Airgun World - March 2017 - PDF Free Download

AIRGUN WORLDwww.airgunshooting.co.uk 1 A HUNTSMAN REGAL WORTH £750!WIN! TIME WARP! AMAZINGFIND–INSIDE! £3.99 BRITAIN’S BIGGEST-SELLING AIRGUN MAGAZINE...

38 downloads 78 Views 47MB Size

Download PDF

WIN!

A HUNTSMAN REGAL WORTH £750!

Airgun

BRITAIN’S BIGGEST-SELLING AIRGUN MAGAZINE

TIME WARP! AMAZING FIND – INSIDE!

FEATURED! DAYSTATE SAXON FX STREAMLINE TECHNICAL AIRGUN TOP-VALUE GUNS GARVEY’S HUNTING SI & DAVY NEW SHOOTER

RAT ATTACK! DAMAGE LIMITATION

MAKING HISTORY!

DAYSTATE SAXON EXCLUSIVE

MARCH 2017

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

£3.99

1

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

THE EDITOR SAYS...

Evolution House

The Vegas we regulars know and somehow love. It’s beyond bonkers, and highly reccommended!

2-6 Easthampstead Road,

Wokingham, Berks. RG40 2EG. Email: [email protected]

VOLUME 40 ISSUE 8 EDITORIAL Editor Terry Doe 01189 742511 Technical Editor Phill Price Consultant Editor Jim Tyler Chief sub-editor Rosie Barham Art Editor Louise Walker

ADVERTISING Group Sales Manager Dan Chart 01189 742503 [email protected] Sales Manager Sharon Blick 01189 742533 [email protected] Sales Executive Tom Richardson 01189 742525 [email protected] Sales Executive Mark Roach 01189 742525 [email protected] Office Manager: Sharon Wells 01189 742524

PUBLISHING Commercial Director Peter Timperley Group Content Director Vicky Mayer Publishing Consultant Derek Barnes

SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscription queries? Tel 01858 438840 Overseas +44 1858 438840 Online www.airgunshooting.co.uk Email [email protected] Write to Airgun World Subscriptions, Tower House, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough, Leics LE16 9EF

PRINTING/DISTRIBUTION News distribution Seymour, 86 Newman Street, London W1T 3EX. Tel 020 7396 8000 [email protected] Printed in England: ISSN 1741-1939 Printing: William Gibbons

TO BUY A BACK ISSUE OF AIRGUN WORLD CALL

01858 438 840 Now you can buy single issues of Airgun World online - go to: www.buyamag.co.uk/AirgunWorld CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE! WWW.AIRGUNSHOOTING.CO.UK + BEFRIEND US ON FACEBOOK! Published monthly © Archant Specialist 2012 Archant Specialist is part of Archant Ltd

FOR ALL BASA ENQUIRIES CALL 0844 848 8057

onders from home and abroad this month as the good ship Airgun World sails into the ‘show season’ proper. As I write, I’m a couple of weeks safely gathered from my annual jaunt to the United States, where, amid the subtlety of Las Vegas, the S.H.O.T. Show opens its many doors to shooting, hunting and outdoor tradespeople from all over the world. The S.H.O.T. Show is always a head-spinner and this year’s did its utmost to dislocate the editorial neck, albeit without a genuine deluge of breakthrough airguns.

W

WE’VE ARRIVED! The real wonder of S.H.O.T. 2017 was the undeniable fact that America is definitely starting to ‘get’ the sport of airgun shooting. Last year, I think there were around a dozen specialist airgun stands, and this time around I’m told over 50 outlets, manufacturers and media interests were promoting their

airgun-based wares, and our sport, to the global public. Yes, of course, our Stateside brothers in arms are doing things differently in many ways, especially with regard to largecalibre, big bore, ultra-high-power airguns, but the fascination, challenge and pure fun of our sport is surely finding its rightful place in the U.S. You’ll see a selection of what was provoking interest at S.H.O.T., plus some nonsense that amused me, in our special news section. Be assured, though, the U.S. airgun torch has been well and truly lit, and it’s being carried by some great people out there. More power to ‘em, I say.

MIRACLE FIND

and ‘80s, all absolutely mint, many still in their boxes, some totally unused, plus spares, scopes and other essentials. As you’ll see in this issue, he wasn’t exaggerating one little bit, and that amazing collection will be exclusively showcased in Airgun World in a fascinating series of articles. Hand on heart, having seen the photos, I am astounded at the pure quality of this incredible find, and I’m sure all of the collectors, and readers of a ‘certain age’ will be too. Finally, can I ask those who are going to the British Shooting Show to come over and have a chat. This magazine thrives on your input and the more of that we can gather, the better it is for all of us. See you at the show, then.

Meanwhile, back in Blighty, I received a call from a reader who told me he’d stumbled across ‘an absolutely incredible collection’ of airguns and accessories’. Apparently, he’d managed to buy dozens of guns from the 1970s

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Editor

AIRGUN WORLD

3

CONTENTS

THIS MONTH ... Bullseye Bargains! Reader Ads

P111

ED’S TEST DAYSTATE SAXON LE

p18

03 Editor’s Welcome

31 John Milewski

56 Hardman’s Hunting

Terry discovers wonders, home and away!

08 Points of You

John looks at the G46 Targetmaster, from way back in 1967; a relatively rare, medium weight gun

Hunting can be hard in the winter months, but our ‘hard man’, Phil, still manages to bag a couple of squirrels

Here’s where you have your say and ask your questions about what matters to you

34 Airgun Student

13 What’s Going On?

Naylor Ball recalls the basics, and discovers that the old adage ‘patience is a virtue’ is very true!

All the news, new products and upcoming events in the airgun world, plus the editor reports from the S.H.O.T. show in Las Vegas

38 Rodent Reduction

16 Competition

Si Pittaway and Davy enjoy a very successful night in the chickdenshed of their local farm

Your chance to win a Daystate Huntsman Regal, worth £750, for just £1.50

47 Umarex Boys Club

18 Ed’s Test

News from Finland, this month, as Ville-Veikko Sillankorva tells us about shooting his AG TAC45 in the snow.

Terry Doe gets to grips with the amazing, limited edition Daystate Saxon

23 Gary Wain Ever in search of the perfect pellet, Gary experiments and expects the unexpected

4

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

51 Dave Barham Dave seems to have become a magnet for invading vermin lately. This time, the rats have gone too far, and now it’s personal!

TIM FINLEY WEBLEY SPECTOR p28

CONTENTS

NEWS & OPINIONS / KIT REVIEWS / FEATURES / TUTORIALS / TECHNICAL

Technical Airgun Vision Express

TECHNICAL AIRGUN

PELLET WATCHING

Can you really see pellets in ﬂight? Who better to ask than Jim Tyler p74

Jim examines the phenomenon of seeing pellets in flight ome years ago, fed up with reading spring airgun recoil being expressed in terms of the gentleness of the nudge in the shoulder, I decided to try to measure it, starting with a biro strapped to the butt pad, then progressing through a number of magneto-electric and electronic solutions, which gave evermore accurate measurements. I discovered that my perception of the recoil cycle was a poor guide to what the rifle was actually doing, and suggested in an article that sight picture disruption might be a better way to judge recoil than going by feel alone. Now I’d started something, because people began quantifying recoil, not in terms of their perception of the nudge in the shoulder, but in terms of being able to see the pellet in flight, often ‘all the way to the target’, and nearly always as an expression of the excellence of the rifle’s state of tune. It sounds plausible that seeing the pellet on its way to the target means the recoil is low, but is it right? Perhaps the best way to answer the question is to look at the

S

factors that can influence whether or not we see pellets in flight.

OPTICS A telescopic sight can only be precisely focused, which gives the highest resolution – the ability to see fine detail such as a pellet – at one range, and the further from that range an object is, the less sharp the image. The distance between the closest object in ‘tolerable’ focus and the most distant is called the depth of field (DoF), and the DoF decreases with an increase in the scope’s front (objective) lens diameter, and it decreases hugely the higher the magnification. Let’s look at HFT as an example: Most HFT shooters use 8x to 10x

magnification, and focus (parallax) their typically 40mm objective lens scopes at 25 yards, which results in very close and distant targets being in what’s called ‘soft’ focus so that the image is blurred, and fine detail such as a pellet viewed end-on, cannot be seen terribly well, if at all. In HFT, focus will typically be soft at anything much under 13 yards, and over 40 yards, so most HFT shooters will struggle to see the pellet for part of the way to a target set at the maximum 45 yards. You can increase DoF by lowering magnification, and possibly see more of the pellet’s flight, but lowering magnification makes the image of the pellet smaller, and hence less easy to see. You increase your chances of seeing the pellet around the apogee if you sight

in at longer range, so that the pellet rises clear of the scope crosshairs; it’s difficult enough to see a tiny pellet without the reticle getting in the way. Aiming off in a crosswind also increases your chances of seeing the pellet in the later stages of flight, because it will appear to one side of the vertical post. The surest way I found to see a pellet in flight, with the scope at typical HFT magnification, was to focus the objective lens near the pellet’s apogee, but sight in at longer range. Provided there was a suitably plain background, I saw every pellet near the apogee on its way to the target, which presumably is because that’s when the pellet is moving at its slowest, relative to the reticle. All in all, your choice of scope, reticle and settings could play a major part in whether or not you see a pellet.

Rifle hold has a huge influence on the recoil cycle, and presumably on whether or not www.airgunshooting.co.uk AIRGUN WORLD 74 you see pellets in flight.

Different Strokes

TECHNICAL AIRGUN

STROKE OF GENIUS Jim looks at the measurable effects of altering the length of spring airgun potential compression stroke xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ome 30 years ago, I was working on the action of an Original/Diana 45, and had replaced the standard leather piston seal with one that I’d turned from PTFE, but with no other modifications, it made the muzzle energy far too high. The Original 45 was perhaps the first post-war ‘Magnum’ air rifle, designed from the outset to achieve the highest muzzle energy with an eye to American exports, and the PTFE washer took the rifle into FAC territory even with everything else set at UK spec. Rather than reduce the length of the preload or cut the mainspring to bring muzzle energy down, or substitute a softer alternative spring, I decided to reduce the length of the available compression stroke by fitting spacers behind the piston seal, and it worked a treat. I remember writing at the time that not only had the reduction in stroke produced the desired reduction in muzzle energy, but it had also reduced the time that the compression stroke took – and so the time to get the pellet out of the muzzle, which had to be good for accuracy. Most importantly, it reduced the recoil. I wasn’t alone in altering piston stroke in those days; lots of people did it, but nearly always in the opposite direction, lengthening stroke to increase muzzle energy, because relatively few contemporary airguns delivered energy near the legal limit because the available piston stroke of many

S

78

AIRGUN WORLD

production rifles was too short. We didn’t fully understand the physics behind the relationship between piston stroke and muzzle energy at the time, but we knew what worked. Fast forward 30 years, and nearly all new spring airguns have been designed with longer piston strokes, to increase their maximum potential muzzle energy

muzzle energy levels, perhaps, but mainly to reduce primary recoil. One thing that appears not to have changed is that most people broadly understand what works, but not why it works.

SHORTENING On the plus side, shortening the available compression stroke reduces the length of time that the

Jim explores the physics of piston stroke and muzzle energy p78

function of the piston displacement, so shortening the available stroke shortens the rearward recoil. If this can be achieved without penalty, such as difficult to manage recoil, then the earlier pellet exit and reduced recoil displacement can only be good for accuracy. However, because the piston gains energy from the spring

“We did not fully understand the physics behind the relationship between piston stroke and muzzle energy” for derestricted markets. A new generation of tuners has rediscovered piston stroke shortening as a way to make the rifles better suited to our UK

piston compression travel takes, and the pellet emerges that bit sooner from the muzzle. In addition, the initial rearward recoil displacement (travel) is a direct

throughout the entire compression stroke, shortening the available stroke reduces the amount of energy that the piston can gain from the mainspring. Energy is our

The Haenel 302 was advertised as high power ; it wasn t, due to too short a piston stroke and limited room for a mainspring.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

SUBSCRIBE TO AIRGUN WORLD! ON TEST

PRIORITY ORDER FORM

First name

within the UK

AIRGUN WORLD

to complete)

WIN!

Address

Email* *Please enter this information so that Archant Community Media Ltd can keep you up-to-date important information about your subscription and exclusive with offers that we think you’ll enjoy. can unsubscribe from these messages at any time. You

DIRECT DEBIT Service User Number

Instruction to your Bank or

415266

Building Society to pay by

REFERENCE (office use only)

card at £38.50

67 Hubble Bubble ... ... but very little toil or trouble. Tim Finley show us how spirit level bubbles help improve our accuracy

96 Subscriptions Offer

70 Follow-up Test: FX Streamline

98 Notes on a Novice

The editor concludes his rhands-on testing of the FX Airguns’ Streamline PCP sporter. Can it really offer more for less?

Have Airgun World delivered early to your door, and get it cheaper. Subscribe today!

This month, the editor asks Tom - and himself - some important questions

John Milewski proﬁles Dennis Hiller, a remarkable airgun collector of the ‘70s

Reader, Karl Reah, shares with us an incredible ﬁnd - an airgun collection acquired by accident

105 Open Mind

Take a look at Edinburgh Field Sports, a brand-new shop for everything airgun, and they do a mail order service, too!

£25.50 by credit/debit card or cheque

AIRGUN WORLD & AIR

GUNNER

JUST £45.50*

13 issues of Airgun World + 13 issues of Air Gunner + Multi Tac Knife

Issue No (Mastro only)

Date

WIN

THE NEW WEBLEY RAIDER 12

PCP WORTH £530!

GUNNER

X9 CLASSIC A battle hardened Co2 winner LAMP

Nightsearcher POWER lamps hit our shores

CANT UNDERSTAND? Accuracy

secret revealed

15

RAIDING PARTY!

PAGES OF TOP HUNTING TIPS

WEBLEY BACK WITH A BANG - LATEST PCP £3.99

MARCH 2017

Airgun World – I enclose my cheque made payable to Archant

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

ULTIMATE

THE EDITOR

CONCLUDES

Community

Media Ltd for £38.50 Airgun World & Air Gunner – I enclose my cheque made

OPTIC! PT2

HIS TESTwww.airgunshooting.co.uk AND TELLS AIR GUNNER 1 ALL

payable to Archant Community Media Ltd for £48.50

Archant Community Media Ltd, acknowledging receipt of your the publishers, would like to keep in touch, from order efficiently to sending offers. Please tick here if you you details of exclusive would rather not hear from us by post email or phone . We’ve teamed up with occasionally but if you would some great partners who would like to contact you prefer not to receive these messages tick here for post and phone . If you’d like to hear from them by email tick here . tick here or SMS T&Cs: UK offer only. Details of Direct Debit Guarantee are available on request. Airgun World is published 13 times £3.99 and the value of the gift. a year. Savings are based on the cover price of 28 days to receive your free Gift is available whilst stocks last. Please allow up to gift. For overseas subscription subscriptionsave.co.uk. Subscriptions rates, please visit www. with the magazine at the newsstand. may not include promotional items packaged Offer ends 15/03/2017.

*By Direct Debit or £48.50

by credit/debit card or cheque

www.subsave.co.uk/AGW2

EASY WAYS TO ORDER Subscribe online or call 01858

438840 quote CAW7X03A

Lines are open 8am-9.30pm Mon to Fri, 8am-4pm Sat.

torch package ID4.indd

34-35

Pre-order April‘s issue today and save £1 on the cover price. Go to www.buyamag.co.uk/ airgunworld and enter discount AW934D

101 Airgun History 2

84 Classic Collection

89 Retail Therapy

Start Date

CHEQUE

AGW subs DPS with image

Sketti and meatballs with a twist. Rosie combines Italian and Greek ingredients for something a bit different

credit/debit card at £48.50

Signature

gift

WALTHER MTK WORTH £25.50

A combination of tactical knife and tool. The one-handed blade in matt black finish with partial serration has a Liner Lock feature while the handle of the tactical knife contains the multifunction tool, consisting of bottle opener, can opener, screwdriver and swing-out bit holder (9 bits). This knife comes with a nylon holster.

WORTH

EXCLUSIVE!

www.subsave.co.uk/AGW1

TOTAL VALUE £129.24 SAVING 65% that’s £83.74

Airgun World – Please start my subscription by credit/debit Airgun World & Air Gunner – Please start my subscriptions by Expiry Date Card number

UP TO

PLUS receive your welcome

13 issues of Airgun World + Multi Tac Knife

CARE FOR YOUR KIT WALTHER CLASSUS WEBLEY RAIDER 12 GAMO ROCKET IGT FX STREAMLINE SMK CPI PISTOL WEBLEY MKIII

FX

STREAMLINE

*By Direct Debit or £38.50 Bank/Building Society number

Date YOU MAY CANCEL THE DIRECT DEBIT AT Building Societies may not accept ANY TIME AFTER THE FIRST PAYMENT IS TAKEN. Banks and Direct Debit instructions for some types of account.

93 Rosie’s Recipe

£3.99

Postcode

Branch sort code

INSTRUCTIONS TO YOUR BANK OR BUILDING SOCIETY. Please pay Archant Community Media Debits from the account detailed Ltd Direct on this instruction, subject to Debit Guarantee. I understand that the instruction may remain safeguards assured by the Direct with Archant Community Media and if so, details will be passed Ltd electronically to my Bank or Building Society.

This compact break-barrel springer offers fun by the ton, says Phill Price

TOTAL VALUE £77.37 SAVING 57% that’s £43.87

FEATURED!

HEAVY HITTERS! PELLETS WITH PUNCH! HUNTING YEAR-PLAN! HARDMAN’S HINTS

FEBRUARY 2017

JUST £33.50*

MAGAZINE

DIESELING DAMAGE! MYTH OR FACT?

Direct Debit

Airgun World – Please start my subscription by annual Direct Debit for just £33.50 Airgun World & Air Gunner my subscriptions by annual – Please start Direct Debit for £45.50

NAME AND FULL POSTAL ADDRESS OF YOUR BANK OR BUILDING SOCIETY BRANCH To the manager (Bank name) Address

Name(s) of account holder(s)

Signature

62 B2 or not B2?

COMBO WORTH £700!

BRITAIN’S BIGGEST-SELLING AIRGUN

Mobile

CREDIT/DEBIT CARD

p41

A WEBLEY RAIDER 12

Airgun

Postcode Telephone

SUBSCRIBE &SAV E 65%

SUBSCRIPTION OFFER

LE87 9BY, UK

No stamp required if posted

Mr/Mrs/Ms

Surname

✃

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER!

GO TO PAGE 96

Airgun World, FREEPOST LE6423, Leicester,

YOUR DETAILS (mandatory

Source code: CAW7X03A

MICK GARVEY

SUBSCRIPTION OFFER

I am a new subscriber I am a current subscriber and wish to renew

Martin Calpin develops a new discipline to aid his concentration - and it’s working!

109 Static Squirrels Join reader, Jamie Usedon, as he takes us through an exciting morning in the woods

SAVE

£1!

UE ON NEXT ISS

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

5

POINTS OF YOU

THE AIRGUN WORLD FORUM FOR YOUR RANTS, RAVES AND Q&As MORE THE MERRIER?

Tom had a helping hand when he first went to an airgun club - which is just as it should be.

I am tempted to send multiple entries for your competitions, but am unsure how to go about it. Do we send six entries plus one cheque, in one envelope? Or do we have to send six separate envelopes and cheques? If the former, what guarantee is there that all entries will be treated equally? Please explain how you ﬁnd the winner! Thanks. A J HANNAFORD It’s easy, A.J. – just send your entries, covered by a single cheque, in one envelope. All correct entries are then folded and placed in a box and shaken thoroughly, after which the winner is drawn. Hope that makes things clear – and good luck! - Ed

ACE OF CLUBS I have just read the latest article charting Tom’s experience of visiting a club for the ﬁrst time. In many ways his expectations and experience parallel mine, but maybe for different reasons. In my youth I was a pretty nifty cyclst, but a loner; preferring to go out on my own to keep the pedals turning. I then thought I should give club cycling a try. I had no doubt over my ability to ‘stay with the club members’ on a ride so duly signed up and turned up for my ﬁrst experience. For this event I decided to use my old road machine, certainly nothing like the modern sleek machine I left in the shed. On

arrival at the start, I introduced myself and was promptly ignored, accompanied by despairing looks at my old cycle, but I continued with the ride. Other club members were too intent on chatting amongst themselves even to acknowledge me, but then they had gleaming, ultra-modern steeds to ride. During the ride, I did strike up conversation with another cyclist and it turned out it was his ﬁrst outing as well, and he was feeling left out by the established members. We completed the ride together and I admit I enjoyed his company, but I never returned to the club for another ride and the experience of the established club members put me off ‘clubs’. As an airgunner I was also a loner until my daughter and I acquired an S400 and S410. I was ignorant of these riﬂes so asked for information on the Airgun BBS Internet forum.

I was contacted by a member who suggested I should visit my local club (then the Shepreth ARC, now Cambridge HFT) for a shoot ... a Winter Diabolical. I admit I was instantly wary and this was enhanced a little by the photos available of an HFT shoot showing people in camo clothing rolling around on the ground and eating burgers from a van in the woods – not at the same time – but I agreed to go along with my daughter to our ﬁrst-ever HFT shoot. What a difference! Having introduced ourselves, we were greeted by the chap who I had met via the BBS, and then introduced to so many other club members/shooters that names soon became a blur. We were placed together with two established club shooters for the shoot to ensure that we knew the rules, both safety and UKAHFT. We had an excellent time even though our scores were very low, but encouragement was the order of the day, not ridicule. Reasons for camo clothing soon became obvious; it could be a dirty sport and the camo clothing was cheap and hard wearing. We continued to visit Shepreth and included visits to several other clubs in the area, Kibworth, Lea Valley, MAD, and found the same type of welcome at them all. So, there is a simple message to anyone with reservations about visiting and joining a club, as I was – as far as airgunning is concerned, give it a go. I am sure you will be pleasantly

LETTER OF THE MONTH WIN THE JACK PYKE HUNTERS BOOTS I’m not the sharpest tool in the box and I’m also probably the last airgunner in the world to learn this lesson, but what a difference it’s made to my shooting. I’m talking about testing pellets until you ﬁnd the best one for your own, individual air riﬂe. Yes, I can already hear everyone laughing at me, especially as I’ve been shooting airguns for over 45 years, but I’m also pretty sure I’m not the only one who came late to picking out the ideal pellet. I’d been using a particular brand of .22 pellet in my three main riﬂes and I was perfectly happy with their accuracy. Then I bought another riﬂe and its accuracy was nothing like I expected. So much so that I took it back to the shop because I thought there was something wrong with it. There wasn’t. I was simply using a pellet that didn’t suit its barrel, Thanks to the generosity of the people at Jack Pyke, we’re able to give away a pair of the brand new Hunters boots every month to the reader we consider to have sent the best letter. That’s 120 quid’s worth of excellent footwear, just for letting us know what’s on your mind. You’ve got to like those numbers! So, have a think about what you want to say and get in touch, by email or letter. Don’t write pages of text because we’ll have to to be purely yours. State shoe

8

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

which I discovered when I tried a few other brands donated by a friend. The lesson here is as simple as I probably am; take the time and trouble to test those pellets. Like me, you may not know what you’re missing. WILLIAM NEVIS-BROWN William – however long it’s taken you to learn this foundation fact, mate, at least you’re there now. You are absolutely right, too, plenty of other airgunners take years to learn the value of matching pellets with their barrels. Once learned, never forgotten, though, so welcome aboard! – Ed

size and address, and it’s great if you can include a photo, too. I promise we read every communication we get. If your letter wins, you’ll get these superb boots, which feature full grain leather uppers, a Vibram Trek Hunter rubber sole, a 100% waterproof, breathable, Hydroguard membrane, odour-resistant Agion antimicrobial inners and Thinsulate liners. There’s even more to these amazing boots, as you’ll ﬁnd out when you win a pair. Good luck!

