Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2020 i Airgun Shooter

Daystate has championed electronic airgun technology since 2002, and this is the company’s most advanced rifle – the Delta Wolf. Despite the rifle’s distinctly tactical looks, the real heart of the gun is its electronic management system. Using this touch screen feature, you can make changes to adjust power relative to the calibre and the type of ammunition you want to use. A chronoscope built into the barrel shroud provides data to the Delta Wolf’s electronic brain, helping it make intelligent changes to maintain optimum consistency. The rifle has a barrel change system that lets you choose between different calibres and twist rates, and barrels designed to shoot either pellets or slugs. Having selected your specific setup, you can go back to the electronic management system and either choose a…

Streamlight has introduced two new gun light kits that provide everything the shooter needs to mount them to their rifles and operate them using independently operated push-button or remote pressure switches. The remote switch on the TLR RM 1, and the bigger and brighter RM 2, is designed to exit the rifle at a 90-degree angle, improving wire routing, while preserving rail space. Both models are designed to quickly and securely attach to a Picatinny rail and, according to Streamlight, offer highly accurate sight repeatability when remounting. The lights each feature the latest in power LED technology and include a custom optic that produces a concentrated beam with optimum peripheral illumination. The TLR RM 1 offers 500 lumens, 5,000 candela and a beam distance of 140 metres, while the TLR…

One lucky shooter has ended up with a unique air rifle package named and engraved ‘Crackshot 2020’ after taking part in a charity raffle run by the Devon-based airgun centre. Winner James Dunnett went home with the hydro-dipped rifle, which is based on an Air Arms S400 with an adjustable stock that’s been paired with a Hawke Airmax 3-12x50 SF scope. The event made a total of £2,070, which will be split between Devon Air Ambulance and Rowcroft Hospice. Special thanks go out to Air Arms, Hawke Sport Optics and Funky Dipz hydro-dipping for working together with Crackshot to create this fantastic package. Crackshot is located near to Newton Abbot and boasts three indoor shooting ranges, including a 20-metre air rifle range with a choice of card, spinning and knockdown…

THE QUARRY BROWN RAT Rattus norvegicus PEST STATUS: This rodent spreads disease by toileting around stored crops, animal feed and drinking troughs. Rats also chew wires and burrow into banks or through walls. HABITAT: Rats are found in a wide range of habitats. Farms suit them well because they offer plenty of food and shelter. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Rats breed rapidly, so populations can quickly spiral. My peak ratting season usually starts to tail off as spring unfolds, but that hasn’t been the case at all this year. Seemingly endless wet weather right through the winter pushed a huge influx of rats away from the open countryside and onto places where they could find food and shelter. The unseasonably mild weather also enabled the rodents to breed successfully right through the…

CHOOSING AIRGUN AMMO PELLET PERFECTION Andy McLachlan offers a few powerful pointers for when it’s time to pick the perfect pellet for your particular air rifle YOUR EXPERT ANDY McLACHLAN I strongly suspect that most airgun shooters buy their pellets by brand alone. What I mean is that rather than spending a lot of time checking out issues such as the die and batch number or the head size (found upon the rear of the tin in many cases), they will just look at the branding and make their purchase based upon that, as the tin looks exactly the same as the last one they bought. The problem is of course that they may be purchasing a pellet that will not perform with their gun’s barrel. You might think that…

Winter shooting is fast becoming a distant memory. Night-time rat shooting in barns and farmyards, stumbling around dark fields after rabbits and waiting for squirrels to put in an appearance on a peanut feeder are all well and good, but there’s nothing like throwing a rifle over your shoulder and having a wander about. Spring is here and the evenings are getting longer, and in theory at least, warmer. It won’t be long before airgunners will be using their night vision gear less and getting mobile instead, stalking the hedgerows and straining their eyes for a pair of ears poking over the long grass. On the whole, airguns are heavier than just about any other kind of rifle or shotgun. Our preferred kit has many more moving parts, not to…

