Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2019 i Airgun Shooter

COMPACT CLIP-ON If you’re looking for a hands-free torch to take on your next night shooting excursion, then the Streamlight ClipMate USB could be the answer. As its name implies, this tiny torch can be clipped to a pocket, hat or even an item like a clipboard after which the beam can be precisely directed using the flexible neck. The ClipMate can even be sat on a flat surface and used as a desk light. It features both a white and a red LED with two levels of illumination for each. The red is particularly useful for preserving your night vision. It can be fully charged in two and a half hours from a USB port. The ClipMate USB has a recommended retail price of £47. For more details visit…

Shooters in east Lancashire who are looking for an airgun club are being offered a taste of paradise. The Burnley and District Air Rifle League started in the 1960s, but sadly closed its facilities in 2005. However, the club has now been resurrected, offering a .177 10-metre discipline. It meets each Tuesday at 7.30pm in the Paradise Working Mens Club in Martin Street in Burnley. New members are encouraged to come along and shoot. It costs just £3, and anyone coming along can either bring their own rifle or use a club gun, such as a Walther LGR .177 10-metre match rifle. Everything is provided, including instruction, and the ethos of the club is to create a social atmosphere to accompany the rifle shooting. To aid participation a seating position…

SPRUCED UP AIRPORTER I agree with Lee’s suggestion (see letters page in issue 126) about readers’ rifles, so here is my MK1 Airsporter, dating between 1956-58. What makes it unusual, I was told by Manchester Airguns, is that the previous owner was an engineer who made a modification I’ve not seen on any other. He machined a scope rail to fit the 1970s Japanese wide-angle scope. Older readers may remember these. The reticle was a thin wire and the sight picture a bit like the old-style TV screens. He also fashioned a barrel weight to fit over the original front sight blade. Other than needing a tiny drop of thread locker on the screws, I’ve had no issue with this arrangement and it shoots accurately on the plinking range. I…

WEBLEY MK VI SERVICE REVOLVER This gun, just like its 1915-era bullet-firing namesake, is a top-break revolver. The gun is broken open using the barrel catch, after which the barrel is hinged down and away from the frame, operating the extractor, which removes the six dummy cartridges from the cylinder. This particular gun is fed by inserting a pellet into the rear of each of the six cartridges. WINCHESTER 4.5 SPECIAL This handgun represents the more conventional style of revolver – at least in the more modern era – where the cylinder swings out from the frame of the gun for loading, unloading and cleaning, with the barrel being fixed. The pellet-firing 4.5 Special uses an eight-shot rotary magazine that slots into the rear of the cylinder. It can be…

Knowing how to use open sights is one thing, but knowing where to aim is another if you are shooting at a paper target. This is especially true if you are using a club gun with adjustable sights rather than your own, and it’s been set up by the club to shoot a different way to what you might be used to. The idea behind Method B is to provide a clean sight picture and aim point for the shooter, with the pellet still hitting the centre of the target. Both of these are perfectly valid methods of aiming, but most shooters will tend to have a definite preference for one or the other. Experimentation is key! Method A: The front and rear sights are correctly aligned, with the gun…

ALTHOUGH MAT really likes the waterproofing of welly boots and the support provided by a tough pair of leather ankle boots when shooting over uneven ground, he often opts for something lighter when stalking rabbits. His usual choice for a mobile approach is a pair of hiking trainers, but worn-out running shoes can also be good when the ground is dry. Lighter shoes mean lighter footfalls. That means less noise and, equally importantly, less of a bump, which is important as rabbits can detect vibrations through the ground over a considerable distance. Apart from making you nimbler on your feet, lighter shoes also put you in closer contact with the ground. This increased feel improves your chances of detecting dry twigs or any other obstacles that could make a noise…

Fresh from the wild and windswept Turton moors of northwest England, the regular UKAHFT shooters headed to the deep south for yet another ‘double header’ of weekend fun and competition frolics at the popular ground of Maldon and District Air Rifle Club (M.A.D.). Rounds Five and Six of this year’s premier national HFT event saw the currently very on form Elliot Compton looking for a couple of strong performances to enable him to maintain his stranglehold on the current Open category leaderboard. The thing with any sport, particularly when you are surrounded by top competitors who are just waiting for you to slip up, is that, in our case anyway, the leading contenders have to have the ability to block out any and all distractions when down at the firing…