Something on your mind? Send us your letters and we’ll share your views with the readership. Write to: Points Of You, Evolution House, 2-6 Easthampstead Road, Wokingham, Berks. RG40 2EG. Or email [email protected]

INTO THE BREECH! I have been a regular reader of AGW since issue No. 1 and have owned airguns from the age of 12. Since this year sees me clock up 80, and I now have several guns – see photo! I feel that I should know the answer to my question, but I don’t. Help please! I am now ﬁnding .177 slugs a bit ﬁddly, with my arthritis. Can I simply change barrels on my Webley Tempest? I suspect that the .22 barrel will ‘ﬁt’, but there could be a problem with breech alignment. BOB LEWIS Hello Bob, I spoke to Webley and they think it will be ﬁne. They recommend that you contact TW Chambers (01349 832974) who will have them in

surprised at the welcome you will get. PHIL RUSSELL

CLUB CLASS I read with interest the letter sent in by Chrissy Jenkins and felt that I need to let you know of my experience of my ﬁrst visit to my local club. Last year, I became medically retired and so decided to ﬁnd something I was able to do to keep my mind active. After reading a lot of reviews and trying several guns in a shop, I purchased an HFT500 and then joined my local airgun club, Greenﬁelds, Canterbury. On my ﬁrst visit, a very knowledgeable member, Roland, spent a lot of time away from his shooting to help me to get to grips with my new hobby. He taught me how to position myself to the gun, zero the scope, and gun etiquette. He was more than happy too answer all my questions and due to his assistance, I have enjoyed many visits and have improved greatly. PHIL WEBBER

Yes, it’s fair to say that Bob Lewis has an airgun or two.

stock. You’ll need to know if it’s an English- or Turkish-made gun. The Turkish-made ones read TR at the start of their serial number. - Ed

with their money. Could there be an article on what to look out for in this market? Advice to give a more informed outlook for a newcomer, rather than let him, or her, be led by the salesman. You know the sort of thing, ‘Oh, you want this for that, and you must have one of these and ….’ Established shooters often give their old monthly magazines away, to be picked up and read by a newbie, and if such an article was included, it might add another airgunner to our numbers. WAYNE HODGE Good shout, Wayne, and this is deﬁnitely a project for another Wain, our Gary. Consider it commissioned. – Ed

FOOLS GOLD? Your series ‘Absolute Beginner’ proves something that the

PREVIOUSLY ENJOYED SUGGESTION With the price of airguns as they are, I’m sure many would-be airgunners think twice about whether or not this sport is for them. It’s often then that a beginner looks at second-hand guns, and there’s a startling array of all sorts, tempting them to part

Boringly efficient? Not for me, but other views are welcome.

shooting community has known for a long time – any fool can shoot a PCP. I wonder how long it will be before this one realises that you don’t have to learn to shoot and joins the Pshooter club. As you said, ‘so much of what we do is based on getting the result we want, rather than enjoying everything’. It deﬁnitely is nowadays. I can get no enjoyment from these sterile things and can only think of them as a vermin control tool, but I have other tools for that. After all, when you can hit anything you aim at, where do you go from there? Rest it on a bench I suppose and put pellet on pellet. How boring. I get my springers out and each one is different. I hope you are correct about the Diana K98 being a springer, because I was very keen on getting one until I found out it was a gas-ram. What with

PCPs and gas-rams, people like me and Jim Tyler will have no interest in Airgun World, no tuning etc. This is one of the best parts of airgun ownership and there are lots of people in this category, although not as many as there were when I was a lad. On a separate subject, I recall John Milewski in one of his excellent articles saying that the earliest slant grip Webley Senior that he knew of had a serial number somewhere in the tens of thousands. John will know that they started on No 7000. so, to ﬁll a gap in his ﬁles, please tell him that I have No 8698 – all original, except for the spring, which I still have. It does 450fps with an 8g pellet and current spring. As for accuracy, well, this’ll test you - barn doors come to mind. Now for a little moan before I go. I’ve given up trying to read your paragraph subheadings when they are in yellow on white. It’s age, you see, and you’ll ﬁnd out soon enough - surely there’s a better colour? I just got a1992 copy out and I can read every word, but I can’t say that today. It may be modern, but as with most things, modern does not mean better – it means cheaper to manufacture, usually. DENIS Quite the can of worms you’ve opened, there, Denis! First, in the real world of ‘serious’ sporting air riﬂe shooting, be it competition or hunting, hitting ‘anything you aim at’ is still nowhere near an option for anyone, no matter what type of riﬂe they shoot. There are still far too many variable to make success a foregone conclusion and high degrees of skill will always be required for consistent success. I take your point about the ‘yellow on white’ deal and my ageing eyes will be peeled for similar transgressions. Finally, don’t worry, there will always be a place in this magazine for our wonderful springers, and their unlimited mix of fun, satisfaction, challenge and that all-important ‘messaboutability’ - Ed

»

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

9

POINTS OF YOU I.D. HIGH? I have just got back from my local airgun shop, where I went to purchase an air riﬂe that I had reserved yesterday. As expected, I was asked for identiﬁcation and produced current household bills and statements, my work ID card, and a 60-plus Freedom pass, both with my name and photo on, to prove that I’m over 18 years old. I was told this was not sufﬁcient and that a photo driving licence or passport was required. I have neither of these. Were they correct, and if so, does that mean anyone without this identiﬁcation cannot purchase an air riﬂe? STEVE OAKLEY Steve – it is my understanding that you provided a suitable degree of proof of identiﬁcation at the point of sale and that there is no legal requirement for you to show a passport or drivers’ licence. I have called six airgun outlets and all of them conﬁrmed that they would have accepted your I.D. If you’d like me to speak to the owner of your local shop, please get them to call me at the ofﬁce and I’ll do my best to help. - Ed

NEED TO SUCCEED I have a really basic question. How can I get to be as good as Phil Hardman and Mick Garvey? I’m 18 and I live for my airgun hunting, but as

Mick, Phil, and every genuine expert will tell you that they’ll always be learning.

10

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

far as I know there are no training courses available to teach me the skills of the experts I see in Airgun World, so how did they get to be as good as they are? I’m willing to put the hours in, and I know my Air Arms Ultimate Sporter is about as good as hunting hardware gets, so how do I raise my game to expert level, and how long do you think it will take me? REECE JENNINGS Last part ﬁrst, Reece; you’ll be learning the hunting game for the rest of your life, just like Phil, Mick and everyone else. Those who achieve genuine expert status do so through years of devotion, hard work, trial and error, and by taking every opportunity to learn whenever they can from every available source. Whilst proper shooting instruction and tuition, which can usually be found at your local airgun club, will help greatly with technique, the many skills you need to become an expert hunter can only come through experience in the ﬁeld. Give yourself time, Reece, you have a whole lifetime of learning to enjoy! – Ed

SIMPLE PLEASURES Three cheers for the editor and his review of the Walther Classus! How refreshing to see an acknowledged expert getting enthused about an affordable, break-barrel springer, and joy of joys, one without a scope on it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the hi-tech stuff as much as anyone, and my Daystates, Air Arms, BSAs and FX airguns prove that beyond doubt, but sometimes the impression could be formed that these guns are the only option, and we know that isn’t the case. Alongside my hi-tech riﬂes, I love to take out my fantastic Weihrauch HW30, purely for the pleasure of hitting targets with something uncomplicated. Please make sure that we never lose sight of the simple pleasures that make this hobby of ours so much fun. NICK RAYNER

The Walther Classus combines pure fun with serious performance, but are we losing the ‘fun’ part?

MORE WAIN PLEASE! Here’s yet another vote of thanks for the contributions of Gary Wain. I ﬁnd Gary’s articles easy to follow – I’m not very bright – and his enthusiasm for his subject, and our sport, is completely infectious. If ever airgunning made it to mainstream TV, Gary would be the natural ﬁt for the ‘slightly eccentric bofﬁn’ type that’s been missing since Dr Magnus Pyke left our screens all those years ago. I love Airgun World and it keeps me sane in a household polluted by so-called reality shows and dreary soap operas, but if you could give Gary Wain another 10 pages or so each month, that would be perfect. PATRICK FRENCH

The infectiously enthusiastic Gary Wain.

PRESSURE ON? Is it possible to just take part in the sport of airgunning simply through shooting airguns? I ask because there seems to be pressure on us all to either be mad-keen DIY enthusiasts, or avid hunters who chase quarry at all hours of the day and night, or devoted would-be champions striving for glory. What happened to shooting for fun? Do people still do that, or are they shamed into hiding in their back gardens by the wannabe achievers? I know most of those reading this will say that airgunning has advanced immeasurably over the years, but I think it may well have gone backwards as far as plain old enjoyment is concerned. BRIAN PROTHEROE I have my own views on this, Bob, but as always, I’d rather our readers gave us theirs. Over to you, folks! – Ed

WHAT’S GOING ON

RUNAWAY SUCCESS After the resounding success of the 2016 National Target Sprint Series, Air Arms are proud to support the competition for the second consecutive year. Organised by British Shooting, competitors run 400-metres before shooting five 49.5mm targets with an Air Arms MPR rifle. Competitors then run for another 400-metres, shoot five more targets and complete a final 400-metre run. It’s great for shooters who want to keep active or for those who enjoy running. The competition is split into age categories consisting of; Youth 11 – 15 year olds, Junior 16 – 20 year olds and Senior 21 years and over. Air Arms Managing Director Claire West commented: “Air Arms are pleased to be associated with British Shooting’s Target Sprint Series, as it offers a great opportunity for those who have never picked up a rifle to have a go at shooting. Air Arms are proud and honoured to be involved with the development of the Target Sprint discipline, and we very much look forward to the 2017 series.” The 2017 National Target Sprint Series will take place at: ■ Wycliffe College in Gloucestershire on Friday 31st March ■ Northern Shooting Show in Yorkshire on Saturday 6th and

Sunday 7th May ■ Scouts & Open in Hampshire on Saturday 6th May ■ Rugeley Shooting Club in Staffordshire on Saturday 13th May ■ Yate Outdoor Sports Centre in South Gloucestershire on Sunday 21st May ■ Exeter University in Devon on Saturday 10th June ■ Surrey – June/July – TBC ■ National Final – Sophia Gardens in Cardiff on Sunday 10th September For more information: www.britishshooting.org.uk

NORTHERN EXPOSURE This will be the second running of this new show and based on the huge success of the first one, this year’s event will one third bigger to accommodate all the exhibitors. It will be on the 6th and 7th of May at the Yorkshire Event Centre, Harrogate. Show goers can expect this exciting event to exceed even last year’s excellent standards, making it a hugely enjoyable day out. Airguns will be well represented again at Airgun Central which is in the main hall, not tucked away in a corner as

some shows do to us. Air Arms, Bladetech, Brocock, BSA, Clulite, Crossman, Daystate, Evanix, FX Airguns, Gamo, Hatsan, Hawke, Pulsar, Stoeger, Tesro, Tracer, Umarex, Walther, Weihrauch and Webley have already confirmed that they will be there showing you the best products on sale today. We’ll see you there! www.northernshootingshow.co.uk

QUICK PRESS RELEASE Swapping a scope from one rifle to another can be a boring and time-consuming chore, which is why PAO is now offering KwikLOK ™ quick release/quick detach scope mounts. These thumboperated quick detach levered mounts, offer easy removal and re-fitting of scopes to their original position and PAO claims that there will be no loss of zero. They’re available to fit both 1” and 30mm scope bodies. At the same time they’ve released their ForwardReach ™ single-piece rifle scope mounts. These are ruggedly constructed and feature Weaver rail sections in multiple positions to accommodate torches, lasers or another other accessories you might choose. Being set forward it allows you to access your rifle’s magazine without interference from your accessories.

For more information about these innovative products visit: www.shootingparty.uk or call 01543 480 361

RANGE OF OPTIONS Hawke Sports Optics has added a superbly small model to their already extensive range of laser rangefinders. The Hunter Compact boasts fully multi-coated lenses and BK-7 prisms for first class image quality making ranging easier in poor light conditions. In poor weather you can select a rain mode that ensures accuracy despite the laser’s path through the droplets. It weighs just 141 grammes and will easily fit into the pocket of your shooting jacket. All Hawke laser rangefinders come with two years’ warranty and you can choose from 400m and 600m models. 400m model £149.99 600m model £169.99 For further information on the laser rangefinders please visit www.hawkeoptics.com.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

13

WHAT’S GOING ON

S.H.O.T. SHOW NEWS SPECIAL THE EDITOR REPORTS FROM LAS VEGAS ON WHAT CAUGHT HIS EYE DURING A TOUR OF THE SHOOTING HUNTING AND OUTDOOR TRADES SHOW egas will always be Vegas and the same will always go for the S.H.O.T. Show, with the proviso that there’s always something different about it every year. From my skewed perspective, this year’s difference was the obvious acceptance of airguns as legitimate

V

hardware, as the number of airgun-centric exhibitors rose to an all-time high of over 50. This is the States, though, and that means most of the airguns on display were ‘of a kind’, specifically highpowered, large calibre models designed to hunt equally large animals.

help scopes remain undamaged giants of Gamo, Crosman, Sig by the complicated recoil-shock of Saur, Bushnell, Umarex, a full-power springer and Realtree and the like had incorporates a sort of spring-piston staked their usual claims to system of its own. Testing’s several acres of impressive believing, so that’s another review S.H.O.T. Show real-estate, and booked. the whole effect was as bewildering as it always is. Here’s a selection of the SIG-NIFICANT The Diana P1000 Evo 2 Well, that’s one prestigious endorsement head-turners I found as I PRESENCE better and cheaper! I wasn’t aware of! wandered the halls and alleys Around the corner, I discovered of S.H.O.T. 2017. the world of Sig Saur and just how I’d heard that there was a new TAKE A BOW test sample ASAP, so that’s already much this company is living up to version of the side-lever, multi-shot one to look out for. its mantra of ‘the complete Our American cousins have a Diana P1000 pre-charged systems provider’. In short, it’s just serious taste for launching that, with products for every air-powered arrows, too, and that’s pneumatic sporter, so that was my BULLSEYE! first call sorted. I found the P1000 shooting another facet of this emerging Before I left the Evo 2, in three guises, comprising situation, pursuit that is definitely ploughing Diana stand, I a walnut-stocked, adjustable cheek noticed the very much its own furrow, Stateside. So yes, piece version, a non-adjustable including they do things differently over Bullseye scope one, and the synthetic-stocked, airgunning. there, but Blighty is well mount, which ‘tactical’ option, complete with New Co2 represented, too, with BSA, intrigued me carbon-fibre barrel shroud. These rifles and Daystate, Air Arms, Webley, greatly. It’s latest Dianas are rumoured to be pistols are on Brocock, designed to cheaper than Hawke Sport So much Sig stuff coming the original Optics, Nite our way. P1000S, as Site, Edgar well as better, Brothers, and the rifles I Highland had a play with Outdoors, certainly felt Armex and smooth and others flying slick. Edgar our Union Brothers have flag. Those Bullseye mounts look interesting, A rangefinder that reveals all to your The Sig Saur ‘belt’ mag’s now no? feed their pistols, too. smartphone? No problem. promised us a The global

14

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Something you think airgunners should know about? Tell us about it and we’ll share your news with the readership. Write to: What’s Going On, Evolution House, 2-6 Easthampstead Road, Wokingham, Berks. RG40 2EG. Or email [email protected]

EVERYTHING’S BIGGER

g scopes, all-knowin Exta-wide-bodied fin’ mag’ ark ‘sh t tha and s elevation turret pes R us. adjuster. Supersco

their way to the UK via Highland Outdoors, along with scopes, rangefinders, targets, accessories and even hints about a range of Sig Saur clothing. Sig has gone big, no doubt about it.

What a riot! This launcher should get things under control.

BONKERS LAUNCHER

It’s compulsory to report on the mad stuff I find at S.H.O.T., and the ‘Home Defence Hall’ always throws me a candidate or two. How about an anti-riot gun that can launch anything from pepper spray, through rubber bullets, to CS gas, SUPER SCOPES and about a dozen more noxious APLENTY options? There were plenty of even Swerving through the crush around more bonkers the Schmidt & devices in this Bender stand, I part of the beheld a show, but growing trend for 99% of them ultra-wide would get you bodied scopes locked up on and info-packed, our side of the dedicated pond, so we’ll turrets. It’s no move right longer all about Geoff Darvill, his terrific Texan, along the 30mm and that massive moderator. diameter body tube; we’ve supersized to 35mm and bolted on elevation turrets computer calibrated to your specific hardware and ammo. Supply the required ballistic details to your chosen scope manufacturer, and they’ll send you a customised turret you can dial in at all The Texan enjoys a varied diet. specified ranges. Not cheap – but hugely impressive.

I met the ever-amiable Englishman, Geoff Darvill, on the Air Force stand, where his mega-power Texan rifle was attracting considerable attention. This 500 ft.lbs., omni-calibre PCP was wearing a suitably impressive silencer and its devotees are growing by the day. One day, I’ll do a range session with that amazing rifle … one day.

DON’T MAKE HIM ANGRY!

Happy rather than angry, I’m pleased to say.

At the Daystate stand, I was happy to be cornered by the Incredible Hulk, in the impressive shape of Lou Ferrigno. I’ve known Lou for several years, since I gave him and the original Darth Vader, Dave Prowse, some shooting tuition at Bisley. We went hunting, too, and I’ll never forget that night, with The Hulk and I shooting rabbits from the back of a pick-up, whilst Darth Vader helped lamp for us from the cab.

REGULATION ISSUE Over at the giant Crosman exhibit, I found, among so many other things, a rack of pre-charged pneumatic Benjamin Marauder rifles. I’ve seen, and shot, the Marauder before, but these versions were fitted with Crosman’s latest regulator, which marks another step forward in America’s ‘special relationship’ with airguns. So, it’s not all about power, now, and the advantages of quiet precision and consistent accuracy are finding a proper foothold. It’s a fine thing for this old Brit to see, it truly is. Well, that’s just the briefest snapshot of the S.H.O.T. Show, but rest assured, many products were promised, so all will be revealed in the fullness of time. The S.H.O.T. Show in Vegas, eh? Nothing trumps it!

Now the Benjamin Marauder gets a regulator, and America really gets airgu ns.

JANUARY’S SPOT-THE-DIFFERENCE COMBO WINNER! OUR JANUARY SPOT-THE-DIFFERENCE PRIZEWINNER HAS WON HIMSELF A FANTASTIC WEIHRAUCH HW110 COMBO WORTH £800 FOR JUST £1.50 - AND YOU CAN DO SOMETHING SIMILAR ON PAGE 16! Who wouldn’t want to be Rod Collins of Peterborough, this month! Not only has he won our superb Weihrauch HW110 prize combo, worth a full £800, but he’s also just gained permission to shoot on a fantastic piece of land, with use of the landowner’s 4 x 4 to help him to cover its many hunting hotspots. Rod’s been a competition regular for years, so his persistance has certainly paid off. Well done him! There’s another fantastic outﬁt ready and waiting to be won this month, so get those entries in and it could be yours!

SEE P16

FOR ANOTHER GREAT PRIZE! www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

15

WIN!

A DAYSTATE HUNTSMAN REGAL WORTH £750

SCOPE AND MOUNTS NOT INCLUDED IN PRIZE

You could soon be the lucky owner of this superb, pre-charged pneumatic hunting rifle, which has become a modern-day classic. The performance can match almost any rifle on sale today, and yet the rifle is not too heavy to carry all day in the hunting fields. Accuracy is top class, through a combination of its super-consistent action that features the remarkable Harper Slingshot hammer system and a select grade Walther barrel. Controlled, precise shot release is guaranteed with the excellent trigger that boasts a perfectly curved blade that looks so right on a stylish sporting rifle like this. The barrel wears a full-length shroud, adding to the rifle’s good looks and offering noise suppression. Hunters looking for the quietest gun possible can choose to add a silerncer on the muzzle end cap that’s threaded ready to recieve one. Then we come to the icing on the cake, the superbly designed walnut stock that makes this special rifle one of the best-handling sporting airguns ever made. It comes up to the shoulder smoothly and points toward where you’re looking with almost no effort at all. Don’t miss your chance to own this superb rifle. Get your entry in today!

SO EASY TO ENTER!

Simply spot the differences and enter by post - like we did back in the good old days!

6

FIND

ES CHANG

✁

POST FORM

Spot the six differences between the photos to the left and circle them with a pen. Then cut out the completed form and post it to us. Entry costs just £1.50 per go – cheques and postal orders made payable to ‘Airgun World’ – and you can enter as many times as you like by photocopying the entry form. As a bonus; for every five postal entries you submit, you get one free – i.e six entries for just £7.50!

Airgun World Competition, Evolution House, 2-6 Easthampstead Road, Wokingham, Berks RG40 2EG

Your Name Address Postcode Daytime Tel Email. Prize to be sent to: (Name and address of your local gunshop) Name of shop Address Postcode If you are under 18, an adult must sign on your behalf and give his/her name and address Name Address Postcode Tick if you have a subscription to Airgun World Closing date: Wednesday the 5th of April 2017 What would you like to see in Airgun World? Simply write your suggestions below, or list your comments on a seperate sheet of paper, and send it with your competition entry.