KEY SPECS SUPPLIED BY: Hull Cartridge (hullcartridge.co.uk) MAKER: Weihrauch, Germany (weihrauch-sport.de) MODEL: HW110 K Laminate PRICE: £910 TYPE: Sidelever-action, multi-shot PCP CALIBRE: .177, .20 and .22 (tested) OVERALL LENGTH: 890mm LENGTH OF PULL: 365mm BARREL LENGTH: 300mm WEIGHT: 3.1kg (without scope) TRIGGER: Two-stage adjustable POWER: 11.5 ft-lb Many shooters regard Weihrauch air rifles as some of the best in the world, and for very good reason. Almost as many make the mistake of thinking that the HW110 is a cheap version of the gunmaker’s flagship HW100. Let’s dispel that myth before we go any further; the HW110 is a seriously good airgun in its own right, and its very competitive price simply means that you can enjoy all the benefits of a high-end PCP without having to bankrupt yourself. The…

My first knowing of the name Daystate occurred almost 40 years back, when a shooting pal managed to finagle a development rifle out of the factory for trialing in early Field Target events. I recall him doing especially well with his works Daystate, to the point that it was even banned from one event on the grounds that it “was not an air rifle”! PCPs truly were beautiful but strange in those coil spring days. From that development rifle sprung the Huntsman, Daystate’s first production airgun. Available only in .22 calibre, it was a simple single-shot rifle, with a stainless steel air reservoir, a very plain sporting stock and a non-adjustable trigger. The cost brand new back then was £250. Over the years there have been numerous variants of the…

HOT STUFF ATN’s range of Mars thermal scopes has been joined by the LT – the lightest model to date. Measuring 292mm x 56mm x 55mm and weighing just 650g (1.4lb), the Mars LT provides more versatility where weight is a critical factor. The Mars LT is simple to mount using standard 30mm rings and is easy to use. It has two modes, White Hot and Black Hot, as well as multiple reticles. Another key feature is its one-shot zero. There’s no need to shoot several magazines’ worth of pellets as all you have to do is move the zero reticle to your first point of impact. The Mars LT has a suggested retail price of £1,722.99 for the 3-6x magnification model and £1,873.99 for the 4-8x. Contact sales@highlandoutdoors.co.uk or…

RESULTS Open class 1st Jim Ferry 2nd Tom Ireson 3rd = Dave Dresser Chris Donnelly Oddball Class 1st Phil ‘Macho’ Thorburn 2nd Tom O’Brien 3rd Simon Battye Oddball Class During the summer months plenty of events are pencilled in an HFT shooter’s diary – but what do the diehards do over the winter? Many clubs run events to keep the competition going, one such event being run by Northern Monkey HFT. The NMHFT Winter Series is a series of six monthly shoots from October until March. The competition is set to UKAHFT rules, with each competitor’s best four scores from a maximum of six counting towards their overall total. The competitions use percentages to keep score. The top score on the day is 100% and each score underneath that is…

Most airgun shooters are familiar with the concept of a starter rifle that’s been deliberately priced at an affordable level to attract newcomers to the sport, but what we have here is the Gamo GX-40 – a British-made budget gun that’s capable of delivering the same sort of results as a far more expensive rifle. The GX-40 is a multi-shot bolt-action PCP that’s been clad in a black tactical-looking synthetic thumbhole stock and comes with one 10-shot magazine and a muzzle brake. Two calibre options are available – .177, the one being given away here, and .22. The GX-40 uses the standard BSA magazine, with the internal rotor being colour-coded blue for .177 and red for .22, and the magazine is secured in the breech with a clever magnet. In our…