The Brocock Compatto will be known to most of you as a compact British-made PCP which delivers high-end performance at a very competitive price. That performance has now received a further boost through the addition of a high-quality Huma regulator, which certainly promises good things. Much has been said and written about the Compatto’s buddy bottle stablemate, the Brocock Bantam, which was given the Huma treatment in its HR guise more than a year ago. Airgun manufacturers have been criticised for adding regulated variants to their line-up simply to meet demand for the latest ‘must-have’ gizmo, but I know from experience that Humaenhanced Brococks are no gimmick. I have a Bantam HR of my own, and it is an excellent piece of kit, so I was eager to see how…

eavy pellets H generally perform better than lighter ones at FAC levels, but there’s a case for hefty projectiles to be used at sub-12 foot pound levels too. The Daystate FT Heavy is one such pellet, firmly targeted at shooters using rifles at this particular power level in the UK. These projectiles are made for Daystate by JSB in the Czech Republic and are similar, but not identical, to JSB’s own Exact Heavy Diabolo pellets. They’re not quite so easy to find however, but as we’ll see they are well worth hunting down. While most .177 pellets have an average weight of 8.5 grains or so, these pellets are around two grains heavier, making them fly far slower and thus take longer to reach their target. So why shoot them…

Hot on the heels of their acclaimed Nemesis model, Webley are releasing their new VMX – a bolt-action multi-shot CO2-powered air pistol. But while the Nemesis was an action-style fun gun, the company is aiming the VMX at the more serious target shooter – although we reckon the VMX would also be great fun when toppling tins. Comprising a rifled steel barrel, ambidextrous target-style grip and shipping with a self-indexing magazine system, the VMX is available in .177 and .22 calibres with a muzzle energy of around three foot pounds. The pistol features a metal Picatinny scope rail and fully adjustable metal open sights. The VMX uses a self-indexing rotary magazine offering nine shots in .177 calibre or seven in .22, and a single-shot tray is available as an optional…

Rigby firearms engraver Geoffrey Lignon has turned to a different type of art to create some prints featuring four well-known African animals. Each collection of 100 prints features either a Cape buffalo called ‘The black death’, a leopard titled ‘The elusive’, a rhino called ‘Redemption’ or a lion print named ‘Not a king, a lion’. Geoffrey has tried to purvey the African animals in their true form, showing every one of their scars, scratches and imperfections. Each print has been hand-signed and numbered by the artist, then relief stamped with the Rigby logo. Geoffrey’s technique for creating these prints is unique, taking a black board and a white gel pen, with three black pencils to draw the animals. He said it was a technique that gave striking results. The Cape…

Bullpups continue to grow in popularity, with their compact proportions making them excel in confined spaces such as hides, and the Boxer is the latest model from Gamo to join the pup parade. It’s not only short and handy, but light too at 3.4kg. It’s made in England, and features a cold hammer-forged barrel that ensures accuracy, a full-length shroud and a pressure gauge. The Boxer’s centre of gravity is quite low down for a bullpup, and it’s stable too. Some pups are a little top-heavy, giving them a tendency to roll over on their side, but the Boxer is happy to just sit still in the aim waiting for your next command – just like a good gundog. Gamo and its sister company BSA now share the same multi-shot…

Have you heard of the term ‘modular gun platform’? It started with assault rifles, and has now spread to airguns, with the Brocock Concept Lite being the most solid platform available for building a true tactical, firearms-grade air rifle system. It’s called the Concept because this rifle can be adapted to be anything you want it to be, and it’s Lite because it weighs less than 3kg in its base model configuration. Sporting a special telescopic rifle butt, a synthetic AK pistol grip and three Picatinny-style forend rails, the Concept Lite is the ideal choice for hunters looking for a small and compact, yet powerful carbine-style rifle. At the heart of the new rifle beats the very latest and greatest Huma-Air regulator for maximum shots per fill and consistent velocity.…

BECAUSE OF the noise caused by passing through or over them, gateways can be a nuisance to the hunter, but they can have their advantages. A gateway, or any other gap in the hedge, creates an opening that can usually be approached without being seen. Often referred to as a stalking window, these openings sometimes offer an easy opportunity to catch your quarry unawares. Whenever you approach a gate, approach it with stealth, and scan the field on the opposite side carefully before continuing past, through or over it. You may just spot rabbits feeding within range on the opposite side, and if that side is still within your shooting permission you’ll be rewarded with an easy shot without having to go through the usual effort of creeping within range.…