There are six differences between the two photos. Simply draw a circle around them as you spot them, then send in your completed entry form. The winner will be drawn from all of the correct entries received before the closing date. Terms and Conditions: The winner will be published in the May issue. Competition closes at midnight on the 5th April 2017. Usual terms and conditions apply – visit http://www.airgunshooting.co.uk/home/terms and conditions. Archant Ltd, publisher of Airgun World, would like to keep you up to date with any special offers or new products/services which might be of interest. Please tick if you DO wish for Archant Ltd to contact you in this way by email. Please tick if you would prefer NOT to receive information by post. We occasionally pass your details onto carefully selected companies who wish to contact you with information about their products/services, please tick if you DO wish to be contacted in this way by email. Please tick if you would prefer to NOT receive such information by post.

16

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

ED’S TEST It feels more compact than it is and shortening it has made a real difference.

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

The editor gets first go with the latest Daystate supergun – the Saxon LE 18

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

THE EDITOR’S TEST: THE DAYSTATE SAXON LE

hat do you see when you take a long and careful look at the Daystate Saxon? Most will see a standalone, limited edition rifle that Daystate collectors will ensure sells out its never-to-berepeated production run of 150. That’s fair enough, and there’s definitely plenty to catch the eye on that basis alone. Those who have studied the formulation of the Saxon will be searching beyond its striking looks and unique features, to the rifle it will soon represent – the Wolverine 2.

W

ALL SHOW – ALL GO As with all of Daystate’s specialedition rifles, the Saxon is built to perform as well as looking remarkable. As the launch platform for one of the company’s most important models, this LE needs to show more than a hint of what’s to come when the next-generation Wolverine is released to the waiting public. The Wolverine has been an incredible success for Daystate and that’s something the Staffordshirebased, pre-charged pioneers are bound to want to build on. Let’s examine the foundation, then, with a tour of the £1990 Saxon LE.

throughout the Anglo-Saxon era, including Latin, that universal language. Daystate has also commissioned master bladesmith, R. Harrington of Bison Bushcraft in the suitably historic town of Battle, near Hastings, to produce a bespoke, custom made hunting knife and leather sheath, crafted in an authentic Saxon langseax style, and numbered to match each rifle. Add the custom Huggett silencer and barrel shroud, the certificate of authenticity and an all-protecting lockable hard case … and actually, you’re still a long way off from appreciating the whole Saxon package. To do that, we need to go in closer.

LESS IS MORE

ambidextrous thumbhole laminate design that played such a part in making the original Wolverine the world-beater it became. Gary’s design was

The Saxon, and eventually the Wolverine 2, is a full two inches shorter that the earlier model and that has a noticeable effect on the rifle’s balance. That carbon-fibre Hi Lite (High capacity – Lite weight) buddy bottle air reservoir holds sufficient compression to power almost 300 shots in .22 at 11-plus ft.lbs., which should translate to around 220 in .177. FAC holders can opt for the 30-plus ft.lbs. version in .22, and that will yield 60, full-power shots per charge, which on the test rifle is 210 bar. All Daystates are individually set up at the factory, so individual rifles can show differing recommended charging pressures on the little decal set into the frontleft of the breech block.

“ built to perform as well as looking remarkable”

HISTORY The ‘historic’ theme of the Daystate Saxon is designed to signify the 950th anniversary of the end of Saxon rule, which came about with the coronation of William The Conqueror, on the 25th of December 1066. To establish this theme, the rifle carries colours, patterns and examples of literature used

A limited edition with limitless potential for the future.

FEATURE-BY-FEATURE Another master, this time stockmaker Gary Cane at his Techwood studio, was called upon to reprise and enhance the

passed on to production maestros, Minelli of Milan, where it became an ergonomic reality in layers of multi-hued timber. As stated, the Saxon is designed to deliver top performance and that starts with control, so an adjustable butt pad, fully scalloped, stippled grip and a scope height cheek piece.

The Saxon is fitted with a revised valve system that smooths out power delivery, improves consistency, reduces muzzle noise and imparts a more ‘efficient’ feel to the shooting cycle. This is enhanced by the Huggett silencer and shroud, with its trick ports and stainless mesh inserts. Andrew Huggett is a full-spec’ genius in his own right and deserves his place in the Saxon’s roll call of commissioned talent.

INSIDE DETAILS

The full Saxon time capsule.

The standard of presentation is superb.

In addition to the uprated firing valve and its attendant air-flow dynamics, the Saxon, and again the new Wolverine, features bolt-open safety, an anti-doubleload device incorporated within the magazine mechanism, plus the best safety catch on the market. The latter is manual, centrally mounted and can be operated by the flick of a thumb. Perfect.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

»

19

THE EDITOR’S TEST: THE DAYSTATE SAXON LE

Simple, brilliant and perfect for the job.

TECH SPEC Model: Saxon LE Manufacturer: Daystate Country of origin: UK/Italy Price: £1990 Note: Expected price of Wolverine 2: £1176 - £1357 Type: Pre-charged, multi-shot/single shot sporter/match rifle Calibre: .22, .177

History all over the place.

Cocking: Bolt action

I’m pleased to see that the Saxon retains the option of a user-changeable bolt-handle, which can be switched for right- or left-handers in a couple of minutes, as can the side from which the 10-shot magazine is inserted. This is, therefore, a fully ambidextrous rifle and all the

the top echelon of airgun manufacture, Tony knows all too well that any high-performance rifle is only as good as its barrel, and the Lothar Walther matchgrade versions used by Daystate are at the cutting-edge of that technology. These are scarily expensive items, and Tony Belas

“the feature he kept returning to was the rifle’s barrel” better for it. Trigger function is two-stage and adjustable, of course, with the curved, stainless blade offering let-off weight options that range from ‘sensible’ all the way down to ‘you’d better have the dexterity of a neurosurgeon’. This superior rifle has a reassuringly superior trigger.

BARREL TECHNOLOGY In preparation for this review, I spoke to Daystate head honcho, Tony Belas, about the Saxon, the upcoming Wolverine 2, and about countless related topics, but the feature he kept returning to was the rifle’s barrel. Staying ahead in the barrel technology race, and race it surely is, is an intensive, costly business. Like all involved at

The shape of things to come, and by the look of the local vegetation - that photo wasn’t taken in Staffordshire.

20

AIRGUN WORLD

jokes that his company’s barrels cost as much as some entire rifles. That’s, literally, the price you pay for a declaration that no rifle in your sector will outshoot yours.

EXTENDED TEST PERIOD Normally, the downrange performance of what is, after all, a collector’s piece, can be slightly shoved aside in favour of detailing what the rifle is, rather than what it does. Not this time. As the forerunner of the Wolverine 2, and identically equipped to represent that rifle’s performance potential, the Saxon needs to be fully explored on the test range, so that’s what I did. I was careful, and I avoided the unhelpfully hideous weather out of

The specially commissioned knife is of a suitably historic design.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

respect for the Saxon’s immaculate finish, but I put 200 or so, carefully sorted, perfectly matched, .177 pellets through it, and I took it on several strolls through several fields and woods. I actually requested that Daystate let me keep the test rifle right up until the last minute before the British Shooting Show, where it is due to be offered as a prize.

SO HOW DOES IT SHOOT? Whenever possible, I did my best to forget about the Saxon’s array of ‘collectable’ features and furbelows and just got on with the shooting. The photos accompanying this test will display the bling, so I need say no more on that subject, anyway. As a shooting machine, I consider the Saxon, to be the finest full-length rifle that Daystate has ever made. I’d be more specific but the previous holder of that accolade is the Renegade bullpup, and I’ve yet to test the two rifles side-by-side, so bets have to be hedged, for now. The balance is truly excellent, making the Saxon’s scoped weight of 8.5lbs just about perfect, and far lighter in the shoulder than it is

Loading: Via removable, rotary 10-shot magazine, or single-shot tray Trigger: 2-stage, adjustable Safety: Manual Stock type: Ambidextrous, thumbhole laminate, with 3D adjustable butt pad Weight: 3.4kg (7lbs 5oz) Unscoped Length: 1070 mm (42 ins) Barrel: 430mm (17 ins) Fill pressure: 210 bar Shots per charge: 290 in .22, 220 in .177, 60 at 30-plus ft.lbs. in .22 for FAC Variation over 50 shots: 11 fps for .177 on test Average energy: 11.6 ft.lbs. Options: High-power model Contact: Daystate on 01785 859 122

£1990 on the scales. Even with two inches trimmed off its overall length, this rifle is still a full 42 inches long, but again, it doesn’t present that way. Pure accuracy extraction needs a bench, a beanbag and still conditions, and that last requirement was thin on the frozen ground during the time I was testing the Saxon, but I managed to match the very best of the groups I’ve managed during the past year or so. In fact, I was disappointed by the trio of 18mm diameter, five-shot groups I managed at 50 yards during my last week with the Saxon, because I know I could do better. It matters not; the Daystate Saxon, and the launch platform for the new Wolverine 2, is everything it needs to be, and whoever takes home this incredible rifle from the British Shooting Show is going to feel like a king. ■

1 YEAR WARRANTY

QUALITY THAT SPANS GENERATIONS

OFFICIAL UK IMPORTER 1977–2016

HW99S • REKORD TRIGGER • AMIBIDEXTROUS STOCK • TUNNEL FORESIGHT AND MULTI ADJUSTABLE REAR SIGHT • EXCEPTIONAL VALUE FOR MONEY

HW95K • HIGH EFFICIENCY SILENCER • MUZZLE BREAK OPTION • REKORD TRIGGER • LIGHTWEIGHT ACTION • AMBIDEXTROUS STOCK

www.hullcartridge.co.uk ALL SCOPES, MOUNTS AND SLINGS NOT INCLUDED

GARY WAIN INVESTIGATES

I probably don’t need to take cover; the wax has never once returned fire.

PLAYING THE LONG GAME! Gary Wain takes an extended view of the perfect pellet conundrum

ast month, in my quest to find out what makes the perfect pellet, I looked at the heavy hitting .22s in order to see just what sort of damage they would do to our much molested ballistic material, which if you remember is actually a terracotta wax used in the arts and crafts community. This month, I’ve decided to look at the effect that increasing distance has on the pellet with respect to its impact on the ballistic material. To do this, I’ve

L

taken three different weights of domed .177 pellets and shot them all at both 15 metres and 40 metres. So what do we expect to happen? Will the increased distance slow the pellet down to the point where it lessens its impact crater? Or will it slow it down to the point where the decrease in velocity will enable it to give up more of its energy to the material, and thus increase the ballistic effect on impact? Would the effect be the same for the

heavy and the light pellets? Or would it be more pronounced in one or the other? I think I know, but one thing I’ve learned when conducting these experiments it that not everything behaves the way you expect it to.

THREE PELLETS For this particular set of tests, I’ve selected three pellets, and first up is the gold-coated Gamo Raptor. At just 5gr it’s one of the lightest pellets on the market, and unlike

other pellets that come in packets of 25, the Raptor is so expensive that it only comes in packs of 10 – six of which I’ve already used in previous testing, so fingers crossed that we get the results we need, and I don’t mess up. The next pellet I selected was the good old Air Arms Diablo Field. This popular pellet tips the scales at 8.4gr so is nearly 3.5gr heavier than the golden Gamo. As many of you know, it’s one of the go-to pellets for both hunters and FT

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

23

»

GARY WAIN INVESTIGATES If you want to try this yourself, you’ll need about three of these packs to make a decent-sized block.

competitors alike, so it should be interesting to see how well it performs. Last, but by no means least, we have a visit from the heavy-hitting JSB Exact Beast. This monster of a .177 stomps the scales at a hefty 16.20gr. To enable it to carry the added weight, the Beast has an elongated waist. I wonder how it will perform at the longer distances?

combined to determine a projectile’s ballistic coefficient (BC). In very simple terms, this a metric that enables us to place a value on how well an object passed through the air. In the end, we decided that despite the baffling physics that people like to bring to the table, you probably

Which one will give us the biggest cavities?

UNDERSTANDING So, we now have an understanding of BC, and we should know that values range from 0 to 1 – or even greater than 1 in extreme circumstances. For the benefit of we airgun shooters, though, the figure seems to hover around the 0.020 mark, and as

material. I say ‘often’ because this isn’t always the case. If you’ve been reading the previous articles I’ve done on this subject, you’ll have noticed that heavy pellets with the same muzzle velocity as lighter pellets penetrate more easily into, and indeed through, the ballistic test material. This is because their greater mass imbues them with more kinetic energy. Combined with their relatively high BC, this means that they give up less of that energy to the surroundings.

“the better a pellet is able to penetrate the air, the better it is often able to penetrate the target”

SIMPLE TERMS So, before we get to the results, let’s go back to what we were talking about last month – ballistic coefficient. So far, we’ve talked about sectional density and coefficient of form, and how they

already knew that thin, pointy, aerodynamic things pass through the air better than fat, blunt, lumpy things, and you’ve concluded that you had a good grip on the concept of sectional density, coefficient of form, and thus ballistic coefficient.

we’ve already established, the higher the number, the higher the BC, and the more efficiently the pellet is able to fly through the air. Herein lies the problem. You see, the better a pellet is able to penetrate the air, the better it is often able to penetrate the target

I may have just winged it, but the cavities do look quite similar.

HIT AND SURRENDER OK, so they hit with a greater amount of energy, which may be a good thing, but they don’t actually surrender much of that energy to the target; instead they plough on through and out the other side. What we’re looking for is a pellet that hits the target hard and then surrenders that energy into the target. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? However, the two factors are essentially mutually opposed, and this is where all the fancy-shaped pellets come into play. You’ll have noticed, I’m sure, that on the market there are no end of pellets that attempt to be streamlined though the air (high BC), but surrender their energy upon impact. A classic example of this is the spire-tipped hollow point. OK, that’s enough brain strain for this month, back to the plot and to the results of our testing.

GREAT START (NOT) Remember I said I only had a few

24

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

GARY WAIN INVESTIGATES - XXXXXXXXXXX

The Raptor at 15 metres gave us the biggest cavity yet.

Weights of 5, 8.4, and 16.2 grains. ‘Core’ look at those - but which one’s which?

of the golden Gamos left? Remember how I said I needed to not mess up? Well, guess what. I messed up! Actually, let me put a more positive spin on it. I didn’t mess up, I just didn’t achieve the results I wanted, and ran out of ammunition trying, but I did learn a valuable lesson and achieved some other results, and they were that the 5gr Gamo pellet really doesn’t suit the barrel of my Daystate Pulsar. How did I learn this? Well, having attained a good shot at 15m I walked out the longer range of 40m where on my first shot I only managed to clip the ballistic material. After re-warming and re-moulding the terracotta wax, which each time I have to do it takes a good 30 minutes, I then managed to miss it completely on the next two tries. Now, remember that the Daystate Pulsar I use is not normally so pellet picky, and that I was using a rest, and you’ll appreciate that I tried to do the best with what I had. That was it – I was out of Gamo ammo, and I had no time to get any more to complete the testing. What I did learn though was that the Gamo Raptor leaves a very big hole at 15m, and even though I couldn’t take a cast, it was clear that the effects out at 40m were also pretty devastating, so if you’re barrel suits them, you

could be on to something extremely interesting.

NEXT UP The next pellets to whistle down the barrel were the 8.4gr Air Arms Diablo Field. These totally penetrated the ballistic material at both distances, the 40m shot having a fractionally wider internal cavity. Both pellets gave similar entry wounds, but the 40m shot gave a noticeably smaller exit wound, which would indicate that it had surrendered more of its energy internally, and this would hold with the slightly larger internal cavity. Turning our attention to the JSB Exact Beasts, we saw pretty much what we expected. Both distances

shot garnered noticeably smaller cavities than the lighter, Air Arms pellets, the internal cavities and wound tracks were essentially indistinguishable, but the 40m shot were measurably 3mm larger. It was noticeable at 15m that both the entry and exit holes were larger than for the shots fired at 40m, indicating perhaps that more of the energy had been dissipated at 40m. Now, as the energy does not appear to have been dissipated within the material, I can only assume that with this much heavier pellet, the shot fired at the greater distance had lost a degree of its energy before impact. As we know, energy or force can be described as being equal to speed

Diablo exit wounds, but again - which one is which?

multiplied by weight (mass x acceleration) so we can surmise that the pellet made smaller holes because it was travelling slower.

THIS MONTH’S LESSON So what have we learned? Well, we’ve learned that my rifle doesn’t like those golden Gamo Raptors, but given the results we got, it appears that the cavities looked broadly similar, indicating that the fast-moving light pellet had not slowed down significantly with the change in distance. We also learned that the heavy JSB Exact Beast does decelerate and requires a significant hold-over increase when moving from 15m to 40m. From a ballistics point of view, the Beast does appear to perform slightly better at longer distances, possibly because it slowed a great deal and so was able to surrender comparatively more of the energy it had left. Perhaps the most important lesson we learned is that the 8.4gr AA Diablo gave good, consistent results at both ranges, and, in my rifle, was certainly the most accurate and usable of the three pellets on test. This leads me to conclude that there’s probably a good reason why most .177 pellets are around the 8gr mark. Now … what next? ■

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

25

TOP-VALUE GUNS: TIM FINLEY Tim loves these military-looking guns.

ver a fan of military-looking air rifles, the Webley Spector caught my eye. It’s black, tactical-looking, and better still, a break-barrel springer and not a Co2 plinker as they normally are. It’s also exceptionally good value for money, but it has a lot more going for it other than being a black, cheap boinger. The stock is ambidextrous. Well, I say ‘stock’ – the Spector is a very AR’ish, black rifle-type gun, so it has a pistol grip. The steel action is covered in a polymer chassis designed to mimic a tactical firearm. As well as looking good, it gives the stock another advantage; it’s more hard-wearing than a wooden version. It is a bit short, pull-length wise, at 361mm, and the ambidextrous cheek piece is a little low for a gun that only uses optical sights. The stock in front of the faux magazine well is fashioned to resemble the front rails of an AR fitted with grip Picatinny rail add-ons, and I like the look and feel of it. The rear of the stock is made to look like an adjustable AR stock, but it is not adjustable. The thin 4mm web at the back is ideal for drilling a hole to fit a rear sling swivel, and a front swivel can be clamped around the barrel. The action is a breakbarrel, spring-powered air rifle of classic layout. It has a solid steel 10x8mm cocking arm, and ‘solid’ is the word I would use for the build of the Spector.

E

PLENTY OF POWER

TAKEN ON SPEC Tim Finley tries an eye-catching break-barrel

28

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Over the chronograph, with 14.5grain pellets, it ran in at 560 fps or 10.7ft.lbs. Webley call it their ‘VMX power system’ in the blurb, but is has Powr-Lok on the steel action – either way, it works. It also has SR and OS after the Webley Spector name. I presume the ‘OS’ stands for OverSize, relating to the truly huge moderator the Spector is blessed with, and the ‘SR’ must mean Spring Rifle. The rifled steel barrel sits inside a 26.8mm diameter outer sleeve, and the barrel ends 170mm back from the end of the moderator, which has a 10.8mm exit hole. Webley have a name for this system too, the ‘Quantum©’. They have done all they can to eliminate

TOP VALUE GUNS: WEBLEY SPECTOR The Webley Spector fitted with a 6x AGS scope.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

all sound generated by the pellet exiting the barrel, but it does not have any effect on the noise generated by the power plant. The Quantum© Oversleeved Silencer design works by using the first chamber to back reflex excess air form behind the pellet into the cavity and silencer wall. This slows down the air without the loss of power, which in turn, reduces the sound. The remaining chambers incorporate extra baffles and two acoustic felt cages to absorb any build-up of pressure whilst the pellet travels through the silencer. The spring decompressing and moving the piston forward inside the action, generates its own noises, and this

It’s not just the military plinker that it resembles, it can do much, much more is a greater noise in any spring-powered airgun than the pellet exiting the barrel. Hunters also know that the loudest sound can be the smack of the pellet hitting the quarry. Anyhoo, it does look good with a big rack-off moderator.

CURVY SHAPE! The trigger blade is pressed steel and has a very pronounced curve, and it seems a tad out of place to me and doesn’t resemble a firearm trigger at all. The safety catch is situated at the very rear of

The safety catch set to shoot - showing the red dot.

the action and, as such, is ambidextrous. It pops out upon cocking the rifle, to set the catch on ‘safe’; the Spector also has an anti-bear trap mechanism. The safety catch is pushed back into the action to move it to the ‘fire’ position. This The breech face carries the ‘O’ ring seal.

also shows a red dot on each side of the rifle. The safety can be reset at any time. The trigger pull measures in at 2kg and is two stage-ish in operation. You don’t get true, two-stage triggers on springpowered airguns these days. It has a massive initial travel on a light spring, but the final stage is short, and the blade slides back into a hole in the stock to a point where the finger pad almost touches the rear section of the stock. It is still useable and predictable so will serve you well.

OPTIC UPGRADE

The faux magazine well makes a fantastic platform on which to rest the front supporting hand.

TECH SPEC Manufacturer Webley & Scott Country of origin Turkey Distributor Highland Outdoors 01858 410683 Model Spector WRSPECBO22 Action Break-barrel Type Spring-piston Overall barrel length 428mm Calibre .22

The recoil arrestor plate in its rear setting.

Sights None Trigger Single-stage adjustable Trigger weight 2.0Kg Overall length 1070mm Pull length 361mm Weight 3.1Kg

RRP £176.99

I fitted an AGS scope that looked as if it would sit well on an AR. The scope is a fixed, six times magnification, with an illuminated mil-dot reticle. Its sight even came with an 11mm airgun clamp, or a Picatinny/Weaver clamp. I had to take the scope arrestor plate off the 142mm long scope rail to get the correct eye relief. The plate has two possible positions and fitting it to either does shorten the rail a bit, but I could fit a pin to the underside of the AGS sight clamping system to locate into one of the threaded holes for the arrestor, so this will work just as well. The Spector was a good ‘shooter’ at the range, and I’d have no problem using it to shoot feral pigeons and rats, so it’s a cool and very cheap springer. Its ‘modern firearm’ look belies its power, and usefulness as a pest control tool. It’s not just a plinker because it looks like one. Nice job, Webley! Many thanks to John and Bevin for the help in production of this article. ■

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

29

MILEWSKI - TARGET MASTER

wThe Milbro G46 Targetmaster.