For those readers who have been following my articles over the past few years, you will be aware that I have recently been spending much less time out in the fields shooting competition courses, but have been concentrating upon my new shooting passion, benchrest shooting with legal-limit air rifles, particularly at fifty yards plus. This has certainly resulted in me being enthused with the desire to organise suitable equipment and as necessary, to purchase high-magnification scopes that up until very recently have been superfluous for shooting Hunter Field Target, with this discipline requiring low magnification scopes with wide fields of view. The only actual, informal, competition I have shot at this range so far resulted in serious disappointment. All that this achieved was to make me even more committed to…

KEY SPECS SUPPLIED BY: John Rothery Wholesale (www.bisley-uk.com) MAKER: Umarex, Germany MODEL: RP5 Carbine PRICE: £379.95 TYPE: Pellet-firing CO2 smoothbore CALIBRE: .177 (tested) and .22 ACTION: Pump-action MAGAZINE: Two five-shot stick magazines OVERALL LENGTH: 72cm (28.3”) BARREL LENGTH: 31cm WEIGHT: 1.64kg STOCK: Ambidextrous synthetic SIGHTS: Scope only, dovetail or Picatinny LENGTH OF PULL: 39cm (15.3”) TRIGGER: Two-stage, adjustable TRIGGER-PULL: 3lb 8oz SAFETY: Manual, resettable MUZZLE ENERGY: 3.9 ft-lb Pump-action guns were originally developed to create robust and simple actions that were faster-firing than a standard bolt, but a very happy by-product of this type of action is the undeniable fact that it’s just such good fun to shoot with – and that applies perfectly to the RP5 from Umarex. This gun is very different to most other pump-actions, however, because…

KEY SPECS PELLET: RWS Super Field UK DISTRIBUTOR: RUAG (www.ruag.co.uk) TYPE: Roundhead diabolo CALIBRE TESTED: .177 (4.5mm) HEAD SIZE: 4.51 SUPPLIED IN: Tin of 500 PRICE: £6.70 ADVERTISED WEIGHT: 8.4 grains MEASURED WEIGHT: 8.58 grains USES: Target shooting, hunting, plinking The RWS Super Field has been a firm favourite for plenty of top-flight Field Target and HFT shooters over the years, and if the Airgun Hall of Fame actually existed, this pellet would have deservedly earned itself a place. I’ve previously reviewed this pellet in .22 calibre, so this time I’m concentrating on the .177 version. RWS says this pellet is ideally suited for target shooting and hunting, and Super Fields are available in two head sizes in this calibre – 4.51mm, the ones shot here, and 4.52mm, both having…

Lee Enfield (Guns) is best known for its BB-firing CO2-powered replica of the SMLE, but the company has broken away from its historical roots to create a brand new multi-shot PCP called the Sentry. The rifle combines a polymer forestock with a thumbhole buttstock made from beech, which has an adjustable cheekpiece. UK distributor The Shooting Party says its regulated action can deliver at least 120 shots in .22 and 75 in .177 from a single fill. The Sentry’s rifled steel barrel is capped by a removable ½” UNF threaded silencer. Mounting options are varied and plentiful, with an 11mm dovetail scope rail and no fewer than six 22mm Weaver/Picatinny mounting points for a variety of bipods, lamps and lasers. Each Sentry is supplied with a filler probe, two magazines…

NEW SHOW DATES FOR NSS The Northern Shooting Show has been put back until August – but the organisers say the postponement will give them more time to make the event even better. The decision was taken in the light of the Government’s health and safety directives amid efforts to prevent the spread of Coronavirus. This year’s event will now take place on Friday 28 and Saturday 29 August at the Yorkshire Event Centre in Harrogate. Tickets will remain valid for the new dates and anyone attending the show in August on an advance ticket will be offered a discount on the 2021 ticket as a way of repaying their loyalty. Alternatively, people wanting a refund on their ticket should contact See Tickets, the show’s ticket provider, via the NSS…