Idon’t know about you, but many of the friends I have made due to this fascinating sport of ours have collected a fair collection of all sorts of guns over the years. In my own case, and no doubt due to my age, this all started with the usual spring-powered guns that always benefited from a ‘tuning’. Unfortunately, in those days tuning was basically trying to extract the most amount of power from a spring gun’s action and often involved the fitment of boa constrictor-sized and square-sectioned mainsprings into the compression tubes. Very often, the guns would not cock, as they had become coil-bound, meaning that the individual sections of the mainspring locked up the movement of the cocking mechanism way before it had a chance to engage with the…

nyone who wants to A use a scope at varying magnification levels will have to learn a different set of aim points for each mag setting – unless they fit a first focal plane optic. While this is the major draw of an FFP scope, it can come at a price. But while first focal plane scopes tend to be much dearer than their second focal plane counterparts, Discovery is on a mission to deliver more for less, as witnessed by its new VT-3 range. Discovery scopes follow a specific naming convention, and telescopic sights in the VT range are designed for airguns, including springers, and low-recoil firearms, with parallax adjustment down to 10 yards. The scope on test here is the VT-3 Compact 4-16x44. True to its name, the…

FOR SALE: Weihrauch HW 100KT .177 calibre. Nikko Stirling 3-9x40 scope. Two magazines, bipod and gun slip. Less than 200 shots fired. Mint condition. £695 ovno. W Colclough (West Midlands). Tel: 012 1423 1998 or 077 1362 7411 FOR SALE: Webley Titan .177 in mint condition. £200 ovno. Cliff Vincent (Suffolk). Tel: 07551 719228 FOR SALE: Two bullpups. Blackpool Air Rifles. HW 100 Carbine, as new, and an Air Arms S510 with Photon Night Sight. Both like new. Will sell or swap plus money for an FX Impact MKII. Both stocks from Blackpool Air Rifles. Tony Wells (Kent). Tel: 07931 857604 FOR SALE: Daisy Model 25 Centennial Collectors Edition. Made in 1986 as a special edition to commemorate 100 years of Daisy production. Walnut stock. Colour case-hardened cocking levers. This…

It is not entirely certain when the word revolver first slid into our language, but in Hartford, Connecticut, is a memorial statue of a man who likely had a lot to do with it. Inventor, patentee and manufacturer, the figure represented in that work is Samuel Colt. The most prolific of Colt’s creations was the Single Action Army revolver of 1873. The words ‘single action’ and ‘revolver’ describe exactly this small arms action type. ‘Single action’ means the hammer has to be thumbed to full cock for each shot. ‘Revolver’ refers to the rotating cylinder, bored with multiple chambers for the chosen cartridge. Commencing in 1894, Colt built a special target shooting variant of the SAA. It was this model which Italian gunmaker Aldo Uberti chose to reproduce as part…

BSA’s R-10 has been with us for a decade now, and to celebrate this milestone the company has released a new variant – the R-10 TH, which comes with a new thumbhole stock with an adjustable cheekpiece – and the rifle’s biggest shot count yet. The new TH handle, which has been crafted in walnut by master Italian stockmaker Minelli, is a blend of the old and the new, as it features the traditional forend of the current R-10 SE, but with a new thumbhole grip along with a cheekpiece that’s made of wood, but is covered in a soft-touch finish, which should make it feel warm against your face in colder weather. Shot count is higher on this new model, as the TH has a larger 280cc buddy bottle,…

More than a Duran Duran hit, the Reflex is a special type of dot sight where the aiming point is projected forwards onto a lens, which is then reflected back, allowing the shooter to see the dot. A new airgun variant is now available from Professional Airgun Optics, which should enhance your plinking pleasure. The PAO Multi-Reticle Red/Green Reflex Pistol & Rifle Sight, to give it its full title, costs £33.99, and is lightweight and compact, being only 8.2cm long and weighing in at 115 grams. The shooter can choose from four different reticles – a circle dot, cross, 10 MOA and 3 MOA – in their choice of red or green, with five levels of illumination. The body of the sight is made of aircraft-grade aluminium in a choice…

The club (www. bidefordtargetshootingclub.org ) has been going for over 100 years, originally shooting at local drill halls before finding a permanent home at Grenville College’s range in the 1960s. This consisted of five firing points shared with the school, where members would help out with coaching students. In 2006, the range was closed with no notice and the site sold. The club stayed whilst looking for a new site, but had to cope with no electricity or running water! Finally, in 2012 a replacement was found, and purchased by the club with members’ donations and a range built with a grant from the National Lottery. A thriving airgun membership allowed a small barn to be used for a four-lane range and secured income for the club during the build. The…