MILBRO’S MASTER John Milewski looks back at the G46 Targetmaster

n 1967, Milbro introduced a ‘super-de-luxe’ derivative of the G27, which they named the G46 ‘Targetmaster’ as their latest development of the sporting and target rifle. There was no facility to mount an open rearsight, but a Milbro-manufactured aperture sight (G31) could be fitted to the top of the rifle’s sight ramp. The rear of the ramp featured the same T-shaped stop as on the G36, which prevented the sight from creeping back in use. At 42 inches (107cm) long and 6lbs 3oz (2.8 kilos) in weight, the G46 was in the medium-weight category and would undoubtedly have appealed to entry-level target shooters, particularly when compared with more expensive German target rifles. In fact, Milbro imported Walther target air rifles during the 1960s and claimed that competitive air rifle shooting was becoming increasingly popular, both nationally and

I

internationally, as the decade progressed. The second JLS Arms catalogue, from 1969, provided approximate muzzle velocity figures of 700 fps in .177 and 500 fps in .22 for the G46, which John L. Scoltock (JLS – geddit?) strangely called the ‘Rangemaster’ rather than ‘Targetmaster’. The .177 model tested for this review averaged a very consistent 620 fps with 1960 vintage Milbro Caledonians. Cocking effort was minimal and although a replacement mainspring could possibly increase this velocity, performance was so good that I would have been foolish to tamper with the rifle.

SITTING COMFORTABLY A Monte-Carlo cheek piece was incorporated into the beechwood stock, and the rifle sat comfortably in the shoulder when mounted. The extended fore end had a tapering profile that I found especially pleasing on the eye, particularly when you consider how the cocking link and breech

a rubber butt pad on this derivative of the G27. A rather basic trigger guard protected an alloy trigger blade that, once again, I found attractive. Looks are one thing, but a trigger blade needs to be crisp in use to be any good and I was also pleased to find the adjustable, two-stage trigger broke with a

“the G46 was in the medium-weight category and would have appealed to entry-level target shooters, ” block continue the taper past the fore end. There was no visible serial number on the rifle I tested, but a presumed date stamp from 1967 was located under the fore end, just in front of the trigger guard (5 67 3). The number was moved to this location from its usual place on the butt due to the addition of

predictable light press. The relatively light weight of the rifle required additional concentration to ensure that the shot was fully followed through because it was all too easy to allow the rifle’s recoil to spoil your technique. A simpler and cheaper, pressed steel trigger is also known on some Targetmasters.

ADJUSTABLE SIGHTS Milbro’s own G31 aperture sight is click-adjustable, both laterally and vertically, all

»

Left side of the G31 aperture sight showing engraved markings for vertical adjustment.

The non-factory target foresight fitted to the test rifle was a marked improvement over the original.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

31

MILEWSKI

The vertical drum was turned clockwise to move the group lower, and anticlockwise to move it higher.

adjustments proving positive in use. Two scales are engraved onto the sight to help with recording adjustments. The sight was threaded to accept interchangeable eyepieces and came with a single-hole iris. The screw thread was unique to Milbro and will not readily accept eyepieces intended for Parker Hale or Anschutz sights. The standard foresight fitted to the G46 was the same hooded pillar as used on the G36. However, on the rifle tested, this basic sight had been replaced with a more substantial target tunnel of unknown manufacture. The tunnel accepts standard Anschutz-sized elements, which can be interchanged to suit the predominant shooting conditions. A ring element is

Five-shot groups at 6 yards from the standing position.

useful in good light against bullseye or similar circular shooting marks, but a blade or post is more versatile.

GROUP SIZES The G46 was easy enough to zero, thanks to that aperture sight, and I was soon achieving group sizes of under an inch at 6 yards with vintage Milbro Caledonian pellets. There was a little spring bounce with each discharge, but not enough to warrant a disassembly and relube. Once I worked out the drop at 30 yards, I achieved a 50% hit rate on 40mm field target kill zones from the standing position. I could have adjusted the sights to increase this rate, but I wanted to leave them set for 6-yard shooting. Overall, I was very satisfied with the rifle’s performance, especially when a pellet split a stick placed vertically into the ground 15 yards away at the first attempt.

STATESIDE UPGRADES In 1967, a sample G46 was sent to Daisy in America with a view to Daisy acting as USA distributors, but Daisy The Monte-Carlo cheek piece and rubber butt pad were both seen as deluxe features in 1960’s Britain.

There is no facility to mount a rearsight on a genuine G46 Targetmaster.

32

AIRGUN WORLD

The Targetmaster can be seen at the top of this late 1960’s Milbro line up.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

were dissatisfied with both the Milbro aperture sight and stock quality, according to airgun historian, Larry Hannusch. Daisy claimed that the aperture sight slid forward in use, and replaced it with a sight of their own on one of the sample rifles that ended up in their museum. The stock was also replaced with one made from American walnut and the resultant rifles were designated as the Daisy 460. The side of the chamber indicated that the rifles were made in Scotland for Daisy, but it is unclear how many were supplied.

UNCOMMON The G46 is not common by any means because it was discontinued not long after 1970, with the introduction of Milbro’s Series 70. Collectors finding a good example today can count themselves fortunate to have acquired a relatively rare product from one of the British ‘big three’ airgun manufacturers of the 1960s. ■ Sources and Acknowledgement JLS Arms Catalogue No II; Milbro Guns & Rifles catalogue (1962/3); Milbro Sports Ltd catalogue (undated but C.1972), Larry Hannusch

AIRGUN STUDENT

I was shocked at how long it took for me to appreciate the importance of trigger technique and follow-through.

REALITY BITES! Airgun Student, Naylor Ball, faces the harsh realities of improving his results ery soon after starting my self-constructed, learning to shoot course, I came to a major realisation; this whole process wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it would be. In fact, as I look back on more than a year’s worth of dedicated training, I can honestly say that not one part of it has taken me to where I want to be, without some sort of hassle or other. Don’t get me wrong, I love a challenge and the harder something is to master, the more satisfaction I get from becoming better at it. It’s just that I really didn’t see some of my challenges coming, and that meant I had to think on the fly and find solutions for myself. The challenges and their solutions were entirely separate, but gradually a realisation emerged that covered everything; it’s not the nature of the challenges, but the way you take them on that decides the outcome. Please let me explain through my personal examples.

V

34

AIRGUN WORLD

BEING PATIENT Like most of my generation, I prefer things to happen fast, and that definitely applied to my learning to shoot better. I thought I was reasonably good before I started, so becoming an expert would be a matter of time, and not much of it, either. How totally, utterly wrong that was. Just a week into my training, after I’d failed to understand fully the need and application of trigger technique and follow-through, I learned my first fundamental lesson. That was to be realistic about the whole learning thing and to accept that the techniques I was trying to learn would take me months, possibly years, to master. Even if I managed to become an expert, I’d be refining and maintaining those techniques – all of them – for the rest of my shooting life. This was a massive realisation for me and it set me on the right course for the rest of my training. After all, the core skills I was trying

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Every skill and every stance takes a lifetime to perfect. We have to accept this.

SHOOTING CHAIN – AIRGUN STUDENT

So much between you and your target is beyond complete control.

Choose the right ones and look after them better than this!

forward, rifle out in front, supported entirely by musclepower. Changing that style to the more deliberate, target-style technique I now use took me months of hard training. Gradually,

and training in the world means nothing if you haven’t bothered to find the best pellets for your rifle. The most skilful shooter on the planet won’t perform to the max’ if he/she is skidding around in

“Look at your own shooting chain and study every link” and I mean very gradually, shooting the ‘new way’ became normal for me and now it feels like I’ve always shot like that. There’s another lesson there, too, which is ‘do something often enough – and it will become established.’

Simple fact; if it’s too windy to take longer shots - you have to get closer.

to learn would be the foundation of my shooting, so of course they’ll take time to install. Lesson well and truly learned.

PERFECTION ISN’T AN OPTION I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I fought against the next major lesson for some time before accepting it. Yet, the inescapable fact is, perfection just isn’t available on anything like a permanent basis. We may get everything just right for one shot, or may 10 consecutive shots, but there’s so much going on between us and our target, and so much else that we can’t totally control no matter how hard we work, that shots will always do what we don’t want them to do. For instance, the wind can mess up any shot, as can a slightly imperfect pellet or a mechanical malfunction. We can’t totally control these things, and plenty of others, but we can do our best to reduce their effect, and that takes me straight on to the next major lesson.

REDUCE THE VARIABLES As stated, everything totally beyond our control can mess up everything we try to do, but that must never stop us reducing the

effects of such things. We can’t make our own pellets, but we can at least sort out the best ones from the bent ones. We can’t turn off the wind, but we can certainly train hard when it’s windy and learn to gauge its effect on our pellets. We can also shorten our ranges if we’re hunting in the wind, and we can call off the shot altogether if we’re not sure of a clean kill. Not shooting when it’s best to show restraint is a genuine skill. As far as mechanical problems go, again, we don’t make the guns but we can keep them maintained to the best of our ability and this will reduce the chances of them letting us down. Basically, the lesson here is ‘accept that perfection isn’t an option – but don’t let that stop you going for it.’

CHAIN REACTION My final fundamental lesson is that everything I do in shooting is interconnected. Technique is a chain and it’s always let down by its weakest link. All the hard work

trainers, or shivering in a T-shirt when conditions demand a warm coat. Simple, basic links in the long performance chain, but we break them at our peril. Look at your own shooting chain and study every link. Strengthen each one as much as humanly possible, then work as hard as you can on the weakest link of all – yourself. As I said, it’s not about the challenges that face us, but how we face those challenges – and it always will be. ■

BE PREPARED TO CHANGE The next lesson was another massive one, because changing the way we’ve always done things is often so difficult that we tend to stick with what feels comfortable, rather than switching to what works best. My standing shooting is the perfect example of this. For the best part of a decade, I taught myself to shoot from the standing stance using a technique more suited to a shotgun; leaning

It’s not the challenges you face, but how you face your challenges!

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

35

SI AND DAVY Si and Davy are fully focused on rat reduction attus Norvegicus, commonly known as the brown, or sewer rat, is one of the most exciting vermin species to shoot with a sub 12 ft. lbs. air rifle, and hunting them is something that Davy and I try to do every winter, once the colder nights come around. Luckily for us, we were given permission to shoot the vermin on a pig and chicken farm in Gloucestershire that also grows maize and other crops on site, and since then we’ve had a steady flow of pigeons, collared doves, corvids and brown rats to control.

R

On this particular day, we planned an after-dark cull of the local farm rats that had been breeding and fattening up over the summer months, feasting on the delights of the farmer’s spoils, whilst making their homes in the maize fields, only returning to the pig sheds once the harvest had finished and the easier pickings of the animal feed within the warm sheds became a necessity. To start with, I drove to a part of the farm where there was a long chicken shed. Davy was due to turn up a bit later so I had an estimated 30 minutes on my own, to carry out a change of zero, do a bit of practising at various distances, and learn aim points from my new zero. Shooting along the length of this shed guaranteed

that 99 per cent of the time I could zero my scope perfectly without the wind affecting my point of impact (POI).

LOW POWER OPTION I chose to use my multishot .177 Brocock Compatto with its power adjuster turned down to low (6.5 ft. lbs), to assist in lowering the chance of over-penetration on the rats, and so possibly causing damage to the farm sheds. Davy had informed me that he was going to bring along his .177 HW100 with its 14-shot magazine which gives him plenty of fast-fire shots before it needs refilling. I set my zero at 15 metres, and witnessed the rifle shoot five shots to make a single-hole group no bigger than 7mm, so I was feeling

confident with my set-up and its performance. Davy turned up and I assisted him with his zero check before the light started to fail. I put a new zero card in my pellet catcher for him, and then moved it back to his preferred zero range. At this point, we took the opportunity to set up both rifles with Nite Site RTEK units, before it got fully dark. Ten minutes later, we were both walking around the outside of the pig sheds, scanning through the night vision units, looking for the rats that had made the farm their home.

FIRST RAT The first target showed itself by popping its head out of a large crack at the bottom of an external

INSIDE JOB!

Establishing that pinpoint zero from which success can flow.

38

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

SI AND DAVY INDOOR RATTING

Total stability is always useful.

shed wall where the rats had chewed through. At around 10 metres from me, it was just under my primary zero so I lined up the shot in the Nite Site’s LCD screen whilst resting on an automatic pig feeder pipe. I squeezed the trigger and sent a heavy .177 Bisley Magnum toward its target, knocked the rat on to its side, and there were just a few nervous twitches before it lay still. Brocock Compatto 1; Rattus Norvegicus 0. Davy opened an access door to a long shed and spotted three

Getting kitted out for a rat raid session.

and quickly re-cocked whilst his target was still twitching after being hit in its head. The second rat, which was sitting on a brick, quickly climbed up the wall only to disappear out of sight before sticking its head out of another hole further down, to look for the danger.

STRAIGHT TO SLEEP Unfortunately, for rat number two, it ended up having a face-to-face chat with an Air Arms Field pellet at 775 feet per second, putting it

“ rat number two ended up having a chat with an Air Arms Field” large rats on the concrete floor; they were feeding and unaware of our presence just 25 metres away as we watched them through the Nite Site. Davy lined up on the first rat, slipped his HW100’s trigger,

straight to sleep and knocking it back on to the concrete floor. On a roll, Davy shot another two rats that were sitting on a piece of damaged roofing material that the rats had chewed through and

caused partly to fall down. Both of these rats fell six feet on to the ground and into a narrow, filthy drainage ditch.

Magnums in quick succession, stopping two rats in their tracks and spoiling their night at the pig farm restaurant.

BIG RAT

WE’LL BE BACK!

In another shed, where some piglets and farm machinery is kept, I spotted a big rat lying between some polystyrene sheets stacked up along the back wall. Placing my aim point on its forehead, I squeezed the Compatto’s trigger and down the rat went with a precise shot. I knew from previous visits that this shed was a good spot so I sat and waited for more rats to pop out while Davy carried on shooting outside, down a gap between two sheds that we have nick-named Death Valley after the many rats that we have put to sleep there. Turning the Nite Site unit on every so often to look for rats, I identified and then sent two Bisley

Two years ago, when we were first given permission to shoot the rats on this farm, Davy shot more than 10 rats in quick succession from the exact same location before we changed over, and I used my wife’s old .177 BSA Ultra SE. On loading it, I shot another seven rats, one after the other in under two minutes, making the shed look like the site of a rat massacre. Anyway, I digress, and after carrying on shooting for another 30 minutes we managed to get a further three large rats, but only managed to find two of them. All in all, it was a very successful night and you can bet that we’ll be back for many more! Until the next time, happy hunting.■

Happy with our night’s work - and we’ll be back for more.

Totally Compatt’-able!

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

39

MICK GARVEY Time for a drink, a bite to eat, and a chat.

STAYING TIGHT Mick Garvey repeats a challenge and finds a new best friend for his rifle

ith Christmas and New Year behind us, I decided that it was time to get to grips with the Impact. Wes, a good friend of mine, had sent me some 25 grain Air Arms pellets with the promise that they worked well in his Impact. I have been a JSB stalwart for as long as I can remember so I doubted that they would match the JSBs, but with the barrel removed and the shroud off for good because I had just received a one-piece fixed shroud direct from FX, I set about cleaning the barrel of all the old leading from the JSBs. This was done with my 20/20 PatchWorm, a nylon

W

pull-through system with different sized collars and cloth patches that slip over the nylon cord to accommodate different calibres; the cleaning fluid was Remington bore cleaner. I really go to town when cleaning my barrels and I’ve found that the .25 FAC requires cleaning every 100-200 shots. Eventually, the patches came though spotless and the gun was reassembled with the new one-piece shroud. The telescopic shroud worked very well and certainly tamed the bark of the Impact, but I much prefer the fixed shroud and it also meant I didn’t have to remember to extend

it after walking through the woods and undergrowth; plus, the new one seemed even more efficient at keeping the sound down. Now it was assembled I just had to stand back and admire the beauty of the thing and I saw again that it was sweet, real sweet.

TESTING I was eager to get out and test the new pellets with the shroud, so one afternoon before travelling to Norfolk, I managed to get to one of my permissions where I knew I would be sheltered from any wind and the zeroing would be carried out in near perfect conditions. I

had spoken to Claire at Air Arms about which pellets were available and she was happy to send me some to test, which arrived the very next day. I set out a large crossbow target at 50 yards, expecting the zero to be miles off my previous one, but surprisingly, the first mag’ was pretty much on target, albeit a bit scattered, and the last five pellets were through the same hole. This was encouraging, so the second mag’ was slipped into the action, and the next 16 shots were one-holing, so much so that I actually found myself aiming slightly off, to take the edge off the ragged hole.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

»

41

MICK GARVEY

Poetry by Tony Roe.

The Air Arms grouped in a spectacular manner.

Flat as far as you can see.

A VERY SWEET 16 The final image will be etched in my mind forever, 16 shots through a single hole the size of a 5p piece and at 50 yards. I had found my nirvana; the Air Arms had done what I thought couldn’t be done ... outperformed the JSBs, and I knew that once the barrel was leaded-in properly, it would get

shotguns. This should be a great test for the new combination. Tony is a bear of a man with a character to match, an ex-biker with many a story to tell. He’s now a groundsman for one of the Air Force bases in the area, a writer of poetry, and a brewer of his very own hedgerow liqueur, which is superb, I can tell you. Tony gave

at that very moment; rapeseed fields, deer, woodlands, crows and pigeons, all reeled off as if rehearsed. After this, we checked out the area where we would be shooting

“16 shots through a single hole the size of a 5p piece and at 50 yards. I had found my nirvana” even better. My next step was to meet with Cookey and another friend, Tony, down in Norfolk, for a repeat of a day out we did a few years ago – one airgun against two

us a bottle when we went to visit the day before our shoot and he had us stunned into silence when he recited an off-the-cuff poem about what he saw in front of him

First one of the day, along with a nice find. The antler will make a great handle for a knife I’m making.

42

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Cookey also got in on the action.

and decided that I would take the bottom end of the wood whilst the two shotguns took the top end with the hide and decoys on the rapeseed. The plan was that any birds coming to the decoys would

MICK GARVEY: FIELD REPORT

either be picked off by the shotties, or scared off in my direction, which is exactly what we did last time when we took over 40 birds, so I was hopeful for another good day.

Working from the hide.

FLAT EARTH SOCIETY The land we were shooting on is on the Norfolk/Suffolk border and is flat as far as you can see, so spotting incoming birds would be a piece of cake. Once set up, Tony decided to have a crack at the crows that were buzzing round the woods, Cookey took the hide area, and I took up position overlooking a couple of ivy-covered trees where I had seen squirrel activity last time here. It wasn’t long before the boom of the 12g shotgun filled the woods, and almost immediately, a couple came my way straight to the upper reaches of the ivy-clad remains of what would have been a very large tree of unknown design. The Airmax was already zeroed to the exact spot, and with a little allowance for the uphill shot, the 25gr AA hit its mark and a woodie fell to the ground. The day should have followed this pattern throughout, but it didn’t. I managed another woodie and then it just dried up, probably due to the shotgun activity, so I decided to join Tony and Cookey at the top end and see if I could share some of their action.

INCOMING! We hatched a plan. They would take the incoming fliers and if any got through without been detected and landed, they would be mine. All things taken into consideration it will always be a struggle to complete against shotguns in this scenario, but I was keen to test the Impact against the odds and on more than one occasion I found myself having to administer a coup de grace to pigeons and crows that had taken a hit from the shotgun, but avoided the kill. I always find it strange that pigeons will return to an area almost immediately after having been shot at by a shotgun, as if they want to see what all the noise is about. This generally gave me the chance of an easy shot to the treetops and I am convinced that

» www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

43

MICK GARVEY: FIELD REPORT

The final count was okay, but going separate ways would have given us more.

if I were left alone in these woods I would take some pretty good numbers, but today wasn’t about numbers, it was about mates having a great day shooting and catching up on days gone by. As I said before, Tony has some very ‘interesting’ stories to tell.

FINE FARE We stood around Cookey’s gas stove as the little kettle boiled, and we drank our coffees whilst the Ridge Monkey sandwich maker on the stove cooked up a couple of pigeon breasts. This was hunting at its finest – good friends having a great day’s shooting, and eating what we had shot. I resolved to invest in a mini gas stove, Ridge Monkey pan, and kettle for my days out back home because there are many times when I can be out for 16 hours in the summer. In fact, I’m quite excited about it. We carried on for another couple of hours because Tony had plans for that afternoon, but we arranged to meet up again soon

44

AIRGUN WORLD

and try another method where I would be in another wood and I could be left to my own devices. In summary, we ended up with

tighter groups than before, so I let Cookey have a try to double check and his groups were pretty good for someone who hadn’t shot the

The Impact certainly held its own on the day, taking five woodies 16 woodies and two crows from the woods, and I managed a couple of woodies from the back of Tony’s garden which overlooks another rapeseed field that he has permission to shoot. All in all, it wasn’t too bad a day, and to top it off we were treated to a fantastic sunset, and a toast to the Queen with more of the hedgerow liqueur, which is standard procedure when out with lads from the forces.

gun before. I can now say with certainty that I am an Air Arms pellet convert. The next step will

be to try them in the Wildcat, but going on these results I’m sure they’ll be a winner. If you’re looking to try something different to the normal choice of JSBs, then give these Air Arms pellets a try. Considering they are supposed to come from the same factory, they gave me that little bit more accuracy and at the end of the day that is what we all are chasing. ■

SATISFIED WITH THAT The Impact certainly held its own on the day, taking five woodies and shares in another pigeon and a crow that were legging it across the field. I checked out the zero again, and it was producing even

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

The sun going down was impressive.

UMAREX BOYS CLUB: ASG TAC45

UMAREX BOYS CLUB

CAN-DO

PLINKER!

Finnish UBC member, Ville-Veikko Sillankorva reports on the ASG TAC45 ’m writing this story from Western Finland where temperature normally at this time is about -10 Celsius and there is nearly 20cm snow on the ground. Our cold weather does set some limits to my airgun hobby, particularly if the power source is CO2, but luckily, I have an indoor

I

range at my house where I can keep on shooting right around the year. In the beginning, the ASG TAC45 was a bit of a mystery to me because there wasn’t much information available, or I was just looking in the wrong places. The tactical look and cheap price

“The balance is right about centre point which is good”

finally got me to grab this one, and first impressions of the gun were good. The polymer frame feels solid, and the Weaver rails on top and down the sides, make adding different accessories possible. There are also some metal parts, which give the impression of durability.

