, is a long range SLEEPER. Amazing pellet + exceptional barrel + top-of-the-line airgun = big smiles and impressive results.

Gotta love the access we have to ballistics apps like Strelok. All of the above wouldn't have happened without it open on my phone next to the rifle.

Finally, I shot A BUNCH of pellets this evening, and never refilled the gun. I'd hazard a guess of 75+ shots. Another reason why I find such joy in the small calibers.


(Area beyond the tree is not residential, nor recreational. And this time of year, there's not even livestock back there, just nearly barren scrub juniper landscape).

 

[Off Kilter]

For anyone waiting PalmBeach Airguns has some Ghosts in stock.

They have one less now. Thank you.

 

[Franklink]

Just had a 15 min pesting session at my extended families feed lot/silage pits.

.20/13.73gr JSBs going 810fps are pretty potent medicine for small pests. Most shots were roughly scope zero of 25-45 yards. Closest was 23 yards and furthest was one of the Euros @ 66yards.


These were what I could recover.

Not pictured are a few more starlings and a ground squirrel. Really wish I could have recovered the squirrel but they're tough to anchor, even with solid vitals shots like he took. The laws of gravity are just different with ground squirrels, they always seem to "fall" into their nearest hole with their last tidbit of neural activity.

All in all, super fun mini pesting session.

 

[Franklink]

I shot 4 EBR cards at 95 yards this evening, with the .20/15.89gr going 915-920. Wind was pretty rough, 0.2-1.2 mil hold-offs, going both left to right, quite variable.

No sighters and no wind flags.

I shot them the way I typically do, 5 shots at each of the 6 bulls. So, 120 consecutive shots.

Worst was a 213 or a 215 (if I keep the worst of the 6 or the next to the worst of the 6).

Best was a 218 or a 220 (again, if I keep the worst of the 6 or the next to the worst of the 6).

Not too bad for the little .20.

 

[Franklink]

Just had another mini pesting session.

Two of the Euros were at 35 yards. The other two were at 68 and 71 yards. Quite a bit of hold off for them in the 30+ mph gusts today.

I was happiest about the little male English House Sparrow. 52 yards and about 0.9mils for the wind. Probably the most difficult shot of the day.

Fun stuff.

 

[pesty3782]

Cole break out the bacon, jalapeño, and a BBQ!

Tony P

 

[Franklink]

I've got some confessing to do. I just recently learned that practicing is frowned upon for competitions. And I've been practicing with the .20 Ghost at just under 20fpe, with the previously stated intent to use it for regular field target matches. In fact, I practiced a bit this morning.

Maybe we should have a poll to see how many points in the negative a guy should start with if he practices a little?

You may notice I omitted the sun shade and I'm not using the knee riser when shooting from a bum bag. Both of those items make the gun seem larger and more bulky than it really is. We'll see how this upcoming match goes with these two changes to the rig.

Regardless of a guy's personal opinions about whether or not practice should count against somebody, taking about 40 minutes to shoot through 10-55 yards and then a bit at some spinners at 70, 80, and 90 yards was sure a good start to the day this morning.

 

[Aimright]

Cheater

 

[Franklink]

Cheater

I know. I feel really bad about it.

I've been going through options of what we could do to even the playing field so that guys who don't practice have a fair chance at winning. Maybe no scopes allowed for practice-ers? Or the afore-mentioned starting the match with a negative/deficit/hole from which the practice-er has to crawl their way out of? Or maybe practice-ers should only be allowed to load their pellets into the barrel backwards? Perhaps they should only get to use 25% of the fpe as the non-practice-ers?

I dunno what the solution is. but SOMETHING needs done to those of us that have the audacity to practice (even if it's only a little practice).

The biggest problem for me is that I like to shoot airguns. And simply shooting them could be misconstrued as practice.

 

[Erdb]

I've had folks visiting for a week so I've probably missed a thread but "practicing is frowned on"... seriously?

I've been thinking about getting a .177 barrel for my Ghost just so I could try Field Target (sub-20 is all that is available on the East Coast) but it seems crazy that one can spend big $$ on Field Target rigs but not practice?

 

[rc4fun]

.177 barrel kit? Where? I've been on AOA list since December.

 

[Erdb]

@rc4fun - "thinking about getting a .177 barrel for my Ghost". When they are available

 

[Solo1]

Finally got my ghost hp 177 today. First it does have a poly barrel Second and boy o boy it will put at 10 m anyway 13.4 jsb and 13 gr h& n slugs thru the same hole and at the same speed! Reg @ not quite 100 bar only bad is hammer makes no adjustments in velocity from min to max. Just talked to aoa they said they have a medium hammer spring their sending so i have at least some adj. stock 150 bar 13.4 jsb shot 983

 

[Franklink]

Finally got my ghost hp 177 today. First it does have a poly barrel Second and boy o boy it will put at 10 m anyway 13.4 jsb and 13 gr h& n slugs thru the same hole and at the same speed! Reg @ not quite 100 bar only bad is hammer makes no adjustments in velocity from min to max. Just talked to aoa they said they have a medium hammer spring their sending so i have at least some adj. stock 150 bar 13.4 jsb shot 983

Congrats!

With all the fiddling and adjusting I've done on this one, there have been a handful of combinations landed on where the power wheel doesn't affect speed. If you're saying that with a reg of 100 bar, the power wheel isn't having any effect, it's probably because your low reg pressure is your velocity limiting factor. So hitting the valve harder (by increasing hammer tension via the power wheel) is not increasing the speed.

As an example, from the current .20 "tunes".... I'm getting 805-810fps with the 13.73grain pellets on MIN, and up to 1000fps with the 15.89grainers on MAX. And that's with the same 140bar reg pressure. I'm of course not shooting the 15.89s that fast, but rather settling on "10" for 900, "11" for 910, and "12" for 920. So in this set-up, there's a wide range of fps available from only the power wheel.

Related, and interesting thing to note here is that I'm using a regulator pressure that's a compromise. With the hammer spring that I've been using, the fps for the 13.73s actually peaks around 120-125bar (at about 880fps), and MIN hammer wheel at that reg pressure is too fast to be legal for field target. Reg of 120-125 bar will also not push the 15.89s as fast as I want them to go. SOooooo, I'm using a higher than optimal reg pressure for the 13.73s, and taking advantage of the fact that fps goes down as reg pressure goes up (in the scenario of THIS hammer spring, and THIS barrel length, in .20) to stay legal for field target. The only downside is that my first shot of the session with the 13.73s is about 30fps slower than all the rest. Small price to pay to be able to just use the wheel to get the desired speed out of the heavier .20 pellet. while still staying ft legal for the lighter .20 pellets.

On that note, I just finished getting my permanent dope sheet ready. Gots my data for both pellets at both speeds, out to 200yds, and yes I'll shoot the Heavies that far (have been already). It'll likely get taped to the bottle, or perhaps somewhere else on the gun. (I don't love the holdunders for 25-55 yards for the Heavies, but it's a much better alternative than rezeroing).

 

[Solo1]

Just put 1 of the larger huma gauges on for the reg. It says 85 bar instead of almost 100 that the stock gauge read. I’ll be happy if it will shoot 13.4 rd’s at 815 consistently and 13 h&n and possibly 15 gr nsa to over 900 - 920. Thats enough power for what i want it gives me a nice .2 flatspot from 25-50 yds an still gives good trajectory at 100. Can’t wait to get out and see what it will do @50&100 cause inside it’s damn amazing!