The house remodel and general property up-do has kept me mighty busy for the last 10 months. Finally had a chance to shoot and do a little airgun stuff in the last two weeks.
First off, the house had a really deep garage and I had a room built into the front end of the garage, it's only 5.5 wide by 12 long with 10 foot ceiling but man o man is it sweet to finally have a dedicated airgun spot. At the previous house my airgun stuff was stuffed into the master closet, and the tool room, and the garage. In the tool room at the previous house there were zero outlets and I was always running extension cords. I paid the electrician to go nuts in my little hobby room in the new house 8 outlets in a 66 sq ft room is SWEET. Other than the simple convenience of having an airgun place, the HUGE one is having my compressor set-up all ready to go. No more dragging tanks out to the compressor and then dragging extension cords.
Oh. cabinets were leftovers from kitchen remodel (always nice to reuse something to good effect and save a bit of dough).
It wasn't the only reason, but the large open area behind the house and the potential to shoot airguns there factored into the decision to purchase this property. It WAS weeds and dirt, but I've spent a lot of time sitting on a tractor getting that back field level so that it would water correctly. Had to dig ditches and move A LOT of dirt from high places to low places but it finally waters pretty well. Quite the feat of engineering to make that work. I thoroughly underestimated the time that would require over the last several months. Planted a pasture grass mix about 10 days ago and have a bunch of little grassies popping up now.
We went with these small section sliders on this window on the second story. When the window guy gave us the options I picked this out, thinking it would make an exceptional clandestine shooting area for sniping less-desirables like starlings, and just general inclement weather shooting. Can get to 135 yards from this window. I've made a mental habit of making sure the window is open every time before I pull the trigger. Hopefully I can keep up that habit and not shoot out the glass.
(guy coming on Sat to move the shed)
Now to the guns.
Just a few days ago I purchased and received an Athlon Midas Tac 6-24 x 50 mil, to go on the .20 Veteran Short. And, as so often happens with a new scope, the scope cascade occurred, although this time around was simplified and mostly a changing around of scope mounts.
The long has had black mounts on it since I got it. BUT, I've had these silver mounts as a spare set, just floating around for a year.
Decided that now would be a great time to swap the silver mounts onto the gray laminate Long, purely for aesthetic reasons (not something I typically care too much about).
Also went all kinds of crazy and got the bubble level actually level.
I have mixed feelings about bubble levels. Just yesterday I was whacking pdogs with the Long and didn't think once about looking at a bubble level. I killed around 25 of them, with most being in the 60-90 yard range, but at least 10 of them were along a fence line that was between 100-115 yards away from me. So, I've never been convinced that bubble levels are necessary, I just mentally get the crosshairs at what seems to be straight and can hit what I'm aiming at. BUT, just for giggles I got serious about the bubble level since I was remounting the scope anyway. (partial argument is that how do we ever have any sort of idea how level whatever part of the action we're indexing off of is actually level?).
That freed up the black mount to go on the .20 Vet Short.
Here's a few of the Long compared to the Short (note that neither have OEM length barrels, and the Long has a plenum addition, so don't use this photo as a reference when comparing Long and Short). Just simple, solid airguns.
It's not completely mounted yet cuz the Short's stock is at my woodworker buddy's getting a Anschutz rail inletted into the forearm, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Midas Tac 6-24x50 was not much bigger than the 20x SWFA's that have been the ole reliables on both these guns for so long. I think the Midas Tac only has a couple ounces on the SWFA, less than an inch longer, and a 50mm bell vs 42 on the SWFA. Very minimally bigger scope, and that's a good thing.
I'm having a comma sidewheel made for the Midas Tac right now too.
During all the pic taking I realized that I don't think I've ever mentioned the one piece fill probes that I prefer for the Vets.
Made by Eagle Vision, the one piece is only slightly larger than the brass OEM fill probe, and the Taipan-supplied brass probe still needs a foster screwed to it to be a functional probe. I love the much smaller profile of the Eagle Vision probe. The one piece probe just lives in the gun, as if it had a foster (like all airguns should) instead of a probe. Take a look at some of the above pics of the guns to see how much less the one piece sticks out of the gun than the oem/foster contraption would.
Now for performance. Top notch, as expected.