TAC FACTS The TAC45 rifle is 900mm long and quite lightweight for a carbine

– it comes out at 1565g. Calibre is 0.177 or 4.5mm steel BB, which leaves the barrel at 127 m/s speed or power of 2.8 joules. The balance is right about centre point ,which is good, although the rear side of the stock is hollow so you can add some more weight for keeping the balance right if you want to add some accessories in the front side. Open sights are made out of plastic and they are removable. In

Ville-Veikko Sillankorva from Finland.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

47

»

UMAREX BOYS CLUB

the front sight there is an orange fibre bead that helps the aim; the rear sight is adjustable and has a dioptre-style hole in it. The rifle comes with a bipod, which also feels good, and is solid enough for normal light use, even if it’s made mainly from plastic. There are quick-release buttons for mounting at the top, and adjustment buttons at the bottom. The magazine is familiar to other ASG Co2 BB products, a basic, metal, stick-type magazine that holds 21 BBs.

NICE DETAILS Even though the gun is down at the low-price range here in Finland, and I expect it is priced low in the UK too, it does have couple of nice details. For example: a rubber back plate, aluminium outer barrel, integrated mount for laser sight, and metal-made weaver rail on top. The rifle has been made pretty easy to handle. You don’t need any tools to add the CO2 bulb into the gun because every key feature is integrated to the frame. The gun is also easy to take

Co2 slips straight in and no tools required.

apart. All you have to do is to unscrew the barrel, then pull out two pins from the frame – one just behind pistol grip and the other just forward of the trigger guard – and then the stock opens to three different pieces. This gives access to the internal parts for cleaning and so on.

RIGHT SIDE The safety catch is on the right side of frame, just above the trigger where it is easy to switch by the trigger finger, for right-

Safety is easy to move for a right-handed shooter.

handed shooters. Because this gun doesn’t have a blow-back action, it is made to work with a double-action trigger that pre-cocks the hammer, and at the end of the pull releases the shot. Trigger pull is quite long, compared to a Crosman 1077, which functions in the same way, but it is something you can live with.

ACCURACY Regarding the accuracy, after some initial shooting I got about 1” grouping at six metres. I think

Initial testing group shots.

Rifle stripped down.

Quick-release button for easy removal of a bipod.

48

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

TAC45 with all compeoents.

that’s good enough for a smoothbore BB shooter, and in this price range can we seriously expect better? After all, it’s a 10-metre backyard soda can shooter, designed purely for fun and it would be a great starter for younger shooters. Greetings from Finland! UBC founder, Paddy Egan, says: It’s absolutely great to hear people’s opinions of airguns from different parts of the world. At the Umarex Boys Club we get to hear a great deal about airguns that we are able to own, just like the ASG TAC45 from Finland, or airguns from Canada, for example, that they are allowed but we’re not in this country, such as the Umarex Steel Storm. Then there’s America, where we have a fair few members, which is surprising considering how easy it is to obtain the real steel-types of guns, but their knowledge and passion for airguns is still emphatic. The UBC is truly an international community sharing one common

goal; the safe use and fun element of airguns, and helping each other out as best we can wherever we are from. ■

TECH SPEC Manufacturer: ASG Retailer: Solware: www.solware.co.uk Powerplant: CO2Calibre: .22, .177, .25 Function: Repeater Calibre: 0.177 (4.5mm) Trigger: 2-stage, adjustable, semi-match type Overall Length: 36 inches Weight: .5lbs Safety: Manual Shot Capacity: 21 BBs Barrel: Smooth-bore Front Sight: Fibre-optic Rear Sight: Adjustable for windage and elevation Scope Rails: Weaver 20mm Buttplate: Rubber

£139.95 www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

49

DAVE BARHAM

BACK TO THE FUTURE - VERMIN PROBLEMS

Definitely not a mouse!

RAT V COYOTE! Dave Barham discovers that his shed has been attacked, again! This time by something a bit bigger than mice

o there I was, on a rather chilly winter’s morning, contemplating a walk over my old hunting ground with my trusty Gamo Coyote. I’d just finished checking my emails and the weather forecast for the rest of the day, and conditions looked good for a spot of pigeon shooting. However, the calm tranquility of my day was soon to be ruined, as I opened the door to my shed where all my shooting clothes and equipment were housed. As I unlocked the padlock and opened the door, I knew instantly that something wasn’t right. There,

S

in front of me, lay my eldest daughter Mia’s fishing coat and it was ripped to shreds! As I ventured further inside the shed I could see bits of material and stuffing all over the place, and then the final blow hit me. As I lifted up the plastic bag I’d put over my hunting gear, I discovered that my beloved Jack Pyke camo clothing was in tatters. I couldn’t believe the amount of damage that had been done.

ASSESSING THE DAMAGE A few months previously, I’d been confronted with a mouse problem

in the same shed. At that time the mice had got in and they had chewed up all of my fishing bait, and some of my fishing gear, but the carnage that lay before me now was on a different scale altogether. At the top of the pile of clothes was my English Oak cap, which now resembled a camouflaged colander, and as I lifted items of clothing from the pile, I began to get more and more distraught. My jacket had been chewed, and a thorough inspection showed repairable damage, but when I got to the trousers, I knew that they

would be destined for the bin. The waistband had been seriously chewed, the legs were full of holes and the ankles had been so badly damaged that one of the ankle cuff straps had been removed completely. I was gutted, really upset – this meant WAR!

DEFINITELY NOT MICE At first, I thought that a whole field of mice had invaded, but the traps I’d left in there had both been tripped with no kills. It was quite obvious that this was the work of rats, and that made me all the

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

»

AIRGUN WORLD

51

DAVE BARHAM Dave with his beloved Jack Pyke camo gear and Gamo Coyote rifle.

more angry. Upon inspection of the shed door, I could see where they had managed to get in, too. They’d chewed away some of the wooden battening on the door frame, obviously just enough to be able to

squeeze through the gap and get inside. So, the first job of the day was to repair that damage to prevent any further intrusions. My next job was to formulate a battle plan in order to seek out my revenge, after I had got online and

The rats had eaten their way through the legs, too.

52

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

re-ordered a complete set of clothing from the Jack Pyke website, of course.

LATE EVENING SHOWDOWN I’d already accustomed myself with shooting into the shed a few months before, so I knew how I wanted to set it all up, with backstops, baited areas and, of course, removing any potential hazards. I opted for my trusty, crunchy peanut butter to lure the rats into the firing line, and with a couple of strategically placed dollops of SunPat I went back inside the house to wait. It was a very cold afternoon, and as the sun dipped below the horizon a frost began to form on the grass. I knew I would be in with a chance tonight – rats and mice are often active in sub-zero

temperatures, as they look for food and bedding to keep warm. I left a light on inside the shed in order to make life easier for myself. There was no need to rig up with the night vision gear because I’ve found that rats are not particularly fussy when it comes to lights at night, especially if they can smell that sweet peanut butter.

CRASH, BANG, WALLOP After a jug of hot coffee, I settled down into my shooting position, which this time was just outside the conservatory, next to the house. It’s about a 25-yard shot to the shed from here, and I’d already zeroed my sights earlier in the afternoon whilst setting up. I waited for about two hours before the first rat scuttled out from underneath the shed.

BACK TO THE FUTURE - VERMIN PROBLEMS

Dead rat number one was a clean head shot.

It’s essential to wash your hands and use some form of anti-bac after dealing with rats.

Cheeky buggers, they were not only invading my shed, but they were also living underneath it! I let the first rat scurry about and munch on the peanut butter, in the hope that it would draw more of them out from under the shed,

sound of pellet crushing bone rang through the frosty winter sky. I’d hit my mark, and as one of the rats dived for cover the other span round and round like a Catherine wheel. It soon came to rest though, and I had my first kill of

“I’d just taken out one of the camo-munching blighters.” and my plan worked as another rat came to join the first. I slowly settled into my shooting position, laid the crosshairs on the rat’s head and gently squeezed the trigger. ‘Thwack’, the satisfying

Really? Check out the damage to Dave’s cap!

the night. It felt good, really good, to know that I’d just taken out one of the camo-munching blighters. I was in two minds whether to go and pick it up or not, but I knew that the second rat was still inside the shed because it hadn’t bolted out and back underneath it when I’d shot the first one. I decided to be patient and stay put, in the hope that ratty number two would stick its head out to investigate. I only had to wait five minutes or so, until the temptation of the peanut butter proved too great and the second rat wasn’t at all bothered by its dead companion lying on the ground next to the pile of peanut butter, as it began munching away. I waited for what seemed like 20 minutes, although it was probably only five, before the rat positioned itself in such a way that I could take a clean shot. Again, I gently squeezed the trigger and heard the satisfying ‘thwack’ as the pellet drove home, but this time the rat leapt into the air and managed to dive back down the hole under the shed. At this point I went over to investigate, and I could see that the first rat had been taken with a clean head shot, but there was a lot of blood around the pile of peanut butter where I’d shot rat

number two, as well as around the hole under the shed. I’d obviously hit it well, but there was no way of retrieving it.

A REASONABLE NIGHT I went back to the house after collecting the first rat, and settled back down in my shooting position, but after another hour of freezing my proverbials off, I decided to call it a night. I tidied up the shed and cleaned away the blood, then replenished the peanut butter mounds. As soon as I got back into the house I washed my hands thoroughly with hot water, then applied some antibacterial hand gel for good measure. It’s always worth doing this whenever you handle rats or even anything that the rats have come into contact with. I visited the shed every night for the next four nights, but nothing had got in, and there were no signs of anything having tried to get in, either. I’m hoping that this will be the end of it now; I can’t afford to keep buying complete sets of camo gear every time I need to get out shooting! ■

One happy chappie; Dave with his new clobber.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

53

HARDMAN’S HUNTING

TWO HARD!

Who sees whom first was what this game was all about.

56

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Phil Hardman works hard for a modest winter brace inter has been relatively mild round these parts. After what was a cold and windy start, things settled down and we’ve enjoyed relatively warm and settled weather, with only a few evenings seeing the temperature plummet. This has meant that despite my worries last month about the lack of predictable quarry patterns due to the harsh beginning of this winter, things have begun to get back on course these past couple of weeks, and I’ve been able to get a much better sense of where we were with regards to my permissions and the animals that live there. The winter flock of woodpigeons that had been missing in action finally started to arrive in their usual winter roost, but due to the pheasant shooting season, I haven’t yet been able to target them. Instead, I’ve been forced to use part of the land that isn’t been used by the game shoot, so with the woodies off my hunting list, for now at least, I decided to have a good stalk through another, larger wood in search of some grey squirrel action. At this late stage of winter, cover is at its minimum, so there are not only bare trees to contend with, but the ferns and other terrestrial woodland plants have also completely died back now so although there may be nowhere for the squirrels to hide up in the branches, there is nowhere for me to hide down on the ground either. If the squirrels are moving and I am not, I’ll see them before they see me and get a chance of a shot undetected, but if I’m moving and they are not, I won’t – and I can’t shoot a moving squirrel as it leaps away. Those are the rules of this hunt; a simple fact that both the greys and I have to face – it’s simply a case of ‘who detects whom first, wins!’

W

STEALTH APPROACH I drove a little way into the wood

HARDMAN’S HUNTING - WINTER SQUIRRELS

and parked up. I like to enter in the 4x4 if I can, because animals are less wary of cars than they are humans, so after parking up and letting things settle for a minute, exiting the vehicle is almost like I just appear in the middle of the woods, with less disturbance and less chance of being spotted than if I have to enter on foot. With the 4x4 parked up, I got the rifle ready as I scanned the surrounding area. In the past I’ve had shots as soon as I stepped out of the door, but on this occasion nothing stirred. I slipped the fully-loaded, 14-shot magazine into my trusty HW100 and set off along a narrow path that leads deeper into the wood. The track is well worn, so silent stalking is easily achievable without ever glancing down, which lets me keep my head up in the trees, in search of squirrels and pigeons as I go. This woodland landscape is dominated by a burn that runs through the centre on its way to the River Wear. Over the centuries, it has carved out its own small valley through the wood and although the squirrels can leap over, using the treetops as a sort of bridge, I have to follow its winding path until I come to an actual bridge, before crossing and working my way back along the other side. This severely limits my options for approaching certain areas, I’m forced to follow the flow of the water, making the wood’s eastern, and western sides almost seem like two separate hunting

Using this fallen tree as a rest, I was totally confident in the shot.

grounds. I had forgotten my hat, annoyingly, and I spent the first 150 yards huffing and puffing about that instead of concentrating on the job at hand.

WHERE’S YOUR HAT? Those of you who are regular readers will maybe note that this is the first time ever that I have appeared in these pages without a hat on, and that’s because I will not usually hunt without one. I’m so used to hunting whilst wearing a baseball cap that when I don’t have one on I’m not as comfortable shouldering my rifle and aiming it. The peak of the cap usually rests on the top of my scope in the same place each time, and it signals that my head alignment is as it should be, and helps me keep it consistently the same for every shot, or at least in my head it does. I have no idea if it actually makes a real difference or not, but because I believe it does, then it must – simply by making me feel comfortable and confident. Anyway, right now in those woods, not having it was really bugging me.

STOP SULKING!

Using the well-worn path made it easy to move quietly.

My sulking about the lack of hat was interrupted suddenly by movement in a large, old beech tree about 40 yards ahead. It was a grey squirrel and it had seen me. I paused, frozen to the spot, hoping that it would stop for a

This bank was just too steep to risk.

better look, and give me the chance I needed for the shot. As I stood there, I became aware of another, moving from left to right, crossing above the path in front of me, and heading toward the burn, and safety. As I watched, the

them in one place at the same time, it’s hard to track them all – a single squirrel can be difficult enough – and to make matters worse, a fifth had appeared. I did my best to track them through the scope, and get a shot, but by the time I had noticed one pause, and taken aim, it had started to move again, and another had stopped. They say there’s safety in numbers, and that certainly proved true on this occasion. I simply couldn’t pick out a single target amongst the mayhem in the branches above me, despite the fact that three of the five probably didn’t have a clue I was there, and were simply spooked by the fleeing of the first pair. As the final squirrel reached the 30-yard mark, I decided to stop waving my rifle around, and instead sit down and just wait to see what happened. They had all headed roughly to the same area, a pair of oak trees on the water’s

“it’s simply a case of ‘who detects whom first, wins!’ second squirrel make its way up and around the small twigs and branches, my attention was pulled to a third squirrel and then immediately behind that, a fourth. They were all exiting the same beech tree, but they all seemed to heading away in a hurry and none was looking like pausing. When there are so many of

edge of the burn, and I figured that if I gave them time to settle down, at least one of them would make a mistake sooner or later. Twenty minutes passed as I sat there in dead silence. Nothing around me stirred, but as predicted, eventually they calmed down enough to begin moving around again. I saw the first to

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

57

»

HARDMAN’S HUNTING - WINTER SQUIRRELS

make a move as it came around the trunk of the oak and jumped up onto a large, thick limb of the tree, where it sat cleaning itself. I knew I had plenty of time so I didn’t rush as I brought the rifle to bear and lined up the scope on the squirrel’s head. I was sitting comfortably; 40 yards, no wind and I had even managed to forget that I wasn’t wearing my hat as I slowly squeezed off the shot and sent the .177 pellet zipping on its way. The sound of the impact echoed through the woods. That sharp, bone-shattering ‘crack!’ of a skull being completely destroyed by an impacting round instantly told me that I had hit my mark perfectly, and that was before I even saw the squirrel tumbling earthwards. The commotion had spooked another in the same tree. I hadn’t noticed it prior the shot, but curiosity about its fallen companion meant that it wouldn’t sit still. I tracked it down the tree, circling the trunk as it went, but lost sight of it at ground level and despite giving it a full 10 minutes to reveal itself, I never saw it again so I went and picked up my kill and moved on.

SAW IT FIRST My next chance came just as I reached the bridge to cross to the opposite side of the wood. I was

Because of the burn, lots of walking was the order of the day.

making sure to be a lot slower and more careful since the encounter with the five squirrels, so I managed to see this one long before it got even the slightest hint that I was there. It was moving through the treetop toward me, slowly, thoughtfully perhaps, as it

AIRGUN WORLD

branch, before pausing, one final time. My shot flew straight and true, catching the squirrel unaware and knocking the life out of it before it realised I was there. It fell from the treetop, straight down in utter silence, before thumping into the earth and fallen

“it’s simply a case of ‘who detects whom first, wins!’ picked its route carefully through a tangle of small branches and down onto thicker tree limbs. It paused every few steps, in no rush to get where it was going, oblivious to me tracking it through my scope as it leapt from branch to

Not much to show for a hard day, but satisfying all the same.

58

I collected my first kill and moved on.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

leaves below. I collected its fallen body and carried it onward with me. The path I was following meandered uphill away from the burn and around to the very top edge of the wood, a good 50 metres or so higher than the rest of the surrounding land. This steep incline, almost vertical in places, lessens until you reach a plateau, where the wood widens again, and sits proud above the surrounding land. In the past, this area has provided me with some of the best squirrel hunting I have ever had the pleasure to enjoy, and I was hopeful that today might see similar results as I started my sweep of the area. I walked with the rifle slung over my shoulder to rest my arms after the steep climb, but I was ready to swing it round and bring it up on aim at any moment, should a target present itself. The wood was extremely quiet, as it tends to be at this time of year. I didn’t even see any songbirds, bar a single blackbird pecking around in the leaf litter. It’s funny how barren and lonely places like this can

seem in winter, in stark contrast to summertime when it’s is bursting with life. My final chance came at the very far end of this path, and basically, I stumbled on to it. Another squirrel that had been on the ground, behind a fallen log, scarpered up a tree as soon as it became aware of me, but I was on to it quickly and got the shot off before it had a chance to work out what was going on. Unfortunately, the tree the squirrel was in sat on the edge of a cliff, and when it fell it dropped 75 feet down into the valley below, hitting a holly bush halfway up the near vertical incline, and that was the last I saw of it. I thought about trying to climb down the steep slope to get it, but the risk of a fall was too great, so I walked back to my car and drove back the way I had originally come. Of course, the view from the bottom of the valley looked nothing like the view from the top, and there were a couple of bushes that could have been the one I saw it land in, that’s assuming it didn’t get lodged somewhere on its way to the ground. I climbed as high up the slope as I could and searched for 20 full minutes before admitting defeat, and by this time I was pretty worn out, tired and ready for home, so I accepted the brace I had managed to bag, and gave up the search before heading off. That’s it from me for this month – see you all next time! ■

PLINKERS

STING LIKE A B!

Phill Price asks is this one of the most important airguns in the UK? It might be a bit small, but it’s still great fun for adults as well as youngsters.

hen you ask local gun shop owners what they sell most of from day to day, the answer is always the same. Cheap, break-barrel springers. This is what most of the UK population owns as their first airgun. When you come from a shooting family and you walk into your local gun shop with a sensible budget, guess what he’s going to offer you? Most often it will be an SMK B2. There are many times in this world’s history when the axiom of ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it’ was true, and this is one of them. Most new airgunners need a simple gun and the B2 is easily understood and enjoyed. Because it uses so few moving parts, there’s less likely to go wrong, especially if it’s handled roughly, and poorly maintained. On the subject of maintenance, it’s a gun that can

W

The synthetic camo stock is a little pale, but it’s only there for good looks anyway.

62

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

SMK B2 CAMO TEST

TECH SPEC Importer www.sports-mk.co.uk Tel 01206 795333 Model B2 Camo Type Spring-piston Action Break-barrel Length 43” (109cm) Weight 6lbs (2.72kg) 4 x 32 mil-dot scope and mounts £39.99 Victory Shock pellets £5.99

I liked the little 4 x 32 scope supplied with the rifle. The butt pad is hard plastic, which is a little slippery.

power for some satisfying back garden plinking. Those tin cans will go spinning when hit by this little beauty. I was further impressed that the muzzle velocity varied just 7fps over 30 shots, which is good by any standard. The Victory Shock is an interesting design. At first glance it

short length of pull, which is the distance between the butt pad and the trigger blade. This is very important. When a young person is learning to shoot, struggling with a gun that’s too long and too heavy can wreck their technique and therefore their chance of being accurate. A gun that fits

RRP £74.95 I’m not one of them. Just about everybody uses a scope these days and I think they make learning to shoot much easier, so I say fit a scope from day one. SMK delivered my test gun with a cracking little 4 x 32 that’s as light as a feather and sits low above the action for ease of use.

“These are impressive upgrades for any gun, let alone one that costs so little”

be serviced by anybody with a workshop and some mechanical skills.

GOOD TO BE BACK It’s been some time since I fired one of these, and from the first shot I could tell it had moved on. The internals appear to have been upgraded and the production engineering improved. The cocking action is much smoother than I remember and the firing cycle way more refined. I’d guess that a well-fitting spring guide has been adopted that helps to reduce the vibration that comes from the main spring, which in the past would have created quite some noise. These are impressive upgrades for any gun, let alone one that costs so little. Using a pellet I hadn’t seen before, the SMK Victory Shock, in .22, the B2 delivered an average of 460fps. With the pellet weighing 15.9 grains this calculates to 7½ ft.lbs. which is easily enough

looks like a typical short-body roundhead, like the Remington Thunder Field Target Trophy, but it isn’t. The dome is, in fact, more pointed, like a rifle bullet. When I’ve seen this tried in the past, the distance from the pellet’s skirt to the driving band around the head was too short to allow the pellet to stabilise properly in the rifling, but with the Shock the distance has been maintained so I had high hopes for accuracy and low drag. It’s clear that the gun’s designer had youngsters in mind, because it’s quite light at just 6lbs, even with the scope fitted. It also has a Pressing the lock lever releases the barrel.

properly is easier to control and more relaxing to use. Another important dimension is the distance from the pistol grip to the trigger blade. Smaller people have smaller hands and if they’re forced to stretch too far to reach the trigger blade, again, control is lost.

