Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2021 i Airgun Shooter

If you’ve been feeling waspish due to the absence of Wasp pellets, then don’t worry because this legendary ammo is back thanks to John Rothery Wholesale. Two species of domehead Wasps are available, No.1 pellets in .177 calibre, identified by a red label, and No. 3 in .22 calibre, featuring a mauve label. Both tins are the now-standard diameter of 68mm, with the .22 variety being deeper to accommodate the larger pellets. No.1 ammo is supplied in a tin of 500 with a retail price of £5.95, while No. 3 pellets come in a tin of 400 for £7.95. Contact your local retailer for further details or visit John Rothery Wholesale’s website at bisley-uk.com…

Airgun shooters have good reason to celebrate as the Great British Shooting Show 2022 has got the green light and will be returning to the NEC in Birmingham from 18-20 February next year. The airgun area, affectionately known as “Airgun City”, has always been a popular part of the show. For more than a decade the huge range of airguns, optics and accessories has continued to grow, and with airgun shooting established as one of the most popular types of shooting in the country, the British Shooting Show is the only place in the UK where all the major airgun manufacturers and distributors will all be present in one place for three days. Entry to the show costs £25 for a one-day adult ticket, £15.50 for a child aged up…

Not so long ago the best place to find a Gem was in a builder’s skip. Undervalued and overlooked by many, they were certainly interesting air rifles, but only within circles of so-called expert collectors – that’s anoraks to most of us. But an airgun that has lasted for nearly 140 years deserves some respect, and Gems eventually became an affordable alternative to BSAs with their many variations. The Gem style started from an American design manufactured in Germany. Compared with better finished airguns, Gems have more castings than engineered parts and seem to have been made to an ever decreasing budget with each passing year. Find a really good one today and it’ll be like winning the lottery. The .25 calibre example seen here, like most of those encountered,…

Most people who carry out squirrel control with air rifles know that the use of feeding stations can boost their results. Offering bushy-tails a source of tasty and nutritious food creates an area of activity where we can expect to encounter them at certain times of the day, which is always going to be more productive than wandering the woods in the hope of getting one or two shots. Your strike rate, and the ease of running your feeders, can be further improved with a few tweaks to your approach. I thought I would share some experiences with a successful feeding station site this year. I want to rebuff the criticisms from some quarters claiming that the use of feeding stations is unsporting. We are dealing with a very destructive…

British gunmaker Brocock has developed a flair for making reliable airguns built for functionality and getting the job done. These rifles are the choice of pest controllers up and down the country. But Brocock airguns aren’t just reliable, they also have an admirable track record in the accuracy department, and their modular design ethos means that many of their models can be tweaked and kitted out with accessories to create a bespoke shooting platform to suit whatever its owner wants from it. The £1,247 Concept XR takes the Brocock ethos a stage further and boasts a raft of refinements that make for a go-anywhere shooting machine that is perfectly suited to field use. Its no-frills tactical styling may appear to be quite basic but a lot of thought has gone…

The air rifle market is polarising; on the one hand we’re being tempted with products that push the boundaries in terms of innovative design and performance-enhancing features. On the other hand, the influx of entry-level PCPs from all corners of the world is neverending. Of course, that’s good news for us because it means there are more rifles to suit every budget. But it also throws up a conundrum, and it’s this: just because you can afford a top-end rifle, do you have to splash the cash, or are entry-level rifles more than adequate? There will always be a market for products at the lower end of the financial spectrum. Those new to airgunning are more likely to proceed cautiously with a view to upgrading their hardware if it turns…

A sling is essential when travelling any distance with an air rifle, helping to spread the load and keep your arms fresh, and Vanguard has introduced the Endeavor range of four neoprene slings. The core range consists of three models in Black, Camo or Khaki that weigh just 135g and include a textured anti-slip rubber backing to keep them secure on your shoulder, with a thumb loop for added comfort. The fourth model, the Endeavor 203B, is wider and has deeper padding for a greater level of comfort and versatility. Each of the core slings has a recommended retail price of £29.99, while the 203B has an RRP of £34.99. Visit vanguardworld.co.uk to find out more.…

Kids and guns: in this day and age that combination can put those people who are “not in the know” in a state of unrest. I know this from personal experience. When I announced to my ever-patient wife that I was off to the local range – and was taking our eldest son Jack, who’s 11 – she was less than enthusiastic about him gaining an interest in airguns. She was more worried, I think, from a safety point of view than anything else, but I assured her that he was in good hands. Range safety is always paramount, and although I had been out of the scene for a while, I like to think that if you’ve been educated properly on the subject, gun safety is something you never…

GO BIGGER FOR BENCHREST A quick question for Andy McLachlan. The benchrest rules say the action of your rifle must be behind a given line when shooting benchrest. I regard the receiver block as the “action”, so does this mean I can have a rifle with a 25-yard-long barrel as long as the receiver is behind the line? I know benchrest allows front and rear NON-connected rests, but I see no restriction on the TOTAL number of rests, so it’s possible that several bipods might be utilised for a Buntline special-type benchrest barrel. Sandy Smith Andy’s response: Well Sandy, an interesting proposition! The problem being of course that even if the rules did allow a barrel resembling an underground tube line, you would have to get it to the range…