The Short has pulled field target and silhouette duty for the past two months, in a 800fps with the 13.73gr configuration. It's done well. I also recently found that it seems to really like the Heavy .20s at about 915-920 (around 30fpe). Coincidentally, the difference there is exactly one revolution of the hammer spring tension. So, it was decided that it will go back and forth between those two power outputs.
The Long was shot by a couple of us at the Xtreme FT event we had over in NM a few weekends ago. I shot a 32/40 with it, if I remember right. A friend shared it with me during the match and knocked down one more than myself. He'd never shot the gun, or a bullpup.
The Long, at around 40fpe has proven to be absolute poison to the pdogs in the last two outings (only two outings this year actually). Is is very dry out away from the irrigated fields and the pdog numbers this year are even more sparse than normal. In fact, the Monster RDs out of this gun made me comment to a friend that they're so potent and have extended my useful range so much more than my typical low power stuff (couple with already low numbers) that I'm going to have to be careful to not kill them all off. In the past I've always killed them with <20fpe guns. The Long at 40fpe feels much less like fair chase and much more like eradication/outright removal.
In initial testing the .20 Heavys at 30ish fpe from the Short seem like they're really holding together well at long range in the wind. I shot two EBR cards at 109 yards with the Short and the .20 Heavys and 2 cards with the Long at 40fpe with the .22 Monster RDs. The MRDs had the best score (222), by quite a bit. But when the wind came up, the second card from the .20 Heavy's was only 1 point less than the first card, while the second (windy) card from the Long with the MRDs was almost 30 points less than the first card with the MRDs when the wind wasn't quite so bad. Almost seems to suggest that the .20 Heavies from this particular barrel are perhaps more wind resistant than the .22 MRDs from this particular barrel. More testing necessary there for sure.
In a hobby where at least half the fun is getting/being excited to acquire the latest greatest, I'm completely content with the Veteran platform. No frills. Solid. Dependable. Reliable. Accurate. I think I could cut back to four airguns and be completely satisfied (FWB300 for low power, low stress plinking and occasional 10m fun, USFT in .177 for serious field target competition, Vet Short in .20 for convenient and simple field target comp and as the numero uno general use airgun, Vet Long in .22 for Xtreme FT and long range critter popping).
First off, the house had a really deep garage and I had a room built into the front end of the garage, it's only 5.5 wide by 12 long with 10 foot ceiling but man o man is it sweet to finally have a dedicated airgun spot. At the previous house my airgun stuff was stuffed into the master closet, and the tool room, and the garage. In the tool room at the previous house there were zero outlets and I was always running extension cords. I paid the electrician to go nuts in my little hobby room in the new house 8 outlets in a 66 sq ft room is SWEET. Other than the simple convenience of having an airgun place, the HUGE one is having my compressor set-up all ready to go. No more dragging tanks out to the compressor and then dragging extension cords.
Oh. cabinets were leftovers from kitchen remodel (always nice to reuse something to good effect and save a bit of dough).
It wasn't the only reason, but the large open area behind the house and the potential to shoot airguns there factored into the decision to purchase this property. It WAS weeds and dirt, but I've spent a lot of time sitting on a tractor getting that back field level so that it would water correctly. Had to dig ditches and move A LOT of dirt from high places to low places but it finally waters pretty well. Quite the feat of engineering to make that work. I thoroughly underestimated the time that would require over the last several months. Planted a pasture grass mix about 10 days ago and have a bunch of little grassies popping up now.
We went with these small section sliders on this window on the second story. When the window guy gave us the options I picked this out, thinking it would make an exceptional clandestine shooting area for sniping less-desirables like starlings, and just general inclement weather shooting. Can get to 135 yards from this window. I've made a mental habit of making sure the window is open every time before I pull the trigger. Hopefully I can keep up that habit and not shoot out the glass.
(guy coming on Sat to move the shed)
Now to the guns.
Just a few days ago I purchased and received an Athlon Midas Tac 6-24 x 50 mil, to go on the .20 Veteran Short. And, as so often happens with a new scope, the scope cascade occurred, although this time around was simplified and mostly a changing around of scope mounts.
The long has had black mounts on it since I got it. BUT, I've had these silver mounts as a spare set, just floating around for a year.
