Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2020 i Airgun Shooter

It’s been a bit of a long wait, but the production variant of Lee-Enfield (Guns) Ltd’s incarnation of the SMLE is finally here. The SMLE was an absolute icon of the First World War, being affectionately nicknamed the “Smelly” and the CO2 version of the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield is based on the Mk III* model that dates back to late 1915. We took a look at a pre-production rifle in detail back in Airgun Shooter issue 122, and noticed a couple of inaccuracies now fixed on production guns. These include the correct orientation of the oil bottle stowage cover cap and the correct use of slotted, rather than Phillips-head, screws on the butt plate. Well done Lee-Enfield (Guns) – the devil really is in the details! This BB-firer is a…

Outdoor shooters and tradespeople have quite a lot in common – they both demand tough products that work as advertised and won’t let them down, and one great example of this is the Fenix HM61R industrial headlamp. With a fairly wide beam profile, the HM61R is ideal for close work at lower brightness settings yet can reach out much further at high levels of brightness. The HM61R can also be used as a regular torch if removed from its headband, and has both a pocket clip and a magnetic tail cap, enabling you to position the light for the best possible illumination. The lowest brightness level of 5 lumens is sufficient for work in very dark environments, and with a full charge, the HM61R will run for 12.5 days continuously!…

THE QUARRY GREY SQUIRREL Sciurus carolinensis PEST STATUS: This invasive rodent damages trees, contributes to the decline of red squirrels, and preys on the eggs and chicks of songbirds. HABITAT: Squirrels spend much of their time in the trees, although they will also forage on the ground. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Grey squirrel meat is surprisingly good to eat. Fishermen also use their tail fibres to tie fly-hooks. The grey squirrel is a constant problem in British woodland. Ever since its introduction to our shores, this invasive rodent has caused widespread damage to trees and has had a detrimental impact on native wildlife. It is, however, ridiculous to try to vilify this menace of the woodland – Grey squirrels are, after all, simply being grey squirrels. The blame lies firmly with those…

**Combo not featured Who doesn’t love a bargain? Without doubt, airgun shooting is one of the most cost-effective pastimes out there – a tin of pellets costs only a few quid and will last for hours, if not days or weeks. However, there’s a huge elephant in the room – the initial set-up cost. Back in the day, it seemed that all I ever needed was my open-sighted HW80 and a pocketful of pellets. Today though, buying a rifle is only the start; there’s a scope and mounts to budget for, not to mention a bipod, a sling and something to carry it all around in. Airgunning may be an inexpensive pursuit, but it still comes at a cost. Fortunately, there are ways to lessen the upfront fiscal blow. You…

What is it? A single-shot tray is a device that’s used to convert a multi-shot rifle into a single-shot rifle. It can be supplied as a standard item with a new gun, or may be available as an aftermarket accessory. When would I need one? One of these trays is particularly useful when swapping from hunting or plinking, where a magazine is advantageous, to a competition scenario. When moving to a new lane at an HFT contest, for example, competitors must only do so with an unloaded rifle. It’s much easier to show the rifle is safe when it’s in single-shot mode rather than having to keep removing the magazine. Why else might I need one? A single-shot tray can enhance a rifle’s accuracy because each pellet will be probed…

KEY SPECS MANUFACTURER: HUGGETT MODERATORS (WWW.HUGGETTMODERATORS.COM) MODEL: BSA SHROUD PRICE: FROM £174.99 AVAILABLE FOR: BSA MODELS • R-10 MK2• R-10 MK2 CARBINE• GOLD STAR• SCORPION SE• ULTRA SE DAYSTATE MODELS • AIR WOLF• HUNTSMAN REGAL• WOLVERINE• RED WOLF FX MODELS • IMPACT 500MM• IMPACT 600MM• WILDCAT 500MM• WILDCAT 600MM• ROYALE 400• ROYALE 500 WEIHRAUCH MODELS • HW 100• HW 100K Create a product such as a car, a motorcycle, a guitar – or an airgun – and it won’t be long before aftermarket parts start appearing, allowing the owner to customise that product in a manner that either makes it function better, simply look better, or both. One product that fits this description perfectly is the Huggett Shroud. Some people may well wonder why products like the Huggett Shroud and…

