I recently sold my Leshiy 2 .25 / 250mm and Crosman 1720 and bought a .22. Brocock Ranger XR from Airguns of Arizona.
First --- I had a great experience with AoA. Really awesome customer service and patience answering questions for a couple weeks before I pulled the trigger.
I wanted the robustness and extremely small folded size of the L2 and the accuracy of the 1720 in one package, and I was willing to sacrifice semi auto. The LW barrel of the Ranger XR coupled with their well established XR action seemed to be a match, and the accessories the Ranger comes with meant I would be "all in" with the initial purchase. The ability to mount a light on a side rail specifically was important to me for night time pest duty. I also wanted to move to hand pumping --- this is a personal preference thing but the small cylinder and fundamental efficiency of the Ranger was appealing.
First, the bad --- The ranger isn't a perfect gun. The pressure gauge is in the wrong spot. In 2023, I shouldn't need to violate fundamental gun safety rules to check my pressure. Second, the safety is inside of the trigger guard --- the safety itself is great, positive, clicky, etc, but don't make me put my finger inside the guard to go in safe. Third and final --- there's no double loading prevention which is a minor quibble but I have done it twice in the ~2k rounds I've got through the gun.
Now, the good: The fit and finish on the gun is great, it is extremelly robust --- my 1720 always made me feel like I was going to break it. The surface treatment is a mystery, but feels good to the touch and I think will hold up well. The trigger was great for me out of the box. It's likely heavier stock than some people like, but the second stage breaks crisply and consistently and I would never be nervous about it in the field. Fundamentally, the gun is more accurate than I am. Out to 25 yards it is literally hole in hole, and if I really pay attentuon I'm getting slightly un 1/2 inch 11 shot groups center to center at 30 yards. I did extensive testing of a wide variety of pellets at a variety of hammerspring adjustments with the port wide open. The final tune --- JSB 16gr right around 700fps ended up being exactly the settings that AoA sent me thr gun at. There's some hilarity there, and I enjoyed the process, but it truly was a "remove from package and go" gun. Here's the test target AoA sent me, followed by one of my final tuning targets. My groups are 11 round full magazine groups at 30 yards from a Caldwell Turret. Top 2 are final tune, bottom 3 a little hotter. The gun shoots like those two groups down to about 185 m/s.
The hammer spring is easily adjusted from the back of the gun, folded open, with an allen key. While these adjustments arent perfectly repeatable, it isn't bad. One improvement would be more travel on that adjustment screw --- you've only got about one full turn and a bit more would make it less fiddly I think.
Thoughts on the Ranger acessories package: For my usecase, the $400 was well spent. The tiny little 0dB absolutely makes this gun backyard quiet. A thread protector is included as well. The folding mechanism locks up TIGHT --- the only play is in the adjustable buffertube stock itself and very, very minor. I needed side picatinny rails for a night light and likely a laser for sub 10 yard pesting eventually. Bottom rail holds my bipod adapter. The AR stock feels like a high quality one.
Thoughts on testing: I originally was going to post a whole slew of target pictures here. My testing regime was to lead in at 15 yards with two mags when I swapped ammo, verifying that I was solidly on target, and then do 5 11 shot mags from the knee down.
The TLDR is as follows:
As @L.Leon has said, it likes Crosman Premieres. Walmart special CPHP are about 3/4 inch groups at 30 yards right at the knee, but widen at slower speeds. CP Ultra Magnum 14.3 domed are right around 1/2 inch with a flyer every 20 rounds or so widening that group to 3/4. They widen quickly at slower speeds. If you are price sensitive or shoot a LOT, you're in luck becausw this gun loves cheap, widely available ammo.
16 grain JSB were the best in the end, ties with 18 grain JSB right at and under the knee. The differentiator for me was that the 16grs shot considtently from ~214 m/s (700fps) on down to about 170 m/s while barely widening. Crosman ammo and the 18grs widened quickly.
The other three ammos in the running were RwS Super Points and Polymag Shorts which were about as accurate as CPHP, and Norma Golden Trophy Heavy (17gr) which had a narrow sweet spot where they shot similar to JSBs.
Big disappointments were JSB 13s and 14s and H&N Match (Including thr Daystate branded Kaisers.) Thr Kaisers are BEAUTIFUL ammo visually, very consistent, but were shooting ~1.25 inch groups at 30 yards for me. The lighter weight JSB domes were similarly wide.
Anyways, I'm very happy with the gun, and with my LPVO and green Streamlitr, I can get 1 inch 11 shot groups in the middle of the night. The gun is tough, folds up small enough for any bag, and is a pleasure to shoot. I don't think I'm gunna have a starling or night time snake problem this year.
