What did you shoot today?

Shot at the steel silhouettes sighting in the new scope and dialing in my Strelok Pro app for ballistics between 100, 175, and 235 yards. I'm not quite as tight with regards to the group size on the ram at 235 yards with this 1-8 power as I was with the 4-32. But it does save weight and works superb! Aside from the three shots nearly the touching on the lower left, these are not "groups" shot one right after another either. Rather, there were several shots taken in between different targets and yardages, and figuring out holdover markings. Hence, the flyers. A big shout out goes to Tom Costan of American Air Arms for building the sweetest shooting rigs in America! Worth every penny!

FX Streamline .22 cal on low power (approx 525fps w/18.1) at cardboard 30 yards out.

Not today, not yesterday but on wednesday i was home sick with fever and a cold and decided that i would put a reddot on my Crosman 1077 and just shoot some close shots into my safetybox, put the box infront of the balconydoor and backed of 3-4 yards and pulled the trigger, BAAM, right into the door, a very nice round hole high to the right and i almost fainted, no no NO! I feldt so bad i didn't know what to do, i tried to get the pellet out but only managed to make the hole bigger so i stopped that ant filled the hole with a piece of wood and glue and painted it over, my gf have not noticed it yet, or atleast have not told me she has noticed it, and i will not say anything, i almost was on the verge to trow all my guns away cause i feldt so bad, and stupid, never gonna shoot indoors again... 

I really didn't think about it until after dinner, but I shot some very expensive hardware today. I sure hope that when I die my wife doesn't sell my air rifles for what I told her I paid for them!

1) Have been eyeing a .22 bullpup in the classifieds section. But decided before I pulled the trigger, I would pull out my standard power .22 Pulsar. I know that it is accurate as all heck, but I forgot the number of shots per fill. Well, at 25 yards she is giving me ~110 very accurate shots at mid power with JSB 15.89's. Guess I don't need that new BP from the classifieds.

2) Put some new glass on my .22 Red Wolf HP (with GCU 2.0 electronics = up to 65 FPE at the muzzle), so I had to zero her at 50 yards on my back yard range. Will take her to the real range next time I go for some 100 yard target work.

3) My .30 cal Crown Mk2 got the old glass from the RW HP, so I had to zero her at 50 yards.

4) Since I had my 50 yard target out, I figured I would shoot my new Crown field gun (.30 cal, converted to .25 cal and wearing a 380mm barrel and synthetic stock) out a bit further for a second time. I only built her last week. Today's performance was much better than the last time. 2 5-shot groups with 4 each in one hole, and each with a single flyer (when I didn't wait for the wind).

5) I hadn't shot my wife's .22 cal Dreamline Classic since I had installed a barrel band to deal with droop. After install of the barrel band, she was shooting about 1.5" high at 25 yards. Got her all re-zeroed and happy. A really accurate and smooth rifle using medium power with JSB 15.89's for 25 yard work.

6) My new/used black pepper Crown stock (thanks MoeHofer) arrived today. Came a day early as I guess USPS was trying to catch up on a backlog of parcel deliveries, and was working on a holiday. Put the stock on my .25 cal Crown Continuum 700mm barrel bench gun and just went out for a play and to function fire at 25 yards. Kind of neat how with the Crown you can set the transfer port to 177/22 and the hammer spring to 3 and have an easy shooting 25 yard gun. Then turn up the transfer port to 25/30 and the hammer spring to 5 and you can maintain virtually the same scope zero at 50 yards+.

I shot the HW30S at some dots on cardboard with open sights while testing pellets at 20 yards. Then I shot some steel eggs and later in the day I rolled a tin can around with the same gun. So easy and so fun!

I shot 9 magazines into a bullet trap target to empty all of the air out of the Evol as an experiment to see how many it would take to completely empty the cylinder. As a bonus, I got to see how predictable the fps fell off for the given air pressures. Speeds were consistent with JSB 50.15's around 855 fps for three magazines, and fell off the regulator after 2100 psi. I took the chronograph away after the 7th magazine just so it didn't happen to catch a lobbing pellet. Speeds were still in the 550fps range at that point and less than 750 psi, iirc.

A few squirrels with my Kozak shooting FX Hybrid slugs.

Before the winds around here really began to howl, I took the new-to-me .25 DreamPup out for only the second shooting session since I did all of the chono work, installed the 2x Power Plenums, etc. Wasn't happy with how I was shooting it on its first outing, but getting to know it better today. With the double power plenums, the reg adjusted down to about 110 bar, the transfer port on 177 and the hammer spring at 4, she is really smooth, shooting FX 25.4 pellets at 880 fps, and giving a good down-range smack.



Then took another new-to-me used gun out for its first function fire - put a couple of magazines through my CO2 Beretta 92FS. Really a pretty gun, and weighted pretty much like the real deal. I think that both my wife and I will have a lot of fun shooting this, although with the wood grips it may be uncomfortably large for her hands.