Rebels and pioneers come along only once in a lustrum – that is, every five years or so – and Steyr Mannlicher and its offshoot Steyr Sportwaffen are of that kind. Their LG 100 pre-charged air rifle, with the famed ‘barleycorn’ barrel and alloy chassis, shocked and charmed us. Truly innovative and gloriously expensive, it promised stardom straight out of the box. So good was the LG 100 that Steyr made another and called it the LG 110. The 110 continued the alloy chassis and the notion of modular construction as a means of producing match, sport, field target and benchrest rifles from a set of interchangeable bolt-on parts. Steyr’s barrels may be swapped about, as may be stocks, air tubes, weights and numerous accessories, to provide a notably versatile…

QUICK SHOTS… HIT THE RIFLE RANGE Back in issue 131 of Airgun Shooter we took a close look at the Premium Series Round from Brazilian pellet manufacturer Rifle – and we liked what we saw. But this is just one of 38 types of pellet that are currently available in the UK, including flat heads, pointed pellets, hollowpoints and various other match or hunting designs in both .177 and .22 calibres. Rifle ammo is subdivided into several different pellet lines such as the budget friendly STR, the Field line and the Premium line, with the latter being geared more towards target shooters. Rifle ammo is priced from £3.49 to £12.99. Visit UK importer www.regael.com to see the full range from the boys from Brazil. NIGHT HUNTING TO THE MAX The…

Did you shoot before starting the school and do you shoot today? My parents travelled in Tibet in the early 1950s carrying a 1920s Webley Service Revolver for self-defence. They became very attached to it, and for my eighth birthday I received a Webley Junior .177 air rifle. I shot extensively as a teenager at a time when the school armoury contained Bren guns and Sterling sub-machine guns for use by cadets. Following retirement from business, I came back to the sport that I love and now shoot air rifle, air pistol, LSR and Gallery Rifle, both competitively and for fun. If I was permitted only one gun it would be my Steyr Hunting 5. How did your get the idea of the Target Shooting School and how did it…

Mention ‘CO2’ and most people will think of pistols. Mention ‘rifle’ and many shooters will conjure up an image of a PCP or a springer. But Umarex is here to give us more than a gentle reminder that there is another option – the CO2 rifle – with its latest example being the 850 M2 Empire Kit. This particular bolt-action multi-shot is driven by an 88 gram CO2 cylinder, and this powerplant offers many of the benefits of a PCP, such as low recoil, low noise and a decent shot count, with the convenience of having a readily available power supply that doesn’t require the use of a pump or a trip to the dive shop to refill. Just add one of these gas canisters and the M2 is ready…

I have just completed my first serious benchrest league competition. This comprised of seven individual rounds, each requiring two separate cards to be shot each month. An internal club event at the Leigh indoor range, I entered two of the three categories, Springer and Sporter. The springer category is self-explanatory, and I shot this with my Venom HW 80 with a nine times magnification scope on board. The Sporter category is shot with a PCP and scope not exceeding 14 times magnification. I shot the cards for this event using a 12x scope, initially on my Daystate Red Wolf, then in the final few months, on my favourite AGT Vulcan. Unlike all the other competitors, I refrained from using the serious benchrest bags or rests that can and do provide…

KEY SPECS FROM: MTC OPTICS (www.mtcoptics.com) MODEL: SWAT Prismatic 10x30 “Atom” PRICE: £399 LENGTH: 123mm WEIGHT: 300g MAGNIFICATION: 10x FOV AT 100M: 32m TUBE DIAMETER: 34mm OBJECTIVE LENS: 30mm RETICLE: MD5 (with adjustable illumination) TURRET ADJUSTMENT: 0.1 mil (1cm at 100m) PARALLAX: Side dial (self configured) FEATURES: Angle-adjustable Picatinny or dovetail mounting, illuminated reticle, wide field of view Scopes with extremely short eye relief are very much the Marmite of the airgun optics world – people seem to either love them or hate them. Fans of these innovative sights know that they deliver benefits, including an extra-wide field of view, and also happen to look great on compact bullpup and semi-bullpup airguns. The SWAT Prismatic from MTC delivers those benefits and more besides. This really is a clever little optic.…

