Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Airgun Shooter

GET AN ANGLE ON THE AIGLE Aigle has released a brand new outdoor boot called the Sonricker, and it's available for purchase in the UK right now thanks to distributor John Rothery Wholesale. Aigle is widely known for its quality footwear, and the Sonricker is no exception as it features Gore-Tex to keep your feet dry, a Vibram rubber sole to help you keep your footing and Ortholite foam technology in the insole to boost comfort and performance. The Sonricker is a great addition to the Aigle range, and complements the welly boots and walking boots that are presently available. The new Sonricker boot is covered by Aigle’s two-year warranty and has an RRP of just £140 for a boot packed full of features. Visit John Rothery Wholesale at bisley-uk.com…

She’s the current English women’s 10m Air Rifle champion, but you may not have heard of Ruth Mwandumba. It might be worth committing her name to memory, though, because this quietly ambitious 27-year-old from Liverpool is starting to get noticed for her campaigning work as well as her scores. And she’s just made a significant step towards Olympic selection. We managed to ask Ruth some questions during a break between her training camps and top-level competitions. AGS: Tell us about the disciplines you shoot. RM: I shoot 10m Air Rifle and 50m .22 Rifle. My airgun is a Walther LG400 Alutec competition rifle. I chose it because it was the one that seemed to fit my body best out of all the guns I tried. It immediately felt comfortable. It…

FREE TO ENTER WIN! WORTH £160 Umarex’s speciality is creating CO2-powered replicas, and its licensed version of the Smith & Wesson M&P45 M2.0 proves the company has got this down to a fine art. Smith & Wesson's powder-burning M&P is aimed at the military and police market, hence the name, but it's also popular with civilian shooters. It's available in several calibres, including .45 Auto, with the specific calibre appearing in the gun's designation - hence the '45' on the Umarex replica. Umarex has visited the M&P before, the S&W M&P9 M2.0 being a BB-firing blowback, but this time round the gun fires .177 pellets through a rifled barrel, using the German manufacturer's tried and tested eight-shot rotary magazine, two of which are supplied. Umarex has made the process of…

Once you’ve bought a scope you’ll need some good quality mounts to attach it to your rifle, but there are a number of factors to consider before you walk away with a set. 1: What type of clamping system does your rifle have? Does it have a regular dovetail rail or a Picatinny rail? 2: If it’s a dovetail, what size rail? Dovetail rails are usually 11mm or 13mm wide. Sportmatch, for example, makes two widths of dovetail mount, the wider being a better fit for some BSA and older Weihrauch rails. 3: What size scope tube do you have? Is it 1in, 30mm or even one of the more exotic sizes such as 34mm? 4: What size objective lens does your scope have? This could be anywhere from 24mm…

KEY SPECS IMPORTER: Thomas Jacks (thomasjacks.co.uk) TEL: 01789 264100 MODEL: Guide TD210 RRP: £599.95 TYPE: Thermal imaging monocular LENGTH: 145mm WEIGHT: 230g It wasn’t that long ago that hand-held thermal imaging devices were only affordable to the military, police and search and rescue teams, but today the prices have come down dramatically. What you consider affordable depends on how deep your pockets are, and many of the high-quality thermal spotters are £2,000 or more, so I was pleasantly surprised when I was shown the Guide TD210. Its recommended retail price is £599.99, which I think many of us would consider reasonable and therefore worth a closer look. In simple terms, thermal imagers sense heat and then highlight it in the view through the eyepiece. This means our quarry will stand…

SHOOTING ADVICE FEATURE MOUNTING A SCOPE Anyone who’s been shooting air rifles for a while will likely be able to fit a new scope in a matter of minutes. But for anyone starting out, mounting and levelling a scope can be a daunting process. However, very few tools are needed to fit a scope; sometimes a single Allen key is enough, along with a means of holding your rifle secure. Two more vital components are knowing what you're trying to achieve and why. With this in mind, it's high time to shed some light on the subject and prove it's not a dark art after all, with four alternative ways to get set to go shooting. Three main elements come into play when fitting a telescopic sight: the height the scope…

Many years ago I was asking a very experienced hunter called Albert how I could improve my airgunning skills, and he gave me an interesting answer. He said that after your gun and pellets you need two things, which are good boots and a pair of binoculars. Then he said “use the latter twice as much as the former”, which left me confused. I was too shy and embarrassed to ask what he meant, so I said thank you and changed the subject. Since that moment I’ve thought about his words many times, and once I worked out what he was trying to teach me, I realised that it was the best hunting advice I’d ever been given. He was trying to get me to slow down, because I was…

