Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i Airgun Shooter

KEY SPECS MANUFACTURER: Hawke (hawkeoptics.com) MODEL: LRF 400 PRICE: £119 MAGNIFICATION: 6x OBJECTIVE LENS: 25mm WEIGHT: 130g LENGTH: 94mm BATTERY: CR2 (included) WATER RESISTANT/FOGPROOF: Yes WARRANTY: Two years If you really want to shoot accurately with an airgun, you will need to understand your pellet's trajectory and the range to your target. There's no way around that. We used to judge range by eye – often very badly – but when laser rangefinders came along, our sport was changed forever. Today we're blessed with much betterperforming ones that are modestly priced, and a great example of that is the superb LRF 400 from Hawke Sport Optics that you see on these pages. It's very small, incredibly light at just 130g, going unnoticed in my jacket pocket. What I did notice…

I know it's not an attractive characteristic, but as the new year begins I must admit to feeling rather smug. I'm now the proud owner of a 4900 on my benchrest scorecard for 2022. That 4900 out of a possible 5000 represents 48 shots on target and two slightly off. When I remind you that my frist score of the year was a humiliating 2210, you can perhaps forgive me for a little selfsatisfaction. So what lies behind this noticeable uptick in my benchrest shooting abilities? Well, first I should be honest and point out that the 2210 score was shot with my old Air Arms S400 that was, at that point, missing a breech seal and was generally pretty unhappy with life. But still, even with all its seals…

Modern CO2 air pistols can be single-action or double-action, just like their powderburning counterparts, and many offer both modes. But even though they've been around for years it's still easy to get these two technical descriptions wrong when describing how a gun actually works. To be honest, yours truly still gets these mixed up – and that's after using the real thing. For airguns, life used to be simple back in the 1970s with a break-barrel BSA Scorpion or Webley Tempest to tickle your fancy. Now we have Desert Eagles, Chiappa Rhinos and Lugers – and it's never been better! But what about the action? Working actions can vary, so let's start with revolvers. With a powder-burning handgun, and subsequently their much later airgun counterparts, there are two methods that…

VINTAGE AIRGUNS FEATURE AIRGUN ACQUISITION Finding old airguns is a hobby in itself. It's a bit like treasure hunting, sniffing out clues for those elusive, hidden things. Looking for specific airguns, some of which aren't even rare, should be fun, but it can take forever. And it doesn't even have to be an antique. In airgun manufacturing, it's a weird truth that after all the design stages and tool setting, actually churning out airguns is relatively fast and easy. A pallet of them goes here, two pallets go there, and everybody's happy. This may however last for only a very brief time, as when sales slow down the designers get dragged out of the castle dungeon and into the lab to create something to replace the previous model. This can happen…

TESTING STATION COMPARING KIT BULLPUPS Are you fed up with everything going up? Gas and electric bills, fuel prices, interest rates. Just about everything except salaries. Unfortunately, though, airguns are not immune either. Well-known brands have wowed us with some incredible rifles. And whilst they are wonderful things to hold and behold, and some definitely represent good value for money, there's no denying they are hardly cheap. It's not set in stone of course, but it seems to me that when you pay big bucks for a rifle your money buys a level of engineering quality that makes interacting with it that little bit more pleasurable. And there's no getting away from the fact that higher quality components usually, but not always, translate into longevity and reliability. Accuracy is of course…

ZEROING IN WHY WE SHOOT Like so many of us ‘boomers’, I bought my first air pistol and started shooting as a teenager. It was the infamous GAT pistol, which I used primarily to shoot cans in the garden. My first rifle, which was a Diana 75, was mostly used to shoot rats on fishing expeditions. I recall one vivid incident when I was about 14 or 15, overnight fishing with a friend. We were in sleeping bags and my buddy fell asleep with his loaded rifle in his hand. His gun had no safety catch and, as he woke up, he accidentally pulled the trigger and shot himself in the foot at almost point-blank range. Of course, this was long before mobile phones. I had no money for a call…

Some older air pistols look ungainly, but perform really well. Others look great, but are indifferent performers – and the iconic Haenel M28 appears to fall into this latter category. Looking rather like the famous Luger (Parabellum P.08) pistol, the M28 not only has a pleasing and characterful appearance, but is also beautifully made. I have owned two – more about that later – but let's first look at the potted history. The designer was Hugo Schmeisser, who lived from 1884 to 1953. For much of his life he lived and worked in Suhl, Thuringia, Germany. His father was a weapons designer, and he continued the family tradition. He was also a small arms adviser to Herman Göring and Adolf Hitler from around 1934. Amongst other weapons, he designed one…

TESTING STATION GUN TEST WEBLEY MK VI CIVILIAN KEY SPECS GUN SUPPLIED BY: Highland Outdoors (highlandoutdoors.co.uk) MODEL: Webley Mk VI .4550 2.5in Revolver PRICE: RRP £230.99 WARRANTY: One year TYPE: CO2-powered revolver POWER SOURCE: 12-gram capsule TRIGGER: Double-and single-action SIGHTS: Fixed WEIGHT: 950g LENGTH: 200mm One of the many great things about airgunning as a sport is that it offers so many opportunities to enjoy yourself, and collecting functioning replicas must be near the top of the list. Just think, you can own James Bond's Walther PPK or Dirty Harry's Smith & Wesson Model 29, and better still shoot them for fun. Added to that list surely has to be the Webley Mk VI revolver that served our armed forces for decades, and was valued for its strength and durability in…