Tiverton Target Club (www.tivertontarget.club) in Devon was founded in 1975 on land donated by the Amory Family Trust in a building constructed by its members. It now has a six-lane, 25-metre range used for shooting at 25M, 20 yards and 10M, plus a very comfy clubhouse complete with a pool table. It’s easy to find, as it’s located near the local football stadium. There are about 40 members of all ages and there is no limit on the age of shooters providing they are safe to handle an air rifle unaided. Children are welcome to shoot at the club with supervision. The club has facilities for vision-impaired shooters. Shooting is supervised by a range officer and the club offers full training in the safe handling and use of all disciplines…

TOP TIP A crude circle can make a great aim point for practising unsupported stances or shooting with sticks – as you get more proficient, make the circle smaller I doubt many of us have tried airgun shooting in all its many and varied forms, but I bet most of us have dabbled in a couple of different types of shooting. I’m also prepared to bet that many of us will have established a firm favourite, with our other disciplines being shot less and less, or even not at all. But is there really that much difference between the various genres of airgun shooting, and if not, is there anything we can learn from the others? The inspiration for this article was the result of an airgun instructor’s course that I…

INSIGHT AND EXPERTISE TO HELP YOU RAISE YOUR GAME YOUR EXPERT ANDY McLACHLAN As many indoor shooters will be aware, shooting targets at the maximum range physically possible at their chosen indoor venue can be challenging, and if you are anything like me, particularly enjoyable. The serious benchrest target shooters I know mostly shoot at the standard 25-yard range when indoors. The targets in question will be the official benchrest card comprising of 25 targets complete with the 2mm bull required to score the perfect 10X score if the bull is taken out completely by the strike of the pellet. This is of course easier said than done, with the top shots managing to nail most of the X shots. My friend Jimmy O’Neil recently managed to improve his own…

KEY SPECS GUN SUPPLIED BY: Sure Shot Airguns (www.sureshot-airguns.co.uk) MANUFACTURER: Ataman MODEL: BP17 Micro Bullpup PRICE: £1,049 for .177 calibre and £1,099 for .22 calibre TYPE: PCP CALIBRE: .177 (on test) and .22 ACTION: Sidelever (right or left) MAGAZINE: Rotary CAPACITY: Seven rounds in .177 WEIGHT: 2.5kg (5.1lb) LENGTH: 605mm (23.85”) BARREL LENGTH: 370mm (14.57”) STOCK: Ambidextrous beechwood, with soft-touch overlay in black or olive green SIGHTS: Picatinny rail LENGTH OF PULL: 33.5cm (13.2”) TRIGGER: Two-stage, adjustable TRIGGER-PULL: Adjustable from 1.76lb to 3.3lb SAFETY: Manual, resettable MUZZLE ENERGY: 10.8 foot pounds It seems only a few years ago that bullpups arrived on the airgun scene, being quickly dismissed in some circles as a fad that wouldn’t last. Well last they did, and by the number and variety on sale today,…

KEY SPECS PELLET: Weihrauch Magnum MANUFACTURER: H&N for Weihrauch (www.weihrauchsport.de) SUPPLIED BY: Hull Cartridge ((www.hullcartridge.co.uk) TYPE: Roundhead diabolo CALIBRE TESTED: .177 (.22 also available) HEAD SIZE: 4.50 SUPPLIED IN: Tin of 500 PRICE: From £9.99 ADVERTISED WEIGHT: None stated AVERAGE WEIGHT: 10.28 grains USES: Target shooting, hunting, precision plinking It’s a strange quirk of ballistic fate that some guns prefer light pellets, some heavy and some don’t really care. Thankfully airgun shooters are being well catered for by the ammo manufacturers. They’re delivering pretty much every conceivable permutation of pellet we could wish for, with the heavyweight camp, typified by the Weihrauch Magnum, being particularly well served. Most shooters will probably be aware that there are several pellets in existence with the word ‘Magnum’ in the title, German pellet-maker H&N…