PUT A SCOPE ON IT! The gun comes fitted with adjustable open sights that benefit from fibre-optic inserts to make them bright and clear. Many people think it’s vital that youngsters are taught to use them before progressing to a scope, but

Because of the long barrel, cocking is very easy, once you’ve mastered the barrel lock. It’s impressive indeed to find such an advanced feature on such a modestly priced rifle. This ensures that the barrel goes back to exactly the same place for every shot, and so improving accuracy. To open it, you press it forward and down and then push the barrel down. There’s no need to bump the barrel free, as you do with most break-barrel springers. It sounds complicated, but you soon get the knack. My final test was the most important one. Just how much fun could I have blasting a soup tin around my lawn? I set it out at 15 yards and didn’t miss once as the B2 punched big, clean holes through the steel can. Now, that’s proper fun, and I was holding the ideal gun for the job. Sure, it’s a bit small for an adult, but in that situation it made no difference at all. There are many reasons why so many of these guns have been sold over the years, but the most important one is – they just deliver fun by the ton, and you can’t ask for more than that. ■

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

63

DR FINLEY ne piece of kit that can really make a massive difference to your scores in field target shooting, and your efficiency as a hunter, is a spirit-level bubble. Field target courses can be built practically anywhere, but sloping ground is a favourite for course designers because it unsettles the shooting position and can fool the unwary when it comes to rangefinding, too. The target appears to be further away, or even closer, with the shooters’ MKI eyeball – or ‘naked eye’, if you want to call it that. It depends upon the projected angle from the shooting position, but it is very unlikely that you will have the gun level at all.

O

MUST BE LEVEL Why does it matter if you have the gun level? Because if you don’t, the pellet won’t strike where you expect it to, and the scope’s reticle also has to be set up so that the vertical crosshair is truly vertical. Most FT shooters dial in the ranges, so if the scope is not vertical, you are dialling in wind as well as elevation. The vertical crosshair must be in a perfect line above the barrel; gravity forces the pellet downwards at 90 degrees to the Earth, so both the reticle and the gun’s bore must be in line with one another. The more you cant your gun, the worse the effect, due to the barrel no longer being vertically in line with the scope. The Rowan Engineering, Digital Side Wheel (DSW) even compensates for the angle in the dialling figure it gives you, but they are £495!

»

All you need is to buy a cheap plastic spirit level and break it apart for the bubbles.

No matter where that target is sited, it’s essential to shoot it with a properly leveled scope/rifle combo..

THAT’S THE SPIRIT! Tim Finley explains the overall importance of shooting on the level www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

67

DR FINLEY: SHOOTING ON THE LEVEL

Setting the reticle to the plumb bob.

longer screws supplied with the scope level.

BUBBLE

HUNTERS TOO

DEAD VERTICAL

Hunters can benefit from fitting a level, too. If you fit one correctly, it is in your peripheral vision, so you unconsciously level the gun as you are taking a bead on the quarry – they have banned levels for HFT competitions because they do work! There are a few types of scope level available now; one attaches onto the scope rail, but I prefer body-mounted levels because if you need to take the scope out of its mounts to change them, or put it on another gun, the scope’s level is already set; it just needs to be set to the rifle. These levels attach to the scope via their own split ring. I have those that fit on top of the scope mounts by using longer, topmount screws on my hunting rifles, because they don’t get in the way so much and can take the knocks. Again, for some strange reason, levels are not allowed on HFT rifles so on my HFT/hunting rifles they’re taped over when shooting a match.

To set up a scope-mount spirit level and the scope’s reticle, you will need a plumb-bob and a small spirit-level bubble. The cheapest

AIRGUN WORLD

The plumb bob.

bubble right in front of my eyes, without having to strain my neck to see it. They work in any shooting position, standing kneeling sitting or prone. When mounting any type of level to a scope, you must also ensure that the gun/action is level too. Once you have set the level, try it out on a sloping bit of ground. Take up your normal shooting position and without looking or taking heed of the level at all. When you are comfortable,

“Try to keep the bubble level whilst lining up the vertical crosshair of the scope with the plumb-bob” way to obtain the bubbles is to buy a small, plastic spirit level and break it apart for the bubbles. First loosen all the Allen screws on your mounts and remove the rear two screws of your back mount. These are replaced by the A level bubble BluTac’d in place to set the reticle.

You can get levels that clamp to the sight rail.

68

Place the small, spirit-level bubble on the top of the scope rail. If you have a springer with a curved action, put it on the flat part of the stock at the rear of the action. If it rolls about secure it with a small piece of Blu Tack, but not under the bubble! Now, here’s where you need 40 pairs of hands. Try to keep the bubble level whilst lining up the vertical crosshair of the scope with the plumb-bob. If the crosshair isn’t lined up with the string, twist it until it is. Check that the bubble on the action is still level, and then carefully tighten the Allen screws holding the scope level to the mounts - if you tighten one side more than the other, it will take the bubble out of level. As you finally tighten all the mount’s Allen

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

screws, keep checking on the action bubble, and the scope bubble to see that they are where they should be. It should only take you five minutes to set up. I have a custom-made swing-out level on my gun, which puts the level

look at the level, and don’t be surprised to see it off-centre. Even if you don’t fit a level, you have to level the scope’s reticle to the rifle. Next time, I will look at stocks in more detail and what you can do to improve them. ■

FOLLOW-UP TEST

STREAM OF CONCIOUSNESS The editor concludes his test of the FX Airguns Streamline in the most basic way possible his follow-up test has really got me thinking. Looking back at previous secondary tests, I’m obliged to conclude that not much seems to change from one month to the next and this has me questioning the validity of the whole follow-up test deal, at least as it stands presently. Perhaps we need more time between the first test and a follow-up, which would better allow any changes to take place. We’ll see. Anyway, the subject of this month’s follow-up test proved to be the perfect example of ‘not much changing’, so I changed direction a bit and decided to go with my back-up brief of ‘here’s how you get the most out of it’. The fact is, there’s a ton of available performance in an FX Airguns Streamline, and in terms of practical value, finding the best way to exploit this will always outrank the reporting of tiny changes in shot-to-shot consistency and similar. Let’s begin with a refresher, then we’ll dive into the recommendations.

T

THE FX STREAMLINE This pre-charged pneumatic sporting rifle was designed from the beginning to offer precision performance at a more affordable price. It was the pet project of Johan Axelsson, the son of FX Airguns’ founder, Fredrik, and after living with the Streamline for

70

AIRGUN WORLD

The Streamline will shoot better than we can - so we need to do all we can to catch up.

three months, during the most hideous weather our British winter can dredge up, I can declare that the ‘more affordable/high performance’ brief has been fulfilled. The Streamline’s potent, proven, combination of regulated output, power-adjustable, sidelever action, multi-shot

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

magazine, synthetic stock and SmoothTwist barrel, does exactly what it’s supposed to, by delivering pellet after pellet to the desired destination, under full-on hunting conditions. This makes the shooter the weakest link in the performance chain, which is just as it should be, and it also gives me permission to devote the rest

of this feature to extracting top performance from what is a remarkable rifle.

BASIC FIT Regular readers could be forgiven for rolling their eyes at my first recommendation, but I’ll go for it regardless, because it’s a fundamental truth; do everything

FX STREAMLINE

Understated and regulated - that’s the FX Streamline.

you can to make this rifle fit your most efficient shooting style. Note the ‘most efficient’ bit. I’m not talking about the most familiar style, or even the most natural or comfortable. I’m pointing squarely to the technique that works best, and if you have to change the shape of the stock, or the shape of yourself, then that’s what needs to be done. First, pick the low-hanging fruit by getting the Streamline’s adjustable butt pad in the ideal position for each stance, leaving it able to be shifted by hand pressure in a second as your stances change. Next, think seriously about adding bits to that synthetic stock to better accommodate your best head position, hold, pull length and preferred balance. Synthetic stocks really lend themselves to this sort of thing and you’ll be amazed what can be achieved with some P38 filler and its fabrication familiars. Actually, that’s the perfect project for Gary

Three dots for full power, but training on the ‘one dot’ setting is a really useful feature.

Nothing but clean, divers’ quality compressed air should ever pass through these components.

Wain to tackle, isn’t it? ‘What great things can you do with filler?’ should keep him busy for a month or two.

THE POWER-CHANGE FACILITY Last month, I pretty much dismissed the Streamline’s ability to be three-way adjusted for power. I’ll now flip-flop completely on this and highly recommend you make full use of it, specifically at

setting is neighbour-friendly, too, and you’ll shoot your way into total operational familiarity, so it’s all sorts of a win-win situation.

Model: Streamline Manufacturer: FX Airguns

CLEAN ESCAPE This next bit of advice couldn’t be more basic, but it needs saying and I’m just the chap to hammer it home. Keep every part of the Streamline’s charging system absolutely spotless. The supplied probe charging connector should be covered when not in use and the same applies to the rifle’s air-inlet port, which requires only the rotation of its protective collar.

“Synthetic stocks really lend themselves to this sort of thing” the lowest setting, which produces just over 6 ft.lbs. on the test rifle. We’ve had some horrendous weather over the past month which made meaningful field testing totally pointless. Being desperate to get some sort of shooting fix, I clicked down the Streamline’s power-change sidewheel to its one-dot setting and practised some intense close range/tiny target shooting from the shelter of my man cave porch. This type of training, where the rifle is brought to the aiming position time after time, will show up any and all areas of required improvement, especially in the handling and gun fit departments. Heed its lessons and make the required changes, instead of making the best of things as they are. That low-noise, low-power

TECH SPEC

All PCPs are severely allergic to contamination and neither the Streamline’s valve mechanism nor its regulator thrive on a diet of dirt and grit. Keep out the crud and let your FX breathe as its creators intended.

TRIGGER TIME Don’t make the mistake I made last month, by having the Streamline’s trigger set too lightly, especially at this time of year when fingers become clumsy courgettes. The FX trigger can be tweaked to the ideal blend of sensitivity and safety, so make sure you’re running it on the right side of both. Again, so basic, but so fundamental to success.

OVERALL ADVICE I’ve decided that, unless Andrew Huggett or someone suitably talented, makes a chunky reflex silencer that won’t over-extend the Streamline’s profile, I’d do without further muzzle moderation. At legal limit power this isn’t a noisy rifle at all, so that saves worrying about aftermarket silencers. Ever the purveyor of basic advice, I’d concentrate on sorting

Country of origin: Sweden Type: Pre-charged, multi-shot, sporter Calibre: .22, .177, .25 Cocking/loading: Sidelever Loading: Via removable, rotary 11-shot magazine (13-shot for .177) Trigger: 2-stage, adjustable, semi-match type Stock type: Ambidextrous synthetic. Also available in walnut Weight: 2.6kg (5.7lbs) Length: 975mm (38.3 ins) Barrel: 500mm (19.7ins) Fill pressure: Max 230 bar Shots per charge: 200-plus in .22, 180-plus in .177 Variation over 150 shots: Between 11.1 and 11.3 ft.lbs. for .22 on test Average energy: 11.2 ft.lbs. Contact: A.S.I. on 01728 688555

£750.00 the finest possible pellet, then buying a barrowload of them, getting the scope height equally sorted, probably via FX’s Infinity mounts, then putting as many shots as possible downrange until I felt I was closing in on the Streamline’s high potential. FX Airguns has done what it set out to do and brought genuine FX performance within the reach of more shooters – and that can only be a good thing. ■

Easy-action side lever, hi-visibility www.airgunshooting.co.uk AIRGUN WORLD 71pellet magazine and those adjustable Infinity mounts. Quite the combination.

TECHNICAL AIRGUN

PELLET WATCHING Jim examines the phenomenon of seeing pellets in flight ome years ago, fed up with reading spring airgun recoil being expressed in terms of the gentleness of the nudge in the shoulder, I decided to try to measure it, starting with a biro strapped to the butt pad, then progressing through a number of magneto-electric and electronic solutions, which gave evermore accurate measurements. I discovered that my perception of the recoil cycle was a poor guide to what the rifle was actually doing, and suggested in an article that sight picture disruption might be a better way to judge recoil than going by feel alone. Now I’d started something, because people began quantifying recoil, not in terms of their perception of the nudge in the shoulder, but in terms of being able to see the pellet in flight, often ‘all the way to the target’, and nearly always as an expression of the excellence of the rifle’s state of tune. It sounds plausible that seeing the pellet on its way to the target means the recoil is low, but is it right? Perhaps the best way to answer the question is to look at the

S

factors that can influence whether or not we see pellets in flight.

OPTICS A telescopic sight can only be precisely focused, which gives the highest resolution – the ability to see fine detail such as a pellet – at one range, and the further from that range an object is, the less sharp the image. The distance between the closest object in ‘tolerable’ focus and the most distant is called the depth of field (DoF), and the DoF decreases with an increase in the scope’s front (objective) lens diameter, and it decreases hugely the higher the magnification. Let’s look at HFT as an example: Most HFT shooters use 8x to 10x

Rifle hold has a huge influence on the recoil cycle, and presumably on whether or not www.airgunshooting.co.uk AIRGUN WORLD 74 you see pellets in flight.

magnification, and focus (parallax) their typically 40mm objective lens scopes at 25 yards, which results in very close and distant targets being in what’s called ‘soft’ focus so that the image is blurred, and fine detail such as a pellet viewed end-on, cannot be seen terribly well, if at all. In HFT, focus will typically be soft at anything much under 13 yards, and over 40 yards, so most HFT shooters will struggle to see the pellet for part of the way to a target set at the maximum 45 yards. You can increase DoF by lowering magnification, and possibly see more of the pellet’s flight, but lowering magnification makes the image of the pellet smaller, and hence less easy to see. You increase your chances of seeing the pellet around the apogee if you sight

in at longer range, so that the pellet rises clear of the scope crosshairs; it’s difficult enough to see a tiny pellet without the reticle getting in the way. Aiming off in a crosswind also increases your chances of seeing the pellet in the later stages of flight, because it will appear to one side of the vertical post. The surest way I found to see a pellet in flight, with the scope at typical HFT magnification, was to focus the objective lens near the pellet’s apogee, but sight in at longer range. Provided there was a suitably plain background, I saw every pellet near the apogee on its way to the target, which presumably is because that’s when the pellet is moving at its slowest, relative to the reticle. All in all, your choice of scope, reticle and settings could play a major part in whether or not you see a pellet.

PELLET WATCHING

Good glass, like my old Pecar, can allow pellets to be seen, but only if the scope is refocused from 100 metres to 25-30 yards.

BACKGROUND AND LIGHT One of the most important considerations for seeing a pellet in flight is the background and, of course, the plainer the background, the better the pellet stands out against it. A background that’s a stark contrast to the light grey of the pellet also helps greatly, and a dark, or very bright, plain background is the best. The strength and direction of the light that falls on both the pellet and background can make a huge difference to whether or not the pellet can be seen in flight. The clearest views I can ever remember of pellets in flight were not with a PCP, but with a .22 Webley Vulcan shooting Eley Wasp pellets against a dark background, with the sun low in the sky and its light coming from over my shoulder, brilliantly illuminating the high antimony content, and hence bright silver, Wasp. The 2.75 x 40mm Tasco scope had a huge depth of field, and I saw pellets from a few yards right to the target. My clear view of the pellet had nothing to do with recoil, because the Vulcan was a lively little beast, but a combination of other factors, including the brightness and size of the pellet, the background and illumination, and the fact that I was shooting a big, bright and slow pellet.

watching any film or video, when we view a series of still images which our brain turns into fluid motion. The brain may just as easily be able to turn a glimpse of the pellet at its apogee, and another as it nears a plain target, into a continuous view of the pellet.

Modern scopes have great lens coatings that give superb contrast; a huge help in seeing pellets in flight.

pellet will reach the apogee some 65ms to 80ms after the end of the recoil cycle. Following the apogee, at around 25 yards, the pellet will be some 35 yards out 40ms later, and over 40 yards after the following 40ms. If the brain ‘sees’ the pellet at the apogee, at 35

flight is whether or not you make a conscious effort to look for it. When following through with a shot, you tend to concentrate on the anticipated pellet point of impact, which means that light travelling from the area where the pellet will land, will fall in the

“My clear view of the pellet had nothing to do with recoil, because the Vulcan was a lively little beast” Most film and video is shot at, nominally, 25 frames a second, so the images our brain is able to see as fluid movement refresh at 40 millisecond (ms) intervals. A .177

and/or 40 yards, it may well be quite capable of turning those glimpses into a fluid movement. Another factor that affects your chances of seeing the pellet in

centre of your retina, where your ability to see the finest of detail is greatest. Alternatively, if you concentrate on an area where the pellet will fly, you stand a far

Focusing at the pellet’s apogee gives the greatest chance of seeing it.

THE BRAIN Thanks to the incredible computer that is the human brain, we don’t always see what we’re looking at, and proof of that can be found by

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

75

»

TECHNICAL AIRGUN

Shooting into the sun seems to kill any chance of catching a glimpse of the pellet.

greater chance of seeing it. The human brain is very good at detecting movement and because the pellet climbs and falls in the sight picture, sometimes coupled with a degree of horizontal travel, this movement might sometimes be fleetingly

detected, even in cases where a stationary pellet might not.

RECOIL DURATION I have recorded thousands of recoil cycles using many different spring airguns and states of tune, and the entire recoil cycle is over,

meaning that the piston has landed and the mainspring stopped throwing its weight around, in around 20ms to 35ms, by which time, a .177” pellet will be just five yards or so into its flight, so that for the majority of the pellet’s trajectory, the only rifle

A dull day and a background full of fine detail make a sight of the pellet unlikely.

76

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

movement that could prevent the pellet being seen must be caused by the user, not the recoil, I have recorded recoil cycles with a hand-held spring airgun, and found that a degree of movement can continue for long after the piston has landed, depending on the rifle support. In a nutshell, the greater the restraint placed on the rifle, the longer the duration of rifle movement, and the greater the consequent displacement and velocity during the surge. In the worst case, if you pull the rifle hard into your shoulder, the rifle recoils less, but that stores potential energy in your muscles, which slowly becomes kinetic energy pushing the rifle forward during and following the natural surge period, which can persist until after pellet impact. At the other end of the rifle support scale, a very light hold can see all rifle movement effectively ending shortly after piston landing, so there is no rifle movement to prevent the pellet being seen. There is a caveat to my recordings of hand-held rifle recoil, and it is that they were made using an accelerometer which, as the name suggests,

PELLET WATCHING

My experiments with lightened pistons did not appear to increase sightings of pellets in flight.

records acceleration. It also records the force of gravity and unless it is perfectly horizontal, will record a small acceleration even when perfectly still. That poses a problem because acceleration data is integrated to find velocity, and again to find displacement, and whatever acceleration attributable to the accelerometer not being horizontal at the end of the recoil cycle will be an accumulative error that can give the impression of the rifle moving when it is, in fact, stationary.

BLINKING HECK! There are two types of blink; one is spontaneous and occurs every two to ten seconds, the other is triggered by an external stimulus. Both types of blink can last from something over 100ms to 400ms, but the eyelid is, of course, closed for only a part of that time, which might suggest you wouldn’t miss part of your view of the pellet in flight due to blinking, but research at UCL found that your brain creates processing information from the eye whilst you blink, so you are unaware of the temporary loss of vision. It appears that a blink could mask a significant proportion of the pellet’s trajectory. The chances of an involuntary blink occurring during the approximate fifth of a second it takes a .177 pellet to reach a 40-yard target are small, although it will happen on occasion, but a blink brought on by some part of the recoil cycle would occur every shot, and I have seen any number of shooters unconsciously blinking, sometimes flinching, with every shot with spring airguns. On

balance, it seems that when it comes to seeing pellets in flight, blink and you really can miss it.

TUNING The suggestion is that tuning a rifle and reducing the initial rearward recoil increases the likelihood of seeing the pellet in flight, and provided all the factors

HFT shooters who grossly under-range a distant target sometimes report seeing the pellet fall across the face of the target.

be returned during and following the surge. However, the fact that you are far more likely to see the pellet if you expect to be able to, and actively look for it, means that owners of tuned airguns claimed to allow sight of the pellet, are far more likely to look for, and hence see the pellet, irrespective

the instant that the pellet exits the muzzle, so the pellet’s going to land in exactly the same place, regardless of whether you see it get there or not. Whether we see pellets in flight or not seems to be governed less by the state of tune than by background and light, our scope, its magnification and focus range,

“it seems that when it comes to seeing pellets in flight, blink and you really can miss it” listed in this article are satisfied, that’s very plausible, if my measurements of rifle movement post pellet exit are to be believed, because less recoil means less energy stored in the shoulder to

of recoil. Whether an ability to see the pellet in flight has any bearing on accuracy is another matter, because the rifle’s influence on accuracy is over and done with

the pellet brightness, size and velocity, whether or not we actively look for and expect to see the pellet, if the pellet is partially masked by the reticle, or if we blink! ■

The clearest view of a pellet in flight was when using a .22 Webley Vulcan, shooting strongly illuminated Eley Wasp pellets.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

77

TECHNICAL AIRGUN

STROKE OF GENIUS Jim looks at the measurable effects of altering the length of spring airgun potential compression stroke

ome 30 years ago, I was working on the action of an Original/Diana 45, and had replaced the standard leather piston seal with one that I’d turned from PTFE, but with no other modifications, it made the muzzle energy far too high. The Original 45 was perhaps the first post-war ‘Magnum’ air rifle, designed from the outset to achieve the highest muzzle energy with an eye to American exports, and the PTFE washer took the rifle into FAC territory even with everything else set at UK spec. Rather than reduce the length of the preload or cut the mainspring to bring muzzle energy down, or substitute a softer alternative spring, I decided to reduce the length of the available compression stroke by fitting spacers behind the piston seal, and it worked a treat. I remember writing at the time that not only had the reduction in stroke produced the desired reduction in muzzle energy, but it had also reduced the time that the compression stroke took – and so the time to get the pellet out of the muzzle, which had to be good for accuracy. Most importantly, it reduced the recoil. I wasn’t alone in altering piston stroke in those days; lots of people did it, but nearly always in the opposite direction, lengthening stroke to increase muzzle energy, because relatively few contemporary airguns delivered energy near the legal limit because the available piston stroke of many

S

78

AIRGUN WORLD

production rifles was too short. We didn’t fully understand the physics behind the relationship between piston stroke and muzzle energy at the time, but we knew what worked. Fast forward 30 years, and nearly all new spring airguns have been designed with longer piston strokes, to increase their maximum potential muzzle energy

muzzle energy levels, perhaps, but mainly to reduce primary recoil. One thing that appears not to have changed is that most people broadly understand what works, but not why it works.