EXPERT TIP THE TARGET THE HIGHEST SCORES will naturally be recorded with a hit to the very centre of the bull, which has a diameter of 1.2mm. Two infra-red sensors measuring across and down the target detect shot placement as well as the speed of the pellet, and the sensors are also able to detect a cross shot should one be mistakenly fired from another lane. I ve long maintained that airgun shooters have much in common with each other, regardless of the type of shooting that we enjoy. We have much to share in the way of tips and techniques, and we also have much to celebrate in terms of the pure enjoyment our sport brings us. I recently attended the British Open Airgun Championships, which are run by…

I‘d been backing up some photos onto an old hard drive when I spotted some other pictures – and was hit by an instant rush of emotion. It was my Weihrauch HW100 KT – in .177 guise – propped up with a Harris bipod in the garden of my old home from 2008. Anyone who has owned this rifle will know what a superb PCP it is – brilliantly engineered, uberreliable and, most importantly of all, deadly accurate. It accounted for many rabbits, squirrels and rats, and all those memories came flooding back as the tiny .JPG file opened on my laptop. It led me to think about all my airguns from over the years: from the Webley Hawke .22 my cousin lent me in the 1980s, through to the…

Shooting of one type or another has always been a big part of my life. For more than 50 years I have taken part in many of the shooting sports and have fired things from Gat air pistols to shoulder-launched missiles, and pretty much everything in between. Interestingly though, my one overriding passion for shooting does not involve the use of rapidly expanding chemicals to fire a projectile. Firearm shooting can be challenging and obviously comes with far more responsibility from the shooter due to the ability of a bullet to fly very long distances while still retaining massive levels of energy. Of course, the use of firearms for shooting at large prey such as deer is a necessity as it takes a large amount of lethal energy to humanely…

Q I will be going to a few more shooting shows this year and have decided to travel by train. Can I buy a new air pistol or rifle and bring it home on the train? The pistol would obviously be in a discreet case or bag, but the rifle would be in a more obvious case or bag. Would it be possible to transport a new purchase home by train, or would I have to limit my purchases to accessories? The same question applies to when I go shooting at the range and travel by train. A The National Rail Conditions of Travel, from 4 December 2019, clearly state the following: “Items only permitted at the discretion of individual Train Companies: “Unloaded firearms, properly licensed, with prior permission of…

KEY SPECS FROM: Highland Outdoors (www.highlandoutdoors.co.uk) MANUFACTURER: SIG Sauer MODEL: P365 PRICE: £135.99 CALIBRE: 4.5MM (.177) AMMO TYPE: Steel BBs ACTION: Blowback MAGAZINE: Drop-down stick CAPACITY: 12 rounds SIGHTS: Fixed front and rear SAFETY: Ambidextrous manual MATERIAL: Polymer frame, metal side WEIGHT: 360 grams (12.8oz) LENGTH: 146mm (5.75”) POWERPLANT: 12g CO2 capsule It’s becoming more and more common for firearm manufacturers to create airgun versions of their bullet-firing originals, one of the latest designs being the SIG Sauer P365. This CO2-powered BB-firing blowback is based on the company’s 9mm powder-burner, it’s an interesting choice, because both the original and the airgun are tiny – and with good reason. The 9×19mm Parabellum variant is described as a High-Capacity Micro-Compact model that in the United States is designed for concealed carry. ‘Concealed…

FOR SALE: Artemis M16 PCP rifle in .22. Only had 50 pellets through, all went through the same hole. Comes with two magazines and silencer, all in original box. Only selling due to upgrade. Cost £415 plus £26 for spare magazine. Mint and new condition. £315. FOR SALE: Logun Eazi-glide pump. Nnever used, still in original box. Offers. Gregory Heath (Cambridgeshire). Tel: 07534 574406. FOR SALE: Feinwerkbau 300s. Not mint, but good condition, many medals to confirm accuracy. No marks or dings. Custom wood case. New breech and buffer seals last year. Piston ring in good condition. New ring with it. £275. FOR SALE: Rare Drulov 10 Condor target pistol, five-shot C02. Cased with all the tools, set of seals, unused set of selected pellets, buddy bottle and receipt from…