Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 i Airgun Shooter

“THE GUARDIAN IS SURE TO SPARK COMMENT AMONG YOUR FELLOW SHOOTERS” What springs to mind when you first take a look at the Guardian, a new multi-shot PCP from Milbro? The regulated action? The scope that comes included with the gun? The two magazines or the hardwood stock? Maybe, but I suspect the thing most people will home in on is the way this gun looks. The Guardian is perfectly pugnacious and is sure to spark comment among your fellow shooters. Its appearance is defined by a long Picatinny-style accessory rail that encases the barrel, making it look a little bit like an over-and-under shotgun. Three more 12mm Picatinny accessory rails have been fitted to the forend, which means bipod attachment is already taken care of, while scope mounting is…

Clint Eastwood helped popularise the Smith & Wesson M29 .44 Magnum in the Dirty Harry films, and movie fans and airgun shooters alike can rejoice in the fact that the M29 is now here in CO2 format thanks to Umarex. Better yet, this particular incarnation of the pistol has a 6.5” rifled barrel and fires .177 pellets. UK distributor John Rothery Wholesale said the M29 had been one of the company’s most requested products ever. “We first saw details of this pistol back in early 2021. Since then, it’s been our most talked-about pistol since the introduction of the Glocks,” explained marketing executive Claire Haskett. “Nothing can prepare you for how good this pistol looks and feels in the hand. The bluing finish to the steel is excellent. From loading…

Many of you have probably seen Guy Ritchie’s 1998 crime comedy Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. I imagine most non-shooting filmgoers who’ve seen it are vaguely aware that the title is a reference to a double-barrelled shotgun, though few probably understand what the term actually means. It’s the same idea with airgun shooting. Most shooters will know the parts of an air rifle, but newcomers may not, so here’s a rundown of some of the basic terms. It’s not exhaustive, and I’ve concentrated on a typical PCP rather than a springer or gas-ram. I’ve also focused on the parts an air rifle owner will come into contact with – literally – while operating their air rifle. Maybe we’ll look at internal components in a later feature, but for now…

While the whole barrel is important, it’s the last part that’s truly vital as this is what will allow a pellet to fly true – or see it corkscrew away into oblivion. It needs to be looked after! The end of the barrel from which the pellet exits is called the muzzle, and the last point of contact between the pellet and the rifling is called the crown. Several types of crown have emerged over the years, with the simplest being the flat crown, where the crown and muzzle are flsuh to each other. Many air rifles, however, feature a recessed crown which helps protect the lands and grooves of the rifling [1]. The muzzle can be threaded on the outside so an accessory can be screwed on [2]. This…

Hunting big game with airguns is a new phenomenon in America. Texas and Idaho, states in which I hunt a lot, only started letting us hunt big game with airguns about two years ago. Now over 22 others are following suit. There are a few rulings they’re putting in place for hunting big game with airguns. For example, Texas requires a minimum of a .30 calibre airgun with a 150 grain projectile, shooting a minimum of 800 feet per second, producing at least 215 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle, or a combination of bullet weight and velocity meeting or exceeding the 215 foot pounds of energy minimum requirement. Other states have a minimum of a .35 calibre airgun, while others have a minimum of .40 calibre and at…

It wasn’t very long ago that I was lamenting the sudden decline of rabbits in my locality. Thankfully, numbers have really bounced back over the past couple of years, and the bunnies certainly seem to be living up to their reputation for prolific breeding this spring. One of my permissions suffered a serious and unexpected infestation of rabbits last year. Like many other places, they had all but disappeared as a result of haemorrhagic disease and the tiny population that remained was generally left undisturbed. However, following a remarkable breeding season through spring and early summer, the place was so overrun that the landowner asked if I could thin them out. Last year’s cull was carried out very judiciously as we didn’t want to completely eradicate the rabbits. The fact…