Then, with the winds picking up too much for fun shooting, I awaited the postman who was bringing all of the upgraded components I needed to replace the electrical control circuit on my eBay Diablo HPA compressor. By the end of the afternoon, she lived again!

21 degrees with a wind chill of 7 degrees and I'm out sighting in the red Dot on this:



1" group free hand at 25 yards. Only took about 15 shots but so nice to pull a trigger again. Had to snowblower the 3 feet of snow out of the shooting lane but worth the effort.

Stock Benjamin Bulldog shooting JSB Match Diabolo Exact .35 @ 25 yds from a kneeling position. Intermittent slight wind gusts. Don’t really think they’re much of a factor today. Not my best day, but hey it’s why I practice. Still at it. 

Not an air gun but I was at the range shooting an NRL22 match with a powder burner.

Don't have any pics yet, but have traded a tricked out Maximus even for a leakey P-Rod, got that fixed, and couldn't leave well enough alone, so installed a Marauder rifle 20" .22 caliber barrel. 

Time to do the standard hammer spring/x-fer port power upgrade. The P-Rod will probably end up being the latest (not last) victim of of bottle build obsession.

Both stockmakers I use are busy till next month, Cothran Machine is temporarily down due to surgery, so guess it's time to put another iron(build) in the fire lol -

Back out with the stock Bulldog. Light intermittent rain and mist. 1st pic (bottom): Shot this group from a 5 rd mag of JSB Exact Match Diabolo .35 out the window of truck at 33 yds. Posted to show difference in grouping from a stable position w/support versus utilizing position(s) reliant solely upon my body and limbs for support (see yesterday’s post). Still learning to control timing my wobble. Target in the pic curling in the corners due to moisture. 


2nd pic (top): Same target after 40 rds of the same ammo, same distance. After a while I shot pellets on top of pellets sending a little lead flying out of the wooden backstop. Good times 

Before the rain came back in, I shot a couple of 'big box store' spring guns which I had bought years ago, and had maybe shot only once or twice before. Stoeger X20S2 and Gamo Bone Collector Maxxim, both in .177. I'll have to say that they were both quite underwhelming to me, so they got put out into the storage shed for potential emergency use only.

Then I got out my .22 Hatsan Vectis, and was pleasantly surprised at how it shot. I've had it a few months and have only taken it out to the range and shot it a couple of times before, off hand. It is very borderline for me to use in my back yard due to its sound level. But it shot well off the bench - to the point where I decided to put a little better piece of glass onto it. Maybe there will be a break in the rain tomorrow so I can zero it with the new scope.

Finally I decided to go into my shed and find what AR stock/buffer tube options I had for installing with the R.A.I. stock adapter I received last week. I had already popped on an older Holosun RDS, and I found something I really like for the stock. I think that this configuration will give me a whole new appreciation for my Woods Walker.

Before the rain came back in, I shot a couple of 'big box store' spring guns which I had bought years ago, and had maybe shot only once or twice before. Stoeger X20S2 and Gamo Bone Collector Maxxim, both in .177. I'll have to say that they were both quite underwhelming to me, so they got put out into the storage shed for potential emergency use only.

Click to expand...

Underwhelming in what way?

Underwhelming in what way?

Click to expand...

Trigger pull, repeatable accuracy, overall joy of shooting.

I understand that spring guns, and inexpensive ones, definitely have their place. They also take experience (and talent) to shoot well. I have perhaps become very spoiled by both PCP air guns, as well as guns at the more expensive end of the spectrum.

I still enjoy shooting a springer, but the ones I appreciate the most include my HW30S and HW98. Their actions and their triggers are such a comparative joy to use. And while I'm still learning to shoot them better, their repeatable accuracy is much higher in my inexperienced hands. Hence, a much more pleasurable shooting experience. As compared to being underwhelmed by the shooting experience of the other named guns.

Underwhelming in what way?

Click to expand...

Trigger pull, repeatable accuracy, overall joy of shooting.

I understand that spring guns, and inexpensive ones, definitely have their place. They also take experience (and talent) to shoot well. I have perhaps become very spoiled by both PCP air guns, as well as guns at the more expensive end of the spectrum.

I still enjoy shooting a springer, but the ones I appreciate the most include my HW30S and HW98. Their actions and their triggers are such a comparative joy to use. And while I'm still learning to shoot them better, their repeatable accuracy is much higher in my inexperienced hands. Hence, a much more pleasurable shooting experience. As compared to being underwhelmed by the shooting experience of the other named guns.

Click to expand...

I see. Repeatable accuracy is understandable. Before the explanation I was wondering why you’d use an underwhelming pair of springers for emergency purposes. I get it now. I have an old one that I need to restore. I keep it handy and it works for small game like rabbits. It’s also good for running off feral dogs, but it’s NOTHING like my air rifle.