ENHANCING ACCURACY The inherent accuracy of most modern day pellets is outstanding, as manufacturing procedures have been refined and the shooter now enjoys the fullest accuracy on offer. Probably the most critical element in maximising the accuracy of your rifle is to establish the most effective pellets for the rifling of the barrel, as well as correctly setting up the scope. It’s best to bench-test all pellet brands that are to hand – remember you must use good benchrest techniques, as a pile of leaky sandbags is not acceptable, and being cold will not help either. Neither will trying to zero your rifle in windy conditions. To help with the process of accuracy, the rifle’s trigger can benefit from a tune-up. This will eliminate that nemesis of accuracy – a…

I recently reviewed Webley’s CO2-powered pellet-firing Mark VI Service Revolver, a beautiful replica of the .455 inch bullet-firing original. The revolver is accompanied by a reproduction of a 1930s Small Arms Training Manual that lays out a series of safety precautions, instructions for field use and marksmanship tests for this gun. The manual has a Crown Copyright date of 1937, as the MK VI was still being issued during the Second World War, but the information in the booklet probably dates back as far as 1915, the year the handgun entered service, as the illustrations show a soldier wearing First World War-era 1902 Pattern service dress and puttees. This manual really piqued my interest, and it raised more than a few questions about the role of a service pistol, how…

While the emphasis on wartime training was to develop an instinctive point and shoot technique, iron sights were still used. Modern pistol training places a far greater emphasis on deliberate aiming, but in both cases the iron, or open, sights must be used correctly if they are to be effective. Mike made a simple training tool from some blackened cardboard that illustrates the relationship between the front sight and the rear sight. Wrong: The front sight has been positioned too far to the right and too low down – the pistol will shoot low and right if left uncorrected Wrong: This time the front sight is high and left – it’s not always easy to get a good sight picture depending on the light and colour of the target Right:…

Rabbit control features on my calendar through the year. Although recent disease outbreaks have made these burrowing rodents quite scarce in some parts of the country, they are still abundant where I live. Most landowners don’t regard the presence of bunnies as positively as I do, which is why many of them appreciate the help of an airgun shooter when it comes to keeping their numbers in check. Where rabbits thrive, their numbers can rapidly spiral and be surprisingly destructive. Their appetite for grass, cereal and vegetable crops can prove extremely costly to farmers, and they can also kill newly-planted tree saplings by nibbling away the bark just above the root collar. Anyone involved in the management of sports fields and golf courses will know how damaging rabbits’ habit of…

Slugs? No, of course I don’t mean the ones that eat all the veg you planted in the greenhouse. I mean airgun slugs – the things that seem to be changing the game in air rifle shooting. So what’s it all about then? Why are so many people looking at these with such interest? Well, let me tell you that I, for one, have been following the progress of these in a big way. It seems – and I am not joking – that these are the Holy Grail for high-powered airguns, and are maybe the future for hunters. HOW LONG AGO? It must have been about a year ago that I noticed that these new airgun bullet-type things were being used instead of normal conventional pellets, and if I…

For those of us who take our outdoor competition shooting seriously, the search for improved products that will make the most of any shooting talent we have continues at pace. Serious shooters are only too aware that attempts to improve an average score do not just involve the purchase of the latest super target gun, but just as importantly, if not more so, is the quality of the optic that sits above the action of the gun. Most regular outdoor shots will be aware of just how much easier it is to shoot accurately with a good scope. Like all things in life though, this quality, particularly where scopes are concerned, does not usually come cheap. This doesn’t mean that some of the superb mid- or lower-priced optics do not…

What is it? A laser is a device that emits a beam of light through an optical amplification process. ‘Laser’ is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Laser technology can be used for cutting, reading, or as a pointing device, like the PAO Airgunner’s Laser Sight seen here. Can you use it as a sight? A laser can be mounted to either an air pistol or rifle and used as a sighting system. If the gun is set up correctly, with laser and airgun being zeroed together, then it’s simply a case of pointing the beam at the target and squeezing the trigger. But this will only work properly at your set zero. Any other distance means compensating by eye for any shift in point of…

As airgun shooters we naturally use a variety of guns and gear that are specifically designed for our needs, but some excellent products have also been made available from the wider shooting and outdoor communities. Two such products are the Helikon Range Bag and Wisport Crafter Rucksack, both of which are available in the UK from Military 1st. HELIKON RANGE BAG This range bag is made by Polish company Helikon-Tex and is designed to let the shooter carry ammunition, magazines and extra items such as documentation and hearing protection to and from your club, range or permission. It’s extremely well made and sturdy, with some nice design touches as well. There are pockets at the front, sides, rear and top of the bag to stow essential items such as club…