TESTING STATION PELLET TEST BSA BLACK STAR .22 The search for the perfect hunting pellet seems neverending, with manufacturers trying to create the elusive mix of ballistic performance and the sudden transfer of kinetic energy into the killzone of the quarry, and one of the latest contenders is the Black Star from BSA. When I tested the .177 variety, I found these pellets to be very well-made, hard-hitting and accurate out to medium distances, so for this issue I decided to repeat the test in .22 calibre, wondering whether the results would be similar. Black Star pellets come in a screw-top tin of 200 in .22 and have an RRP of £8.50, which equates to just over 4p per pellet. Black Stars are part of BSA's premium range which includes Gold Star…

FIRST IMPRESSIONS Tracking down a Vulcan, Uragan or Vixen has just been made a lot easier thanks to a partnership deal that's been struck between Edgar Brothers and Airgun Technology, whose products are manufactured wholly in the Czech Republic. AGN Technology was founded in 2013 by Evgeny Pigrov, a well-known name in the exacting sport of Field Target, who's been competing for more than 20 years. Thanks to Mr Pigrov's outdoor target background, Airgun Technology is devoted to producing pre-charged pneumatics that fulfil the fundamentals of reliability, accuracy and ergonomics, while offering a wide choice of bullpups, carbines and full-length rifles. One of the models is the Uragan King, an unusual addition to the Uragan family because it has two slender buddy bottles running parallel to each other underneath the…

Registration is now open for the annual World Hunter Field Championships 2023, which will be held in England on 6-7 May. The World Hunter Field Target Organisation confirmed the prestigious two-day event, featuring two courses of 40 targets, would be staged within the Northern Shooting Show at the Yorkshire Event Centre in Harrogate. This will be the first time that the championship, which visits a different country each year, will be held in England, and is seen as quite a coup for the organisers of the NSS. Further details can be found at whfto.com/index.php…

TARGET SHOOTER BENCHREST STABILITY I mentioned to you all recently that, following the wanton destruction of my right ankle that was accomplished when fishing, I have been lucky enough to be provided with transportation to and from the shooting range by my good friend Dave. It is only when we experience troubled times such as these that you learn to fully appreciate just how important loyal friends are. He has even taken me to my regular visits to the hospital that have allowed the medics to check on my progress. Anyway, during our last visit to Leigh, I noticed that another friend, Jimmy O'Neil, had once again been up to his usual engineering antics with his greatly modified Caldwell rest. Now let me state that Dave, and those of us who…

TESTING STATION RIFLETEST AIR ARMS S510 TR KEY SPECS MAKER: Air Arms (air-arms.co.uk) MODEL: S510TR PRICE: RRP£1,479 TYPE: Pre-charged pneumatic ACTION: Side lever, multi-shot, regulated LENGTH: 900mm to 985mm WEIGHT: 2.8kg FILL PRESSURE: 250 bar MAGAZINE CAPACITY: 10 pellets TRIGGER: two-stage, fully adjustable SHOTS: .177-90, .22-120 I've been using Air Arms guns for over 20 years and have come to know their range very well, with my Year 2000 S410 holding pride of place in my collection. Typically, Air Arms guns are beautiful sporting rifles, with classic wooden stocks and elegant lines, so the S510 Tactical Regulated on test came as a bit of a shock to my eyes. This rifle has the appearance of a Colt M4 centrefire – hardly a sporting gun, but wow does it have presence! The…

TESTING STATION RIFLE TEST AIRMAKS KRAIT KEY SPECS MAKER: AirMaks, Czech Republic (airmaksarms.com) UK DISTRIBUTOR: CDR Guns (airmaksarms.co.uk) MODEL: AirMaks Krait PRICE: £1,400 TYPE: Pre-charged pneumatic CALIBRE: .177, .22 and .25 OVERALL LENGTH: 600 – 670mm BARREL LENGTH: 400mm WEIGHT: 2.5kg TRIGGER: Two-stage adjustable post-and-shoe match-style POWER: 11.65 ft-lb to 11.8ft-lb We love to categorise things don't we? A pigeonhole for everything. When it comes to air rifles, some come from a premium brand, some are mid-priced, others are affordable, but good, and a few are cheap for a reason. But a select few fall into a classification best described as ‘exotic’. Items like this are not high-volume and often carry a substantial price tag. But the lack of marketing budget behind them adds to the mystique. It's an indefinable quality,…

THE GUN ROOM The HW55 was the third model of air rifle manufactured by Weihrauch, following the HW50, which was launched in 1950, and the ubiquitous HW35. The HW55, from 1955 and on, was the company's .177-only target model. It was a break-barrel design, but it was distinctly different from the HW50, despite sharing some key parts. It featured a more sophisticated trigger mechanism that later evolved into the renowned Rekord unit, as well as a unique barrel lock-up system. It also had a neat precision aperture rear sight which was complemented by a front sight with interchangeable elements. Weihrauch's development engineers were able to achieve near-recoilless performance. A weaker mainspring than the HW50 meant muzzle energy was lower at 6.5 ft-lb. This, coupled with optimised transfer port dimensions and…