SHORTENING On the plus side, shortening the available compression stroke reduces the length of time that the

function of the piston displacement, so shortening the available stroke shortens the rearward recoil. If this can be achieved without penalty, such as difficult to manage recoil, then the earlier pellet exit and reduced recoil displacement can only be good for accuracy. However, because the piston gains energy from the spring

“We did not fully understand the physics behind the relationship between piston stroke and muzzle energy” for derestricted markets. A new generation of tuners has rediscovered piston stroke shortening as a way to make the rifles better suited to our UK

piston compression travel takes, and the pellet emerges that bit sooner from the muzzle. In addition, the initial rearward recoil displacement (travel) is a direct

The Haenel 302 was advertised as ’high power’; it wasn’t, due to too short a piston stroke and limited room for a mainspring.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

throughout the entire compression stroke, shortening the available stroke reduces the amount of energy that the piston can gain from the mainspring. Energy is our

SHORT STROKE

The BSF was a powerhouse, which compensated for its short piston stroke with a monster mainspring.

measure of ability to do work, so reducing the piston’s energy reduces its ability. To a degree, the work in question is the ability to overcome friction between the piston seal and cylinder wall, but mainly to compress the air in the cylinder, which reduces the energy transfer from the air to the pellet, of course, so that the muzzle energy reduces. To maintain pellet muzzle energy, piston energy must be increased and this can be achieved either by fitting a stiffer mainspring, or increasing the preload of the existing spring. If an 85mm stroke was reduced to 80mm, the spring would have to be increased in stiffness by just under 10%, or preload increased by the order of 20% to 25% to maintain piston energy. Seems fairly straightforward, but unfortunately there is another side effect of shortening the piston stroke that complicates matters.

when pelletofgains most of Somethe owners the Walther LGVitsimported Pellets start to move at a 7.5 jouleWe pistons extended energy. couldwith think of the rods to surprisingly large range shorten the stroke. cylinder pulse as

the ‘main energy transfer’ window.

cylinder pressures, from well under 100psi for soft,

TIMING

CYLINDER PULSE The cylinder pulse is the distance travelled by the piston, starting the instant that the pellet starts to move, and ending when the piston comes to a halt. The duration of the cylinder pulse is the time in which the piston and pellet are travelling in the same direction, which is important because it is

of

thin-skirted .22, to in excess of 600 psi for harder, thick-skirted .177. For a given pellet and barrel, the pellet start pressure is attained at a certain percentage of the available compression stroke, and that percentage changes very little if we alter the length of available stroke, so shortening it decreases the length and duration of the cylinder pulse which, as I have just explained, is when the pellet gains most of its energy, and so the energy transfer will be lower the shorter the stroke. We can increase the cylinder pulse, and hence energy transfer efficiency, of a reduced-stroke airgun in two ways: The first way is to extend the far end of the pulse, by pushing the piston that bit nearer the cylinder end, which necessitates a stiffer or more preloaded spring. The second method of increasing the cylinder pulse is to advance the pellet release point, which can only be achieved by using combustion to raise the cylinder pressure and temperature beyond that achievable by adiabatic compression alone, at below the pellet’s usual start point – in common language, by harnessing dieseling. So, in reducing the piston stroke, we need not only to increase spring energy to maintain piston energy, but we also need to increase it further to compensate for the reduced energy transfer window. The resulting increased spring force increases piston acceleration, further shortening the shot-cycle time, and making the recoil feel ever more ‘snappy’.

Modern Diana airguns, like this Model 280, have plenty of piston stroke.

Some of the time that the pellet is traveling up the barrel occurs during the primary rearward recoil, some in the following forward surge, and one of the factors that determines how much of the barrel time occurs in recoil and surge is the length of the compression stroke. Put simply, shortening the compression stroke decreases the amount of barrel time in recoil, and increases surge barrel time, and this is significant. The recoil of a spring airgun is consistent in velocity and displacement because it varies

»

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

79

SHORT STROKE

The Original 45 was a prime candidate for short stroking.

Replacing leather piston seals with synthetic ones stops the rifle dieseling, and so effectively reduces the cylinder pulse.

mainly according to minute differences in the pellet start point, itself varying according to minute variations in size and fit, and that only affects the last 5% to 20% of the compression stroke. On the other hand, the surge is affected in its entirety by pellet start, because pellet start precedes the reversal of recoil into surge. Experiments with my HW77 at a range of compression stroke lengths confirmed that not only

barrel will be pointing in a slightly different direction when pellets with minutely different start pressures leave the muzzle; it will exacerbate the inaccuracy caused by inconsistent pellets.

WINNERS AND LOSERS It’s getting on for three years since I first found the relationship between short stroking and pellet exit inconsistency and, if anything, short stroking seems to have

shot cycle, and it seems that the average shooter gains hugely from both. I personally noticed the deterioration in accuracy from inconsistent pellet release only when shooting with the rifle supported fore and aft by cushions that isolated the rifle from the shooter (me), which is not how airguns are used in the field. If I subjected the rifle to my own handling foibles, then it is entirely possible that I too would

“The benefits of short stroking are reduced initial recoil and faster shot cycle” were surge velocities more inconsistent than recoil velocities, but that the inconsistencies of surge velocities increased significantly the shorter the compression stroke. What that means in practice is that the

grown in popularity since, suggesting that many find the benefits of short stroking outweigh the drawback of pellet exit inconsistency. The benefits of short stroking are reduced initial recoil and faster A modest reduction in my HW95s piston stroke to 77.5mm seemed to do what I wanted with no penalty.

80

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

gain more from short stroking than I’d lose from pellet exit timing variation. Having said that, a good club level HFT shooter has tried two ultra-low recoil set-ups and found that whilst they improved his accuracy when shooting from the bench, they greatly reduced his accuracy on an HFT course. The shooting in HFT is to my mind the target discipline that comes closest to the shooting in what I think of as ‘rough’ shooting, in which you are not shooting from a fixed position at a defined area, but taking shots as and how they present, which will include offhand, prone and kneeling. A rifle that performs well in HFT is, to my mind, a good, general purpose, hunting rifle, whilst one that only performs well when shot

from the bench might not be. Leaving ultra-low recoil aside, I think that most people will benefit from modest reductions in stroke; bench rest shooters will certainly benefit from greater reductions in stroke, but the most accomplished and consistent HFT shooters and hunters will continue to win, unless the stroke is reduced too much.

LONG STROKING Many of the spring airguns of the 1980s and before had piston strokes of 70mm and below, which restricted their cylinder pulse to levels at which they could get nowhere near 12 ft. lb, without either inducing dieseling to advance pellet start, or lengthening the stroke. Increasing power was not the only motivation for increasing piston stroke, though; a few tuners who shot competitively, increased piston stroke deliberately to lengthen the time duration of the piston stroke, which transformed sometimes sharp recoil into what one tuner, himself an accomplished all-round shot, described as ‘lazy’ recoil. Because modern airguns are designed with one eye on the lucrative and unrestricted in muzzle energy, American market, few have very short strokes, and long stroking today seems a thing of the past, save those who long stroke older airguns. Short stroking brings easily understood advantages in reduced primary recoil and shot cycle time, but the less publicised and less easily understood side effects should be kept in mind. As with most things, short stroking is fine in moderation. ■

www.airgunshooting.co.uk | AIRGUN WORLD |

81

INCREDIBLE COLLECTION OF CLASSICS

About two-thirds of the period scopes, mounts, silencers, single points, silencers, collimators and much, much more. Everything in boxes, all brand new.

n mid-December 2016, I went past my local air rifle shop in Newcastle and it had a ‘closing down, due to retirement’ sign in the window, so I parked the car and went in. Paul, the owner, was his usual jovial self, but explained that sadly, he was calling it a day and selling up. I looked around

I

and noticed that his gun racks behind the counter were unusually full, and there were some vintage tins of pellets and scopes in one corner of the room. I remarked upon those, and then he very kindly invited me to the back of the shop and showed me an amazing collection of vintage air

rifles, all in mint condition. There were too many to take in, to be honest, so I focused on the most gorgeous Weihrauch HW80 that I had ever seen. It had a gorgeous custom stock, gold trigger, and fine, hand-cut chequering. Suddenly, I found that I needed it.

BACK TO BOYHOOD Then my attention was drawn to an Original air rifle, which immediately took me back to being an 11-year-old boy again. I had always wanted an air pistol or rifle, but it was never likely to happen, but then my older, next-door neighbour showed me

FIND OF A LIFETIME!

Reader, Karl Reah, has stumbled upon a simply incredible collection of airguns 84

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

INCREDIBLE COLLECTION OF CLASSICS The legendary Feinwerkbau Sport - and in absolutely mint condition.

his Original Modell 5 air pistol, the one with the grey grips and my first deal was struck. Nearly 40 years ago, I used my Christmas money, handed over £15 and the pistol was mine! It was locked in my LP case, to be used whenever I could. The only access to shooting

ALL ORIGINALS Back in the gun shop I noticed not one, but four Original rifles; a 45, all scoped up and ready to go, and a limited edition Jubilee model in .177, brand spanking new, wrapped up in a plastic bag. Then from nowhere, another 45 appeared still in its original box,

“I knew very little of them, except that they were fabulous” material back then, that I can recall, was a local gun shop window, and on visits to my aunties, who both had catalogues; in the late ‘70s you could buy air rifles from a mail-order catalogue. I then began pleading with my parents to get me a rifle, but this fell on deaf ears, so I had to make do with my beloved Original pistol, and scoured the catalogues for my fix.

and to top it off, a lovely 27 Super. I knew very little of them, except that they were fabulous and original, just like my pistol. A deal was struck and of I went in a daze with what I had just bought. Full of excitement, I called my pal, Rob, and explained what I had just seen. Luckily, I had taken a few photos and he spotted one with a side lever. I went back the next day and asked Paul if he had

The Discovery, full of rifles on just one of the many trips.

an Air Arms Camargue, the one with a walnut Tyrolean stock. “I do believe I have, Karl,” he said, at which point he came back with one, brand new in the box. “This one.” Needless to say, Rob is delighted with it and is enjoying the rifle that he always lusted after when he was a young lad.

MOTH TO A FLAME A few days went by and I was drawn back into the shop like a moth to the flame. This time I realised that I could full fill all those childhood dreams, and I bought another five rifles, ones that I thought were quality guns that I probably would never see the like of again. The five rifles were; a Weihrauch 50s , a Weihrauch 50, and a Webley

Vulcan still all wrapped up in its original box and packaging with all the little extras that were supplied at the time; a small packet of pellets, targets, instructions even a little bottle of oil. Then another stunning rifle caught my eye, a Weihrauch 35, with the words VIXEN engraved on one side of the action, and another period custom rifle, that I was about to discover. All of the rifles literally brand new from the late ‘70s, to the early ‘80s, and many of them in their original cardboard box packaging. I spent the next week researching what I had. I was

»

“Do you by any chance have one of those Air Arms Camargues from 1980?”

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

85

INCREDIBLE COLLECTION OF CLASSICS

BSF S70 Continental, Bullino engraved by Don Blocksidge, and a BSF 55 Bavaria Venom. Note the gorgeous Tyrolean walnut stock and early Venom silencer.

hooked. I found it absolutely fascinating as I checked the serial numbers of the Weihrauchs and found that they had been made around 1979. I was in my element.

HAD TO GO BACK Christmas was fast approaching and also the closure of the shop, so I had to go back. A number of friends were asking me what else was available, so I took the opportunity to go back and look around. I had been thinking particularly about two rifles that screamed ‘quality’, but I’d had put them to the back of my mind initially because the shop owner had decided that he was going to keep them for himself. One of them had a Venom badge on it and the other had the most amazing Bullino engraving. There were only a few days to go until Christmas and the

dreaded closure of the shop, so I asked to have a look at them and was amazed by the both the detail and quality. The rifles were BSFs and, fingers crossed, I hoped I could do a deal. Well, the deal blew me away. Paul only had a day to go before the shop closure and he wanted good homes for the remaining rifles from the collection. We shook hands on over a dozen more rifles, including my now prized Custom BSFs. I honestly didn’t know what most of the others were, except for being a similar vintage from the same collection, but this was an opportunity that I couldn’t let pass.

QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS I went off clutching my two BSFs and couldn’t wait to find out more, so I joined the AirgunBBS internet forum and started asking a few questions. I’ve had loads of

Kestock HW80. Reworked custom stock, hand-cut chequering, brass liners on pistol grip and butt pad, gold trigger, Air Logic silencer, shortened and crowned barrel, and tuned.

brilliant feedback and will be meeting up with some folk soon to discuss this fabulous subject. The BSF with the Tyrolean Cheek piece was an early custom rifle; a BSF 55 Bavaria was taken and tuned up by Venom, and a custom walnut stock and silencer was added. There were probably around 20 of them made. The S70 was also a custom rifle, with extra hand-cut chequering and Bullino engraved. I had heard of BSFs before, but now I had them in my hands.

HALFWAY THERE So many rifles, so much to learn and so many details to discover, and I love the fact that in the collection there are a mix of both production rifles and very expensive custom rifles, arguably made when custom air gun tuning was in its infancy. The previous

owner had impeccable taste. I think I have covered around half of the collection now, but I have at least a dozen boxes of air rifles to check out and I honestly don’t know what they are. I also have dozens of vintage tins of pellets, around 20 boxed scopes from the same period, mounts, slips … and there are around 30 spare springs in a bag, each individually tagged for each rifle. There are targets, spring compressors, chronometers and even a vintage collimator which I have already put to good use. The Land Rover got filled to the brim on a number of trips and I can’t wait to see what’s in the other boxes. Christmas is still going on for this little boy and I’ll see you next month to unwrap some more of my wonderful presents! ■

Three excellent break-barrel rifles, with everything original - in more ways than one. Every box opened seems to contain a classic and an example of our modern airgun heritage.

Tasco Rama, competition for the Single Point.

86

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Shooting this weekend? Are you insured?

INDIVIDUAL (1 0%23/.)

12 months BASA insurance

COVER INCLUDES: ✓ FAC Airguns ✓ Airguns

Just £19.95BY$IRECT$EBITOR £23.95 by credit/debit card www.subsave.co.uk/BASA/AGW

JOINT 0%/0,%

12 months BASA insurance Just £29.95BY$IRECT$EBITOR £37.95 by credit/debit card /RDERBYPHONEONLY

MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS s Up to £2 million third party liability insurance#, covering FAC Airguns and Airguns s 3HOOTINGPERMISSIONSLIPS s $ISCOUNTSOFF!RCHANTBOOKS s 0HOTO)$CARDANDPROOFOFINSURANCE s 30%#)!,/&&%23FROMSELECTEDRETAILERS s &2%%ENTRYIN!IRGUN7ORLDCOMPETITIONS

Join today for instant cover Current members can also take up this offer by extending their membership

www.subscriptionsave.co.uk/BASA/AGW 01858 438842 quote CBA7W03A www.airgunshooting.co.uk AIRGUN WORLD 87

#Third party liability indemnity – excess £250. The public liability insurance is arranged by Arthur J. Gallagher insurance brokers limited who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority T&Cs: Direct Debit is a UK offer only and will be taken annually. For the joint memberships, the Direct Debit payment will be taken in 2 separate payments of £14.97 and £14.98. Details of the Direct Debit guarantee are available on request. You will be instantly insured subject to your payment being successfully processed. Allow up to 14 days for the preparation of your membership documents. You will need to provide your BASA membership number to benefit from the special offers, for more information please visit www.airgunshooting.co.uk/basa-membership. OFFER ENDS 15/03/2017.

SHOP PROFILE

EXTRA-FRIENDLY SHOPPING A new shop with everything you could want for your sport is open now!

dinburgh Field Sports is Scotland’s latest and most exciting gun shop, filling a huge gap in the map for the avid airgun shooter in East Central Scotland, Fife, the Borders and beyond. Located within the massive new Edinburgh Angling Centre store in Granton, the EFS gunroom is packed with a large range of guns, ammunition, clothing and accessories from all of the biggest names, covering all types of airgunning as well as most other fieldsports activities. Getting there is simple, it’s just a 15-minute drive from the Forth Road Bridge or there’s a choice of public transport options directly from the city centre. EFS is easy to find (right next to Go Outdoors) and boasts plenty of free parking. There is already a buzz about the place as local shooters realise they now have a proper gun shop right on their doorstep that is open seven days a week, and late on a Thursday night until 9pm. As part of the Glasgow Angling Centre group of stores, who

E

Guns and accessories galore await you.

already have a successful gun shop in Glasgow Field Sports, which has been serving customers in the west of Scotland and further afield for over 12 years, the new EFS store has all the services you will ever need from a shooting retailer, including; arranging gun storage, repairs and servicing, a popular Click and Collect service, Price Match Promise, an award winning mail order service, 0% finance options to help spread the cost of a big purchase and even RFD transfers with free shipping to your local gun shop on all guns and controlled items over £50.

The staff are all serious shooters who are happy to share their knowledge.

“There is already a buzz as local shooters realise they now have a proper gun shop right on their doorstep” The entrance to somewhere special.

Between the two stores, they easily have the biggest selection of second-hand air rifles and pistols in Scotland, with well over 400 examples of used airguns from almost every brand and for every budget - from high-tech modern PCPs to classic ‘90s springers, plus many rarities, collectors pieces and restoration projects. They also stock a wide range of new airguns from all the best known brands, such as BSA, Air Arms, Weihrauch, Daystate, FX, Webley, Umarex and many more, plus new and used shotguns and firearms from the best in the business. Accessories are well covered too, with scopes, pellets, gun bags and cases, lamping and night vision, decoying gear, rangefinders, cleaning and gun-care products plus a huge range of clothing and footwear to keep you warm and dry in the best of the British weather. You will find knowledgeable staff in both stores and make no

mistake - these guys live and breathe shooting and are out there doing it more than most. They will make sure you get the best gear to suit your needs. All the staff have an in-depth knowledge of the new Scottish Air Weapon Licensing legislation, and are well versed in clarifying any issues or confusion related to the new laws. They have saved hundreds of airguns from the Police Scotland scrappage scheme and helped many more keen airgunners through their applications to successfully get their licence and keep participating in their hobby legally! ■ Visit – Edinburgh Field Sports, Unit EB Granton Retail Park, 65 West Harbour Road, Edinburgh EH5 1PW Call 0131 202 6351 Email – [email protected] Website – www.edinburghfieldsports.co.uk Connect – Facebook EdinburghFieldSports Twitter @edinburghfs

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

89

RRP: £699.00 Incl Diopter Sight & Quickfill Adapter

92

| AIRGUN WORLD | www.airgunshooting.co.uk

ROSIE’S RECIPE

CHEESY

PIGEON BALLS Rosie Barham makes a quick and tasty supper after a hectic day

ometimes, I’m so busy that I forget to eat, particularly if dinner time approaches and I need to cook from scratch, so I have a habit of knocking up pasta sauces and freezing them in portions so that I can just grab one, bung it in a microwave for three minutes, mix into cooked pasta and I’m sorted. Recently, I’d been working since daybreak and forgotten about eating, until it was dark and cold outside, and suddenly my brain veered toward comfort food. ‘Easy – sketti tonight!’ was the plan, until I went to the freezer for a dollop of sauce and discovered that supplies of various ‘made in advance’ pasta sauces had dwindled to just one half-portion of Bolognese, because I never seem to have the time to replenish. The days when I could stand in

S

INGREDIENTS Pigeon breast meat Sausage meat Garlic Dried sage and onion breadcrumbs, or half a pack of stuffing mix Egg Flour for rolling Halloumi cheese, large dice

Five simple ingredients.

Serve on top of pasta and sauce.

the kitchen all day and make my sauces; Milanese, arrabbiata, sugo – both amatriciana and puttanesca – and more, are long gone. Life and work gets in the way, and sometimes I don’t know if that’s a good, or bad thing. I had a pigeon in the fridge, though, and some defrosted sausage meat with which I was supposed to be

making sausage rolls, and a block of halloumi cheese … garlic … breadcrumbs. This dish came about by accident, and it turned out to be one of the best meatball meals I’ve ever made. As a bonus, I killed two birds with one stone, and photographed as I went, so that the recipe was ready for the

March issue of Airgun World. So, as well as enjoying a satisfying and very tasty meal, I was ahead of the game work-wise. Result! These hearty meatballs freeze extremely well, too; you can eat them with salad for lunch, or with creamed potatoes and veg, if you don’t fancy pasta. Versatile and delicious, I guarantee!

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

»

AIRGUN WORLD

93

ROSIE’S RECIPE METHOD: ■ Place sausage meat and breadcrumbs into a large bowl. ■ Add a little water to soften breadcrumbs. ■ Add finely diced pigeon meat. ■ Add the garlic and an egg. ■ Mix thoroughly. ■ Cut the halloumi into half-inch dice.

■ Take a tablespoonful of the meat mixture, tuck a piece of halloumi into the centre and mould it. ■ Roll in flour, and place into a baking tin. ■ Bake in a moderate oven for about 40 mins, or until the balls are golden brown. ■ Serve on top of pasta, with a tomato, or Bolognese sauce – or just eat on their own as a snack.

Place sausage meat and sage breadcrumbs into a large bowl; add a little boiling water.

Add to the meat/ breadcrumb mixture.

Dice the halloumi – smallish chunks.

Place halloumi in the centre.

Bake until golden brown.

Melted halloumi - yum!

94

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Offering a range of accessories, airguns, riﬂes, shotguns and ammunition for the country sports enthusiast.

TEL: 01491 576689 www.henleycountrysports.co.uk Opening Times: Tuesday – Saturday 9:00-5:30pm Friar Park Stables, Gravel Hill Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 4NR

www.airgunshooting.co.uk | AIRGUN WORLD |

95

ON TEST

SUBSCRIPTION OFFER PRIORITY ORDER FORM Airgun World, FREEPOST LE6423, Leicester, LE87 9BY, UK

No stamp required if posted within the UK

I am a new subscriber I am a current subscriber and wish to renew

AIRGUN WORLD

YOUR DETAILS (mandatory to complete) Mr/Mrs/Ms

First name

WIN!

Surname

Airgun

Postcode Telephone

Mobile

DIESELING DAMAGE! MYTH OR FACT?

Email* *Please enter this information so that Archant Community Media Ltd can keep you up-to-date with important information about your subscription and exclusive offers that we think you’ll enjoy. You can unsubscribe from these messages at any time.

