I received my .22 Raptor on Saturday afternoon, but I was attending a baseball game at the time so I didn't get to see it until Sunday morning. Waking up like a child on Christmas morning, I got into the box and started mulling over the beautiful piece. I hastily installed a BSA scope that I had set aside for it for break in and set up the chair for a sight in. After a few clips I had it shooting hole-in-hole at 25 yards.
I had a previously planned dove hunt with Steveoh and I was intending on using my FX Streamline .25. After the arrival/sight in of the Raptor I decided to go with it instead. What better way to break in a new gun than with some field use? Steveoh wasn't arriving until noon so I had a window of opportunity to get the Raptor up and running.
Driving up to the dairy, the Eurasian doves were everywhere around the grain barn. As soon as we got out, I took a shot at about 30 yards at a dove on a wire and WHACK!, first shot first kill. Great way to start. Steveoh set up his Born Wild Chair with the .25 Sumatra and I set my chair up with the Raptor. We had a steady stream of birds and we shot them from 15 yards out to 75 yards. We ended up with 22 doves in the cooler, a handful of pigeons, and innumerable starlings. A few doves landed on the tin roofs of the barns (helicoptering/angled falling from the wires) and a few others were also wounded and flew off or dropped in impossible-to-get-to locations. Since we were pesting, recovery wasn't as important as taking out the offending grain eaters.
The Raptor performed great and the shot count/magazine capacity is awesome. Very quiet gun and ergonomically really nice. One thing I noticed was how the accuracy got better and better the more pellets I shot. As expected, the break in period is highly important. The first couple of clips were erratic at 50 yards but then it started to settle down. I will be doing more range work in the coming days/weeks as time allows; have a fairly full schedule work-wise and it's also getting into the last couple of weeks of blacktail deer season so I'm a little focused on that.
Thank you Travis and crew for the great gun. It's all I was hoping for and more. Can't wait to learn more about it and see what it's capable of. I will post more results as I get them.
I had a previously planned dove hunt with Steveoh and I was intending on using my FX Streamline .25. After the arrival/sight in of the Raptor I decided to go with it instead. What better way to break in a new gun than with some field use? Steveoh wasn't arriving until noon so I had a window of opportunity to get the Raptor up and running.
Driving up to the dairy, the Eurasian doves were everywhere around the grain barn. As soon as we got out, I took a shot at about 30 yards at a dove on a wire and WHACK!, first shot first kill. Great way to start. Steveoh set up his Born Wild Chair with the .25 Sumatra and I set my chair up with the Raptor. We had a steady stream of birds and we shot them from 15 yards out to 75 yards. We ended up with 22 doves in the cooler, a handful of pigeons, and innumerable starlings. A few doves landed on the tin roofs of the barns (helicoptering/angled falling from the wires) and a few others were also wounded and flew off or dropped in impossible-to-get-to locations. Since we were pesting, recovery wasn't as important as taking out the offending grain eaters.
The Raptor performed great and the shot count/magazine capacity is awesome. Very quiet gun and ergonomically really nice. One thing I noticed was how the accuracy got better and better the more pellets I shot. As expected, the break in period is highly important. The first couple of clips were erratic at 50 yards but then it started to settle down. I will be doing more range work in the coming days/weeks as time allows; have a fairly full schedule work-wise and it's also getting into the last couple of weeks of blacktail deer season so I'm a little focused on that.
Thank you Travis and crew for the great gun. It's all I was hoping for and more. Can't wait to learn more about it and see what it's capable of. I will post more results as I get them.
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