Three hundred young pistol and rifle shooters have shrugged off the restrictions of Covid and fought their way through remotely held qualification rounds to take part in the first National Schools Shooting Championships since 2020. The event at Chase Leisure Centre in Cannock was a closely fought contest between regional winners from across the country, who were supported by special guests including Gold Coast Commonwealth Games bronze medal winner Dean Bale and Paralympians Issy Bailey and Ryan Cockbill, all of whom are British Shooting School Championships Ambassadors. In the individual disciplines, Grace Arnott, of King Langley School in Hertfordshire, won the Junior Pistol title. Ayush Chauhan, of City Academy in London, took the Senior Pistol Final title, while the intermediate competition was won by Raissa Vickery, of St Albans High…

There’s more to shooting a multi-shot PCP than just whacking in a magazine and squeezing the trigger. Let’s take a look at what happens inside the magazine well [1]. The magazine well is simply the area into which a detachable magazine is inserted. It must be free of obstructions, which usually means the rifle must be cocked and the pellet probe drawn back out of the way, and the magazine release catch, if one is present, should be in the release position. In some rifles the catch is non-essential as the action will function perfectly well with a magazine inserted and the catch not engaged. For others, such as the HW100 S seen here, applying the catch is a vital part of the process as it forces a rotor [2] to engage…

Controlling grey squirrels is a job that needs to be done right through the year if you are going to make a dent in their numbers – and keep them down. The methods we use can vary from season to season, but there is no denying that setting up a feeding station is one of the best whatever the time of year. I didn’t actually use my feeding stations very much through the winter on one woodland permission. This is because the wood is managed as a pheasant shoot and I can expect to encounter plenty of grey squirrels around the pheasant feeders during the colder months when natural food is scarce. Things are changing now. With the pheasant season long behind us, the gamekeeper is putting out less grain…

PAYING A VISIT TO PRS IN PURSUIT OF PRECISION Andy McLachlan goes in search of an aftermarket accessory – and finds just what he’s looking for from Precision Rifle Systems YOUR EXPERT Andy McLACHLAN There are quite a few engineering companies offering all sorts of goodies that are designed to improve our enjoyment of our air rifles. Many of these will be based overseas and the quality can vary from really good to pretty damned rubbish. To my knowledge, there are only a couple of companies that actually design and manufacture their wares here in good old Blighty – and very good they are too. Being old fashioned, I also much prefer to spend my money on products that are engineered by British craftspeople. When considering a replacement butt pad assembly…

While many of us started out with a springer, the PCP is now the dominant airgun powerplant, with its on-board air reservoir offering maximum ease of use and minimum physical effort. There is a downside though, and that’s the fact that the compressed air that propels the pellet has to come from somewhere. That typically means a stirrup pump or scubastyle charging cylinder. But there is a third way in the shape of a personal air compressor like the GX-L3 from Gilbert Distribution. Why would you want one of these? Let’s first look at the alternatives. A stirrup pump is a great way to fill a pre-charged pneumatic, relatively inexpensive and portable, but you need to be reasonably fit to operate one. A dive-type cylinder offers ease of use when…

“Shooting rested on a bench? That’s cheating!” Thus spoke my wife, who does not understand. Thankfully, JG Anschutz fully recognises the need to achieve the highest level of technical perfection in airgun accuracy as expressed through benchrest shooting. As a boy I was told that the name “Anschutz” was a contraction of “Hans Schutz”, a German gunmaker. After years of repeating this to anyone who would listen, I now know that the name originates in 1856 when Julius Gottfried Anschutz founded JG Anschutz in Mehlis, Thuringia, manufacturing Flobert and pocket pistols. In 1945, following the collapse of Germany after WWII, the company was dismantled. By 1950 Anschutz was back, making air pistols and carrying out repair work. As the business grew, the firm began to make match rifles of the…

FX has updated the Wildcat MkIII, which now has a greater air capacity, the ability to generate more power and a higher-capacity magazine. Two versions are available, the Wildcat MkIII BT Compact, with a 500mm barrel and a 300cc air cylinder, and the BT Sniper, with a 700mm barrel and 580cc air cylinder. The enhanced power is effected by a large 89cc Power Plenum, which is housed in the stock. This really comes into its own when shooting slugs and heavy pellets at FAC levels, effectively increasing the muzzle energy and therefore the range. The MkIII BT is also equipped with two regulators. The first regulator is placed just after the carbon fibre air cylinder and reduces the initial pressure in preparation for the second reg. That second regulator then…