First --- I had a great experience with AoA. Really awesome customer service and patience answering questions for a couple weeks before I pulled the trigger.
I wanted the robustness and extremely small folded size of the L2 and the accuracy of the 1720 in one package, and I was willing to sacrifice semi auto. The LW barrel of the Ranger XR coupled with their well established XR action seemed to be a match, and the accessories the Ranger comes with meant I would be "all in" with the initial purchase. The ability to mount a light on a side rail specifically was important to me for night time pest duty. I also wanted to move to hand pumping --- this is a personal preference thing but the small cylinder and fundamental efficiency of the Ranger was appealing.
First, the bad --- The ranger isn't a perfect gun. The pressure gauge is in the wrong spot. In 2023, I shouldn't need to violate fundamental gun safety rules to check my pressure. Second, the safety is inside of the trigger guard --- the safety itself is great, positive, clicky, etc, but don't make me put my finger inside the guard to go in safe. Third and final --- there's no double loading prevention which is a minor quibble but I have done it twice in the ~2k rounds I've got through the gun.
Now, the good: The fit and finish on the gun is great, it is extremelly robust --- my 1720 always made me feel like I was going to break it. The surface treatment is a mystery, but feels good to the touch and I think will hold up well. The trigger was great for me out of the box. It's likely heavier stock than some people like, but the second stage breaks crisply and consistently and I would never be nervous about it in the field. Fundamentally, the gun is more accurate than I am. Out to 25 yards it is literally hole in hole, and if I really pay attentuon I'm getting slightly un 1/2 inch 11 shot groups center to center at 30 yards. I did extensive testing of a wide variety of pellets at a variety of hammerspring adjustments with the port wide open. The final tune --- JSB 16gr right around 700fps ended up being exactly the settings that AoA sent me thr gun at. There's some hilarity there, and I enjoyed the process, but it truly was a "remove from package and go" gun. Here's the test target AoA sent me, followed by one of my final tuning targets. My groups are 11 round full magazine groups at 30 yards from a Caldwell Turret. Top 2 are final tune, bottom 3 a little hotter. The gun shoots like those two groups down to about 185 m/s.
The hammer spring is easily adjusted from the back of the gun, folded open, with an allen key. While these adjustments arent perfectly repeatable, it isn't bad. One improvement would be more travel on that adjustment screw --- you've only got about one full turn and a bit more would make it less fiddly I think.
Thoughts on the Ranger acessories package: For my usecase, the $400 was well spent. The tiny little 0dB absolutely makes this gun backyard quiet. A thread protector is included as well. The folding mechanism locks up TIGHT --- the only play is in the adjustable buffertube stock itself and very, very minor. I needed side picatinny rails for a night light and likely a laser for sub 10 yard pesting eventually. Bottom rail holds my bipod adapter. The AR stock feels like a high quality one.
Thoughts on testing: I originally was going to post a whole slew of target pictures here. My testing regime was to lead in at 15 yards with two mags when I swapped ammo, verifying that I was solidly on target, and then do 5 11 shot mags from the knee down.
The TLDR is as follows:
As @L.Leon has said, it likes Crosman Premieres. Walmart special CPHP are about 3/4 inch groups at 30 yards right at the knee, but widen at slower speeds. CP Ultra Magnum 14.3 domed are right around 1/2 inch with a flyer every 20 rounds or so widening that group to 3/4. They widen quickly at slower speeds. If you are price sensitive or shoot a LOT, you're in luck becausw this gun loves cheap, widely available ammo.
16 grain JSB were the best in the end, ties with 18 grain JSB right at and under the knee. The differentiator for me was that the 16grs shot considtently from ~214 m/s (700fps) on down to about 170 m/s while barely widening. Crosman ammo and the 18grs widened quickly.
The other three ammos in the running were RwS Super Points and Polymag Shorts which were about as accurate as CPHP, and Norma Golden Trophy Heavy (17gr) which had a narrow sweet spot where they shot similar to JSBs.
Big disappointments were JSB 13s and 14s and H&N Match (Including thr Daystate branded Kaisers.) Thr Kaisers are BEAUTIFUL ammo visually, very consistent, but were shooting ~1.25 inch groups at 30 yards for me. The lighter weight JSB domes were similarly wide.
Anyways, I'm very happy with the gun, and with my LPVO and green Streamlitr, I can get 1 inch 11 shot groups in the middle of the night. The gun is tough, folds up small enough for any bag, and is a pleasure to shoot. I don't think I'm gunna have a starling or night time snake problem this year.