What is the most suitable material for airgun ammunition? The short answer is simple: lead. Amongst affordable metals, it is the most dense, and wins on the basis of fundamental physics. Also, it is soft enough to conform to the lands and grooves of the bore of a barrel and to seal acceptably well to maximise propulsion from a blast of air or CO2. But the full answer requires further consideration. Lead is a toxin, its poisoning is cumulative and there is no “safe” level for humans or animals. It is capable of causing neurological damage, leading to learning and behavioural difficulties, particularly in children. At high levels it has the potential to damage most of the major organs. Tetraethyl lead in petrol was a very effective way of improving…

Turkey has been a hotbed for new air rifles in recent years, many pitched at the low to middle end of the PCP financial spectrum. Manufacturers like Hatsan and Kral have hit on a winning combination of goodlooking rifles matched to reliable actions sold at reasonable prices. If you’re looking for leading edge, ground-breaking technological innovation, it’s fair to say that Turkish companies are, on the whole, going to disappoint. But you know what? Fancy gadgets, electronic trickery and double-regulated actions simply don’t do it for many. Some are put off by the price all this commands, while others don’t trust it. A solid, dependable rifle that performs well and doesn’t cost the earth will do very nicely. But we’re a fickle lot and regardless of price, we expect a…

BSA really hit the ground running with its new line-up of pellets, offering a choice of four different designs in both .177 and .22 calibres. I’ve tested the Gold Star in .177, finding it to be a great all-rounder despite its intended use as a target round, and wondered if its bigger sibling in .22 calibre would deliver similarly good results. Like their .177 counterparts, the .22 Gold Stars are domehead diabolos, this time having a head size of 5.53mm. Each pellet looks slightly squat, giving it a bulldog-like build on the outside, but the skirt has a deeper-than-usual hollow on the inside, better to catch the blast of air that propels it down the barrel. That squashed shape may or may not be ballistically advantageous, but it does make…

ZEROING IN NEWS AND MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS KIT / NEWS / PEOPLE / EVENTS / INSIGHT Night vision gear is becoming ever-more popular, and thanks to the new NiteVizor range distributed by John Rothery Wholesale, it’s becoming more affordable too. The model seen here is the VP200 XTR, which converts a normal telescopic sight to night vision and retails for £549.95. The advantage of an add-on unit like this is that you don’t need a second rifle for your NV setup as you just attach this to the rear of your day scope. Fitting the VP200 XTR is straightforward as it has a mount section that clamps to your sight. This comes with various sleeves to ensure a secure attachment to the scope’s ocular bell. Once fitted, the NV unit itself…

There’s great news for pre-charged shooters who want to be in control of their own air supply and not rely on dive shops or face the workout of a stirrup pump in the shape of the new T3 Super Leggero lightweight compressor from Daysate. Whilst the T2 compressor remains a better choice for gun clubs and shops that need to fill large capacity tanks, the T3 Super Leggero is 10kg lighter, making it much more portable, and at £1,900, costs £500 less. The new T3 shares many features of its larger stablemate, such as a large, easy-toread pressure gauge to monitor output pressure, plus a safety switch-off function. The T3 Super Leggero also has a run time counter to help with servicing schedules. Measuring 650mm x 350mm x 390mm and…

The following month was the eagerly awaited Memorial Shoot. As restrictions and guidelines eased, the rules could be relaxed and when the Memorial Shoot came around we were able to revert to normal UK rules. The event has gained huge popularity over the years, associated with the Monkeys’ wellknown warm welcome and leg-pulling. The members use this as a fundraiser and also to raise money for the Lochaber Mountain Rescue charity. The usual lane sponsorship for the charity sold out quickly and exceeded the amount the group had hoped to raise. The famous NMHFT mega-raffle was generously supported by Vortex Optics, Air Arms, Optics Warehouse, Rowan Engineering, Precision Rifle Systems and Highland Outdoors to mention just a few, as well as donations from members. As is customary the wind didn’t…

Although some farms hold a resident population of rats right through the year, numbers of these unwelcome rodents peak during the autumn and winter months. This is because although rats can live very comfortably in the open countryside during the warmer months, life obviously becomes tougher when the weather turns cold and natural food is less abundant. Most of my farmyard shooting permissions see a gradual increase in rats once harvesting gets underway. With less food out in the fields, the scaly-tails start looking for easy pickings elsewhere and lots of them will settle on the farm where they can usually find a reliable supply of animal feed and stored grain to get them through the toughest part of the year. Rats that move onto the farm find plenty of…

I keep going on about proper gun fit, but it is so important for those wishing to seek maximum accuracy from their combination. But what do we mean by the term “proper” gun fit? Well, the ability to bring the gun into aim swiftly and without effort or strain on any of your muscle groups is crucial to ensure that when we let the shot off, we are as relaxed as it is possible to be. This includes the prone, standing and kneeling positions, which require more effort to maintain than if shooting in a rested position such as off the bench. Even if we shoot mostly from the bench, it is still important to ensure that everything lines up properly and we aren’t straining anything. It is amazing the…

Robert William Boyle (1627-1691), chemist, scientific investigator and enquirer, knew a lot about gas. More than three centuries after his passing, RWS introduced their Model C225 gas pistol. The story goes that it was made for them by Umarex of Germany, who also knew a lot about CO2. First produced in the late 1990s with its contemporary, the Walther CP88 CO2 pistol, it came along about the time that the legal status of low-powered gas guns was changed, allowing ownership in the UK without the need of a Firearm Certificate. The C225 lacked some of the elements of more recent pistols, such as blowback operation or dual ammunition, but was in no way diminished by this. It could be worked single action by thumbing back the exposed hammer to cock…