INSIGHT AND EXPERTISE TO HELP YOU RAISE YOUR GAME YOUR EXPERT ANDY McLACHLAN I suspect that most airgunners these days spend more time indoors than certainly used to be the case. It is great to know that there are still many outdoor clubs to cater for the thousands of us who still prefer to shoot in the open air and take on the vagaries of different ranged targets - and the abilities of the wind to destroy our carefully considered firing solutions. Maybe it is that as I get older, I appreciate the relative comfort of shooting at an indoor range. It must be said that shooting indoors is far easier and is less challenging than having to dial wind shear into our shooting calculations. I am of course aware…

HUNTING & FIELDCRAFT HUNTING SQUIRRELS When it comes to grey squirrel control, tackling a small wood does not mean little action or few squirrels. Size really isn’t everything! I used to try to estimate how many greys might be in a given wood based on its approximate size, and I’ve been wrong so many times that these days I’ve just about given up trying. The reality is the number is always higher than what I’d estimated, and this is why the grey squirrel is such a problem in our woodlands. If different woodlands are close together then some of the greys you’ll encounter in a given wood may simply be a day visitor from elsewhere rather than a full-time resident of the wood you’re in. This may explain, at least in…

THE GUN ROOM They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if that’s the case then the EM-GE Zenit has received plenty of flattery over the years indeed. This pistol was made by Moritz & Gerstenberger at its factory in Zella-Mehlis, Thuringia, between 1937 and 1940. Walther and Anschutz originated in the same town, where the famous Tell air pistols were also manufactured. The Zenit is 11in long, weighs around 1½ lb and was made in .177 only. It is of walnut and nicely blued steel construction, with the barrel having a brass liner which may be smoothbore or rifled. In the latter case the barrel is stamped ‘gez’. It has an unusual cocking action via a long strap which sits on top of the compression tube…

“These sheets smell funny,” said my wife, as I climbed into bed. I felt a small surge of panic. I had noticed that she’d changed the linen on our bed, but it was only then that I realised which sheets she’d used. “Do they?” I replied, innocently. In truth, I knew that they did. And I knew what they smelt of. It was an odour that anyone who regularly cleans an airgun would recognise. Sarah was holding the duvet cover to her nose. “Yeah,” she said, thoughtfully. “It's a familiar smell, I just can't place it.” I turned off the light and waited, grimacing in the darkness for the penny to drop. But after a moment she lost interest, said goodnight and rolled over to sleep. I lay there, suddenly…

A modern telescopic sight is a precision instrument, full of helpful features, but at its most basic level a scope has one simple role to play - it helps us point our airgun in a particular direction. It doesn’t matter what type of shooting we're doing or what type of airgun we’re using, the principle is the same: a scope is a type of sighting system that will help ensure a pellet will fly through the air on a known trajectory and hit the intended target. A telescopic sight, which can also be referred to as a ‘scope’ or an ‘optic’, is just one type of sighting system available to the shooter. Let’s take a quick look at the other kinds to understand the differences. OTHER TYPES OF SIGHT Open…

SHOOTING ADVICE FEATURE OPTICS I lift the scope carefully from the table and bring it to my eye. It looks and feels like a quality piece of kit, but it’s slightly unwieldy because it’s not attached to a gun. I adjust the focus and the eyepiece until the reticle is pin-sharp and the image is perfect. There’s a stubble field beside the showground which slopes gently uphill to the edge of a wood. It’s midday in late summer. The landscape is flooded with bright light. I dial the magnification up to the max and scan the shadowy line between field and wood. The clarity of the sight picture is miraculous. If there had been an animal lurking there in the shade, it would not have escaped my gaze. I’m impressed, and somewhat…

My first air pistol was a Webley Senior. I loved that pistol, but fitting a scope to it would never have crossed my mind. This was probably just as well, as the design would have made this virtually impossible! A laser sight slung under the cylinder perhaps, but lasers were only found in laboratories in those days. My shooting buddy had an Original Model 5 air pistol, for which we made a skeleton butt stock. If it had had provision for a scope, fitting one could have made sense. In 1964, a radical new pistol was launched in the USA – the Remington XP-100. In effect, it was a cut-down rifle in a nylon stock. I read a review of this pistol at the time – it was chambered for…

TARGET SHOOTER AMMUNITION When it comes to choosing suitable pellets for our air rifles, many of us will just consider what everybody else is using as being suitable for their own guns. Very often that is indeed the case, and a well-formed pellet will perform decently out of a wide variety of barrels. But not always. For those of us who have been shooting a very long time and have got to know our equipment well, we will not only be judging pellets by whatever brand is displayed upon the front of the tin, but we are also far more likely to turn the tin over and check out the specific pellet manufacturing data, which in the case of ammunition that is manufactured by JSB appears on a small sticker affixed…