Team GB have smashed it at the ISSF Target Sprint World Tour in Cairo, coming home with a haul of medals between them. The team of Victoria Bradbury, Emily Shawyer, Arno Turner and Isaac Steele competed in the junior events alongside the ISSF World Cup, securing a total of four medals. In Junior Women, Bradbury and Shawyer filled the top spots on the podium by winning gold and silver respectively. In the Junior Mixed Team event, Bradbury – who was paired with Turner, won gold, and Shawyer, who was paired with Steele, secured third spot for bronze. In Junior men, Turner took fifth spot and Steele ninth. Target Sprint team coach Rob Shawyer said: “What a super team performance in Egypt. In the hot sunny conditions, all our athletes have…

Of all his iconic designs, John Moses Browning is probably best remembered for the 1911. This handgun is still in use today, and has sparked many replicas, both powder-burning and airgun, like the CO2-powered BB blowback seen here from Lee Enfield (Guns). This pistol is part of Lee Enfield’s Brothers In Arms series of replica military firearms of the 20th century, and the company has sensibly chosen to replicate one of the later variants of A1 from the WWII era, with a simulated Parkerised finish and plastic grips. Airgun manufacturers are getting very good at making replicas in terms of overall size, weight, ergonomics and controls, and the M1911 A1 is no exception. This 4.5mm gun is of all-metal construction, apart from the aforementioned grips, and the top slide, slide…

Cartridge rifles and air rifles are the same inasmuch as they both use pressure to force a projectile out the end of the barrel. In the case of the cartridge rifle, the pressure comes from the explosion of the powder that’s contained inside the cartridge case, while with a PCP it’s the release of the compressed air that’s stored within the rifle itself rather than the ammo. A PCP uses either an inline air cylinder, like the one on the HW100 S, or a fatter cylinder, commonly referred to as a buddy bottle. This term comes from scuba diving, where divers would take a secondary air supply underwater with them to act as a “buddy” if they ran into a problem with their main air cylinder [1]. The cylinder is…

Having just competed in another long-range indoor benchrest shoot, my fellow competitors and I once again compared notes to see if we could identify just what it is that causes some shots to land well away from the intended point of aim. As humans, our inability to repeat the actions required to deliver shots like a machine would do has some impact upon how we perform. However, for those of us who have been doing this for a long time, it is disappointing that we sometimes fall short of our own ability to shoot in a machine-like manner, with every action being metronomic, resulting in the shot landing right in the 10 area of our target. Despite shooting countless thousands of pellets at our 50-yards-plus targets, we appear unable to…

There is a great appetite for airguns that stand out from the crowd, and Brocock airguns usually meet that demand in their own way. The subject of this review goes a step further though, taking the proven reliability of the Sniper XR action and dressing it up in an eye-catching package. The light sand finish is of course the standout feature of the £1,244 Sahara XR. It may not be to everyone’s taste (and it isn’t meant to be), but even as a shooter who rates traditional aesthetics very highly, I have to concede that the new twist does make for a nice-looking airgun. The pale shades may not be ideally suited to much of the British countryside, but they do look neat on the range. TAKING STOCK Measuring just…

While I’m a lover of domed diabolo pellets, believing them to be more consistent and accurate than any other, I admit that some hollowpoint and pointed designs have exceeded my expectations. But what about a pellet that combines both a hollow and a point? That can’t work, can it? I’m talking here about the Silver Star, one of BSA’s new premium range of pellets. Silver Stars come in a screw-top tin of 400 in .177 calibre, as seen here, and in tins of 200 in .22 calibre. Both are available in sampler packs in their respective calibres, along with Gold Star domehead pellets, Black Star hollowpoints and Green Star lead-free domeheads. Silver Stars are made of a hard, crush-resistant lead alloy, and have a skirt with thick walls, again offering…