Decided that now would be a great time to swap the silver mounts onto the gray laminate Long, purely for aesthetic reasons (not something I typically care too much about).
Also went all kinds of crazy and got the bubble level actually level.
I have mixed feelings about bubble levels. Just yesterday I was whacking pdogs with the Long and didn't think once about looking at a bubble level. I killed around 25 of them, with most being in the 60-90 yard range, but at least 10 of them were along a fence line that was between 100-115 yards away from me. So, I've never been convinced that bubble levels are necessary, I just mentally get the crosshairs at what seems to be straight and can hit what I'm aiming at. BUT, just for giggles I got serious about the bubble level since I was remounting the scope anyway. (partial argument is that how do we ever have any sort of idea how level whatever part of the action we're indexing off of is actually level?).
That freed up the black mount to go on the .20 Vet Short.
Here's a few of the Long compared to the Short (note that neither have OEM length barrels, and the Long has a plenum addition, so don't use this photo as a reference when comparing Long and Short). Just simple, solid airguns.
It's not completely mounted yet cuz the Short's stock is at my woodworker buddy's getting a Anschutz rail inletted into the forearm, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Midas Tac 6-24x50 was not much bigger than the 20x SWFA's that have been the ole reliables on both these guns for so long. I think the Midas Tac only has a couple ounces on the SWFA, less than an inch longer, and a 50mm bell vs 42 on the SWFA. Very minimally bigger scope, and that's a good thing.
I'm having a comma sidewheel made for the Midas Tac right now too.
During all the pic taking I realized that I don't think I've ever mentioned the one piece fill probes that I prefer for the Vets.
Made by Eagle Vision, the one piece is only slightly larger than the brass OEM fill probe, and the Taipan-supplied brass probe still needs a foster screwed to it to be a functional probe. I love the much smaller profile of the Eagle Vision probe. The one piece probe just lives in the gun, as if it had a foster (like all airguns should) instead of a probe. Take a look at some of the above pics of the guns to see how much less the one piece sticks out of the gun than the oem/foster contraption would.
Now for performance. Top notch, as expected.
The Short has pulled field target and silhouette duty for the past two months, in a 800fps with the 13.73gr configuration. It's done well. I also recently found that it seems to really like the Heavy .20s at about 915-920 (around 30fpe). Coincidentally, the difference there is exactly one revolution of the hammer spring tension. So, it was decided that it will go back and forth between those two power outputs.
The Long was shot by a couple of us at the Xtreme FT event we had over in NM a few weekends ago. I shot a 32/40 with it, if I remember right. A friend shared it with me during the match and knocked down one more than myself. He'd never shot the gun, or a bullpup.
The Long, at around 40fpe has proven to be absolute poison to the pdogs in the last two outings (only two outings this year actually). Is is very dry out away from the irrigated fields and the pdog numbers this year are even more sparse than normal. In fact, the Monster RDs out of this gun made me comment to a friend that they're so potent and have extended my useful range so much more than my typical low power stuff (couple with already low numbers) that I'm going to have to be careful to not kill them all off. In the past I've always killed them with <20fpe guns. The Long at 40fpe feels much less like fair chase and much more like eradication/outright removal.
In initial testing the .20 Heavys at 30ish fpe from the Short seem like they're really holding together well at long range in the wind. I shot two EBR cards at 109 yards with the Short and the .20 Heavys and 2 cards with the Long at 40fpe with the .22 Monster RDs. The MRDs had the best score (222), by quite a bit. But when the wind came up, the second card from the .20 Heavy's was only 1 point less than the first card, while the second (windy) card from the Long with the MRDs was almost 30 points less than the first card with the MRDs when the wind wasn't quite so bad. Almost seems to suggest that the .20 Heavies from this particular barrel are perhaps more wind resistant than the .22 MRDs from this particular barrel. More testing necessary there for sure.
In a hobby where at least half the fun is getting/being excited to acquire the latest greatest, I'm completely content with the Veteran platform. No frills. Solid. Dependable. Reliable. Accurate. I think I could cut back to four airguns and be completely satisfied (FWB300 for low power, low stress plinking and occasional 10m fun, USFT in .177 for serious field target competition, Vet Short in .20 for convenient and simple field target comp and as the numero uno general use airgun, Vet Long in .22 for Xtreme FT and long range critter popping).