TESTING STATION RIFLE TEST WALTHER REIGN M2 RIFLE TEST KEY SPECS MANUFACTURER: Walther GmbH IMPORTER: John Rothery Wholesale (bisley-uk.com) MODEL: Reign M2 RRP: £829.95 TYPE: Pre-charged pneumatic FILL PRESSURE: 232 bar LENGTH: 665mm WEIGHT: 2.5 kg CALIBRE: .177 and .22 (tested) ACTION: Sidelever, magazine-fed SHOT COUNT: 140 in .177, 180 in .22 STOCK: Ambidextrous polymer bullpup EXTRAS UMAREX K3 MODERATOR: £49.95 WALTHER SCOPE 3-9 × 40 ILLUMINATED: £144.95 TO54C BISLEY SPORTSMATCH TWO PIECE WEAVER MEDIUM MOUNTS: £29.95 NAPIER BULLPUP RIFLE CASE: £124.95 I think it’s only fair to start this review by saying that bullpups are not my cup of tea. I understood why people thought they would be a good idea and why many of the military forces of the world use them. A soldier deploying from an armoured personnel…

One piece of advice that I’ve repeatedly heard throughout my shooting career is to buy the best telescopic sight you can afford. When I was first told this, I didn’t really pay much attention because having splashed out on an air rifle, a scope seemed a secondary consideration when I counted up what little money I had left. But the advice was nevertheless sound, because you’ll never be able to hit a target if you can’t see what you’re aiming at, and a good scope should let you see the target better. At the most basic level, irrespective of any extra features a particular optic might offer, it’s safe to say that high-end scopes are made with better glass with better coatings. But what does that mean in practice? If…

FEATURE GUN MAINTENANCE TECH FOCUS Tinkering with airguns and doing light repairs will come naturally to many shooters, who quickly learn to appreciate how even seemingly insignificant parts have an important role to play. Take the example of a simple flat spring: with some air pistols, and especially CO2 types, if one of these tiny springs is broken or missing, then the gun’s safe and reliable operation can be adversely affected. Let’s look at the Umarex PPK/s, which is a CO2 pistol that has been around for nearly two decades. Despite its simplicity as a smoothbore BB shooter it’s much loved by airgunners and collectors alike, and amazingly it is still in production. One little spring that does not appear to do much lies hidden under a larger flat panel to…

TESTING STATION NIGHT VISION TEST NIGHT VISION TEST HIKMICRO ALPEX I’ve tested lots of night vision kit, and none of it ever made me put my hand in my pocket and part with the cash to own it. I’ve got by with a lamp for decades and it would take something special to get me excited, so when I saw the HIKMICRO Alpex my interest was aroused. The first thing we all notice is that it has the same form factor as a normal optical scope, so mounts in the usual way on its 30mm tube. This means that no adaptors or extra parts are needed. Further, it sits at the same height as a normal scope, so the handling of your rifle isn't negatively affected, which means a great deal. Instinctive…

It’s the climax of The Man With The Golden Gun. Francisco Scaramanga challenges James Bond to “a duel between titans - my golden gun against your Walther PPK”. As we all know, Roger Moore’s character emerged victorious, thanks to his trusty handgun. And thanks to Umarex, airgun shooters can get into Bond mode themselves. Sort of. While it's nice to see airguns created out of original designs, there's a huge appetite for CO2-powered replicas, and Umarex is an absolute master of this craft, with the subject of this review, the Walther PPK/s, being a prime example. This little pistol has a smoothbore barrel, shoots 4.5mm (.177) BBs and is powered by a single 12g CO2 capsule. The stick magazine has a capacity of 15 rounds and an average shot count…

TESTING STATION PELLET TEST PELLET TEST JSB EXACT .177 For decades, the JSB Exact has been the pellet of choice for many a hunter, plinker and target shooter. This pellet has proved so popular that JSB manufactures several versions of Exact-type pellets for other companies to brand as their own. That’s not a bad thing. Far from it, as it shows how good and how well-regarded these pellets actually are. Not content with all this, JSB also produces a pellet line called Exact Premium Diabolo, these being delivered in a solid plastic box with a hinged lid and being individually sorted by weight. I reviewed these .177 pellets in the last issue, so this time I thought I would compare the Exact Premium pellets with the standard Exacts. JSB offers a choice…