DIRECT DEBIT Service User Number

CARE FOR YOUR KIT WALTHER CLASSUS WEBLEY RAIDER 12 GAMO ROCKET IGT FX STREAMLINE SMK CPI PISTOL WEBLEY MKIII

REFERENCE (office use only)

Airgun World – Please start my subscription by annual Direct Debit for just £33.50 Airgun World & Air Gunner – Please start my subscriptions by annual Direct Debit for £45.50

HEAVY HITTERS! PELLETS WITH PUNCH! HUNTING YEAR-PLAN! HARDMAN’S HINTS

NAME AND FULL POSTAL ADDRESS OF YOUR BANK OR BUILDING SOCIETY BRANCH To the manager (Bank name) FEBRUARY 2017

Address

Postcode

INSTRUCTIONS TO YOUR BANK OR BUILDING SOCIETY. Please pay Archant Community Media Ltd Direct Debits from the account detailed on this instruction, subject to safeguards assured by the Direct Debit Guarantee. I understand that the instruction may remain with Archant Community Media Ltd and if so, details will be passed electronically to my Bank or Building Society.

WORTH

STREAMLINE

£25.50

EXCLUSIVE!

AIRGUN WORLD & AIR GUNNER WIN

Date

JUST £45.50*

YOU MAY CANCEL THE DIRECT DEBIT AT ANY TIME AFTER THE FIRST PAYMENT IS TAKEN. Banks and Building Societies may not accept Direct Debit instructions for some types of account.

TOTAL VALUE £129.24 SAVING 65% that’s £83.74

CREDIT/DEBIT CARD Airgun World – Please start my subscription

by credit/debit card at £38.50 Airgun World & Air Gunner – Please start my subscriptions by credit/debit card at £48.50 Expiry Date

FX

www.subsave.co.uk/AGW1

Bank/Building Society number

Signature

£3.99

13 issues of Airgun World + Multi Tac Knife

*By Direct Debit or £38.50 by credit/debit card or cheque

Name(s) of account holder(s) Branch sort code

TOTAL VALUE £77.37 SAVING 57% that’s £43.87

FEATURED!

Instruction to your Bank or Building Society to pay by Direct Debit

415266

JUST £33.50*

A WEBLEY RAIDER 12 COMBO WORTH £700!

BRITAIN’S BIGGEST-SELLING AIRGUN MAGAZINE

Address

Start Date

13 issues of Airgun World + 13 issues of Air Gunner + Multi Tac Knife

Issue No (Mastro only)

Card number

GUNNER

THE NEW WEBLEY RAIDER 12 PCP

WORTH £530! X9 CLAS

SIC A battle harden ed Co2 winner LAMP POWE R

Nights earche r lamps hit our shores

CANT UNDE RSTAND? Accura cy secret reveal ed

15 PAG ES OF TOP HUNTING TIPS

RAID IN G PART Y!

WEBLEY BACK WITH A BANG - LATEST PCP

MARCH 2017

Signature

£3.99

Date www.airgunsh ooting.co.uk

ULTIMATE OPTIC! PT2

THE EDITOR CONCL

oting.co.uk AIR GUNNER UDES HIS TESTwww.airgunsho 1 AND TELLS ALL

CHEQUE Airgun World – I enclose my cheque made

payable to Archant Community Media Ltd for £38.50 Airgun World & Air Gunner – I enclose my cheque

Archant Community Media Ltd, the publishers, would like to keep in touch, from acknowledging receipt of your order efficiently to sending you details of exclusive offers. Please tick here if you would rather not hear from us by post email or phone . We’ve teamed up with some great partners who would like to contact you occasionally but if you would prefer not to receive these messages tick here for post and phone . If you’d like to hear from them by email tick here or SMS tick here . T&Cs: UK offer only. Details of Direct Debit Guarantee are available on request. Airgun World is published 13 times a year. Savings are based on the cover price of £3.99 and the value of the gift. Gift is available whilst stocks last. Please allow up to 28 days to receive your free gift. For overseas subscription rates, please visit www. subscriptionsave.co.uk. Subscriptions may not include promotional items packaged with the magazine at the newsstand. Offer ends 15/03/2017.

*By Direct Debit or £48.50 by credit/debit card or cheque

www.subsave.co.uk/AGW2 ✃

Source code: CAW7X03A

made payable to Archant Community Media Ltd for £48.50

&

SUBSCRIPTION OFFER

SUBSCRIBE UP SAVE TO 65%

PLUS receive your welcome gift WALTHER MTK WORTH £25.50

A combination of tactical knife and tool. The one-handed blade in matt black finish with partial serration has a Liner Lock feature while the handle of the tactical knife contains the multifunction tool, consisting of bottle opener, can opener, screwdriver and swing-out bit holder (9 bits). This knife comes with a nylon holster.

EASY WAYS TO ORDER

Subscribe online or call 01858 438840 quote CAW7X03A Lines are open 8am-9.30pm Mon to Fri, 8am-4pm Sat.

NOTES ON A NOVICE etting the views of a total airgun novice has been a fascinating and useful exercise. Tom is, as yet, unsullied by preference or prejudice and simply calls it as he sees it. I thought I’d make use of this unclouded perspective before it disappeared beneath the haze of experience and opinions formed, so I grabbed a couple of test guns and asked Tom for his views on them. I opted for the BSA R10 SE Super Carbine with a Realtree patterned stock, and Webley’s MKVI Service Revolver with its nickel plated ‘Exhibition’ finish. A pair of polar opposites for sure, but what would Tom make of them?

G

ABSOLUTE BEGINNER The editor asks our novice what he sees when he studies an airgun and how it would affect his choice

SIMPLE PREFERENCE Regular readers will recall that Tom really liked the look of the Diana K98 Mauser, due to it being ‘sort of old-fashioned but cool at the same time.’ The Webley pistol definitely had these attributes, so I expected that to get Tom’s approval and it did. Tom had done his homework and researched the MKVI, so he knew that it was a direct copy of Webley’s worldfamous Service Revolver of yesteryear, albeit with a flashy nickel finish. Tom remarked, ‘Yes, there’s something about this pistol that makes me want to not only pick it up and shoot it, but clean it, too. It’s really hands-on and I love the way its cylinder cranks round as I pull the trigger or cock the hammer. Can I pick it up?’ I said he could, and to my delight, he checked that the pistol wasn’t loaded and that it didn’t have a Co2 capsule in it. Here’s an important point; Tom is becoming versed in the rules of safety, plus he’s using the correct terms – cylinder, cock the hammer – now, which he wouldn’t have done a couple of months ago, so his general airgun knowledge has increased significantly. This was further emphasised by his next observation.

OBJECT LESSON ‘As far as handling goes, this pistol doesn’t feel as good in my hand as that pistol I tried down the club at

98

AIRGUN WORLD

Pistol shooting is a real challenge - and not just for Tom!

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

NOTES ON A NOVICE

This modern PCP was a bit intimidating at first.

Bisley, but I guess ergonomics must have improved by miles since the Webley was designed.’ Tom had shot a modern Gamo PR776 at Bisley and its grip is indeed an ergonomic world away from the classic MKVI. Tom’s next comment really set me thinking. ‘I found pistol shooting really hard, as far as hitting targets goes, and I had so much more success with the rifles I tried. Is that why you don’t shoot pistols much, Terry?’ Blimey. Tom was right, I don’t shoot pistols that much, and it could well be that it’s down to me being rubbish with them. The thing is, I always preach about facing our shooting challenges, rather than avoiding them, so maybe it’s time I took my own advice. Our technical editor, Phill Price, is extremely competent with rifles and pistols and derives immense pleasure from shooting both, so I don’t need to look far to see a living example of what I should be doing. Thanks Tom another lesson learned.

STRAIGHT TO THE POINT The BSA R10 was next for Tom’s consideration and I was pleased to see that, again, he asked if it was OK to pick up the rifle and he checked its status. This lad was learning, no doubt about it. With

Learning to load the mag’ is an important skill.

This old-fashioned style pistol felt odd to Tom.

the rifle in his shoulder and his eye behind the scope, Tom began to settle into a passable shooting stance. It wasn’t quite to his preference, though, and he told me, ‘This scope needs to be further forward for me, but I’d be confident in hitting a target or two … provided I had a bench to rest on, of course.’ Ah, now there’s a thing. Tom’s time at the club had mostly been spent with a recoilless rifle,

what’s really involved in successful shooting, or doesn’t that matter? For every answer there seems to be at least three questions.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT Tom then said, ‘I’d really need to know my stuff to rock up at the club with a rifle like this, wouldn’t I? I mean, the other members would expect me to know what I was doing if I owned something as

“I love the way its cylinder cranks round as I pull the trigger or cock the hammer” shooting from a bench rest. The advantages of such a set-up are obvious, but are they realistic, or even healthy? Would such a degree of immediate success – Tom was hitting 45-yard spinners within minutes of his introduction to modern airgunning – give Tom a false impression of

advanced as this?’ Interesting. Tom further explained that bringing the R10 to the club would be like owning a Ferrari, in that most people would expect that he knew how to drive a supercar. I asked him if that would affect the chances of his buying and using a rifle as technically

Tom knew the scope wasn’t positioned correctly for him.

He checked the BSA wasn’t cocked or loaded as soon as he picked it up.

tricked-out as the R10SE, and his answer surprised me. ‘Yes, I think it would. There’s quite a bit to know, isn’t there, and I wouldn’t want to look like a numpty as I fumbled around loading the magazine and charging the rifle with air; not to mention fitting the scope and getting the thing zeroed! I’d be fine if you or Phill were there to show me how, but not on my own, even though everyone was really friendly when I went to the club.’

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT There, I believe lies the lesson. Whilst the BSA R10 SE isn’t your typical novice’s rifle and its degree of technical sophistication could undoubtedly be daunting to any inexperienced shooter, it was still a shock to discover that hi-tech can be such a barrier. I wonder how many times new shooters would be put off from enjoying the progress our hardware has made, purely because it’s a bit scary. More than we’d imagine, I’d say. The remedy is obvious and basic. We need to help our newbies as much as we can and prove to them that anyone who can make a cup of tea can run a modern airgun perfectly successfully. Tom’s in a bit of a privileged position but he was still hesitant to embrace the available technology, so what does that say for novices without his back up? Let’s make sure we help those who are taking their first steps in this fantastic hobby – and we’ll do our bit to assure its future. ■

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

99

ND

BR

TONSOU AT

G

UN

S A FE

S

565 High Road, Wembley, Middlesex HA0 2DW • Tel: 0208 902 7217

WOODY’S • OF WEMBLEY Est. 1963 •

Now Available the Weihrauch HW110! .177 AND .22 CALIBERS N STOCK I CAN BE SENT TO A DEALER OF YOUR CHOICE. STOP PRESS HW100.20 CAL IN STOCK!

COMPREHENSIVE RANGE OF ACCESSORIES. REPAIRS & SPARES

A HUGE RANGE OF WEIHRAUCH GUNS STOCKED INCLUDING SPECIALS SUCH AS THE HW97 AND HW77 WITH SPECIAL LAMINATED STOCKS PLUS THE STUNNING BLACK STAR PISTOLS. THE HW100 ADJUSTABLE MODEL (AVAILABLE IN CARBINE ONLY!). HW100 GUNS IN .20 ARE ALSO AVAILABLE ‘OFF THE SHELF’.

Opening times: Tuesday - Friday 9am - 6pm, Saturday 9am - 5.30pm.

www.woodysofwembley.co.uk 100 | AIRGUN WORLD | www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN HISTORY

JOHN MILEWSKI

DENNIS HILLER

Dennis’ collectable guides remain relevant to this day and essential for the airgun researcher.

John Milewski introduces an airgun collecting pioneer

How many old models can you identify on the trestle? (Image courtesy of John Atkins).

irgun collecting as a hobby did not really take off until the 1970s. Prior to this, older airguns were available at bargain prices because they were not really viewed as collectables. The downside to this, of course, was they were hard to find. There was no Internet or specialist magazines such as the one you are reading now, and collectors would have to visit potential outlets such as gun

A

shops, second-hand emporiums and auction houses physically, in order to track down that elusive model. A number of pioneers in the field of airgun collecting rose above the parapet during the 1970s, to join Les Wesley, who had written a book on the subject in 1955 and operated a shop in South Molesey. The late Dr Joe Gilbart, and Dennis Commins,

both wrote a significant number of articles on historic airguns during the early and mid-1970s, but it was not until 1978 that a book on collecting air rifles was published by Dennis Hiller.

WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE Dennis had operated a mail order business centred on collectable airguns, spare parts and pellets since 1975. He had an enormous

wealth of knowledge on the subject and could also be seen behind the counter of his stall at various arms fairs around the country for many years. Dennis moved away from airguns after selling his business in 2002 to concentrate on vintage motorcycles, but still keeps an eye on airgun collectors from a safe distance. For instance, when I wrote a multi-part series on the

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

»

AIRGUN WORLD

101

JOHN MILEWSKI Webley Service, I referenced information from Dennis’ book and, ever the gentleman, he kindly called me to thank me for doing so. Referencing that one piece of information spurred me to recall Dennis’ business and the pleasure it gave to airgun collectors over the years. Subscribers could sign up to 10 or more ‘mailings’ from Dennis, which were full of old airguns and hard to find accessories. Collectable airgun pellets were also included and I amassed a significant collection of pellet containers during the 1980s and ‘90s, many of which were sourced from Dennis. His mailings were worth the subscription alone for the jokes included between the airgun-related items offered for sale, and you needed a sense of humour to unravel his spelling mistakes. I never did find out if the mistakes were deliberate, because Dennis was a former teacher. Maybe they were for real then!

USEFUL INFO You could buy a catalogue from Dennis, which included exploded diagrams of many of the airguns

This excellent Webley Junior was sourced from Dennis a couple of decades ago.

that Dennis was able to supply parts for – very useful when stripping. Looking back through one of these catalogues, which included samples of prior mailings, it is amazing how prices have increased over the years. For example, a tin of unopened 1930s

Dennis Hiller (on right) concludes a transaction. (image courtesy of John Atkins).

102

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Eley Black Boy slugs was priced at £17.50 including postage, whereas today, such a tin would cost the buyer well over £100.

BOOKS AND GUIDES Dennis went on to publish four editions of his ‘Air Rifles’ book and

complemented this with three editions of his guide to collecting air pistols. The books are still available and remain relevant to this day, which is an incredible tribute to the effort placed into producing them. The mass of information in these books

AIRGUN HISTORY

I still own this small tin of 100 Milbro Caledonian, which I sourced from Dennis in 1990. I’ll feature the rare Webley box another time.

I think Dennis’ typewriter was as old as this 1930s Warrior air pistol!

posted by a gun shop under the demonstrates just how terms of the VCR Act, was knowledgeable Dennis was on the compiled from Dennis’ books. So, subject. In a pre-Internet age, any models missed by Dennis, Dennis was able to compile detailed information on the history, such as the Kynoch Swift may not necessarily be on the list, although variations, and value of hundreds in fairness the authorities admit of collectable airguns. A detailed that the list is not comprehensive price guide was included, which nor inclusive of all models. provided a price for then current models, a range of prices seen for used models, and for realised WEDDING MEMORIES auction prices. This provided a I remember ordering an unused useful indication of the prices Webley Premier Mark II with its specific airguns were sold for, original box, outer sleeve and rather than an idea of full complement of what a dealer accessories for thought they under £100 from might be worth. Dennis. This Rumour has arrived on the it that the list day of my of pre-1939 wedding in airguns that 1989, today’s wrapped in authorities rely confetti! I was These Eley Target pellets on to determine finding odd bits complemented Wasps, but if a model may be were a lot rarer. Dennis of confetti offered them for sale at bargain prices.

This sample box intended for the Webley Junior is incredibly rare today. I found the boxed set on one of Dennis’ lists.

for years afterwards, but that sums up the charm and sense of humour of Dennis Hiller. I was saddened to learn from John Atkins and Alan Harvey that Dennis had been unwell of late and requires long-term treatment, but pleased to hear that he is expected to make a full recovery. Airgun collectors today are very fortunate to have the Internet to rely on for research and contact with others. However, Dennis’

books still deserve a space in any comprehensive research library and will remain relevant for the foreseeable future. So, from a long-term collector and friend, get well soon Dennis and thank you for all of your efforts in making our hobby so interesting and rewarding. ■ Sources and Acknowledgements John Atkins, Dennis Hiller various mailings and books, Alan Harvey.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

103

NEW M O R

N A M

C

S O R

F

FULL METAL CONSTRUCTION SEMI-AUTOMATIC ACTION 20 – SHOT BB MAGAZINE EASY ACCESS CO2 UNDER GRIP

ONLY £69.00! Distributed to the trade by: ASI, Alliance House, Snape, Saxmundham, Suffolk IP17 1SW Tel: 01728 688555 | Fax: 01728 688950 | E: [email protected] | W: www.a-s-i.co.uk

TECHNIQUE

BETTER THINKING! Martin Calpin is on a mission to improve his psychological approach verybody knows competitions are nearly always won on the disciplines of standing and kneeling; the rest is down to the ability to shoot in the wind. We all spend our time practising, in the hope of mastering them, but I’ve observed a mental state that goes with this, before, during and after practice sessions and competitions. At least 70% of us would say that we are average at these disciplines, and the hidden acceptance that we will probably not win gives us one of the biggest handicaps before we’ve even got the gun out of the bag. Many people don’t believe that they have much chance of hitting those ‘discipline’ targets before they even start, so it’s easy not to try. I know what you’re thinking. ‘It’s just a day

E

out, having some banter with my mates, who cares?’ Well, by the look on your face when you miss, you actually do care, but you’ve already given up, you lazy git!

YOU CAN IMPROVE It’s possible for everyone to improve and hit those discipline targets, and I know it is because I was the guy mentioned above. I’d almost accepted that I was going to miss at least four standers per shoot. What kind of thinking is that? ‘Wrong thinking’ is what it is. Not any longer though. Something changed over the last couple of shoots; I’m determined not to miss. I need these standers to get me out of B Grade, and I’ve got to get them to improve that grade. So, I no longer give up on a target and pull the trigger with an ‘Oh sod it’ frame of mind. I stop, reset and start over again.

Ian Taylor; another World Champion who can.

CLEAR YOUR MIND Learning to concentrate sounds so easy and there’s probably a million books about it. Remember to breathe, slow things down with some deep breaths, this will help to slow your heart rate down as well. You are never going to stop the reticle moving, so focus on slowing the movement down. Clear your mind and keep focusing on what you need to do, things you have power over. Forget the ‘what ifs’ and the last missed target – just

stay in the moment. Try to picture what is going to happen next, and last but not least, remember why you are there – to enjoy yourself.

BAD HABITS For the last month, I’ve been doing all of the above and I’m now starting to see some results. When you stop to think about what you are doing, it’s a surprise when you spot your own bad habits. At one recent shoot, I’d started to hold my

Andrew Gilliot, checking his ranges four times off the bag.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

105

»

XXXXXX: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Neil Hague, an absolute master at standing shots and someone who rarely misses one.

Range at least four times to ensure that you’ve got the distance right.

Youngster Dylan Varney showing us old gits how it’s done on a difficult kneeler.

breath whilst ranging. I’ve no idea where that came from, but I figured that at some level I must have been trying to sit as still as possible. The problem is, it also put my heart rate up just in time for taking the shot, which is utterly pointless.

NEW REGIMEN I decided to write myself a new regimen and go down to the woods every day to practise doing exactly the same thing over and over; never taking the easy way out and making sure that everything was done properly. It’s easy enough when you’re on your own, but when you’re at a shoot it’s so easy to slip back into ‘let’s get this over with’ mode, and I’ve

106

AIRGUN WORLD

had to fight that feeling several times as shoots started to hit two and a half hours long. Staying focused and not thinking about what’s for tea is hard work sometimes, especially when it’s roast beef, but I’ve stuck at it and twice I’ve had a personal best in my hands, only for it to slip away due to getting the wind wrong. So, coupled with the new regimen, I’ve been putting in a couple of hours a day, shooting in all kinds of weather, trying to learn what to do in the wind, and when to release the trigger. I’m getting there, but there’s a long way to go.

HOW IT WORKS If you are wondering what the new regimen is, it’s this:

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

“I figured that at some level I must have been trying to sit asstill as possible.” I place the bag in a position where I can see both targets, and if this isn’t possible, I just start again on target two. I sit down so that I’m facing the target correctly and then move into the most stable position to range the target. I ensure that I range the target at least four times. If I’m not sure, I take my eye away from the scope and start the ranging again. Once I’m happy that the range is correct, I load the gun and dial in the distance on my scope. I triple-check the wind on the way to the target and windicator, pick my aim point, and level to ensure that the gun isn’t canted. I take three deep breaths and then hold as I take up the first stage and release the shot. I stay

on the gun for a couple of seconds to ensure that I’m not moving at the point of release.

PAY ATTENTION I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the ranging, position and breathing and not thinking ‘this will do’ and it all sounds easy, but at times I’ve found myself doing really odd things like holding my breath for longer than I needed to, and rushing shots because I’ve got comfortable. These are habits I don’t need, which is why I’ve been trying to turn all this theory into practice. The quest continues. Until next month, you’ll find me down in the woods, shooting tin chickens – and believing I can hit them all! ■

WEBLEY MK VI .455

SERVICE REVOLVER, Co2 4.5mm Air Pistol

NOW IN STOCK

Luckyard Farm 300 acres to shoot over. Vermin and rough shooting is available all year round.

Full Size Full Metal Construction Built from Original Blueprints Single & Double Action 6” Barrel, 6 Shot Metal B.B Air Pistol

LUCKYARD FARM

£199.99

Field Strippable

Buy that special person a gift voucher

4 People Weekend Stay At Our Cottage Just £185. Weeks from £250. LUCKYARD FARM, WHEDDON CROSS, EXMOOR, SOMERSET TA24 7HF 07969 171415 [email protected]

We supply post free anywhere in the UK mainland. Purchasers must be over 18. Phone today for details. Reserve one now and call into our shop.

www.luckyardfarm.co.uk

www.airgunshooting.co.uk | AIRGUN WORLD | 107

Repairing and tuning for all types of Air Riﬂes PCP’s Co2 gas & specialising in spring piston riﬂes

UK T: 0044 (0) 151 604 1788 M: 0044 (0) 7768 406377 E: ﬁ[email protected]

FRANCE T: 0033 (0) 3277 45145 M: 0033 (0) 6500 74421 E: ﬁ[email protected]

Julian Coupland HIGHLAND CRAFTSMAN Bespoke Gunstock Customisation

www.agrtuning.co.uk Tel: 07912 466 917

THE SKIPTON GUNROOM

Sole UK distributor of

UNIT 7, CARLETON BUSINESS PARK, CARLETON NEW ROAD, SKIPTON BD23 2DE 01756 792 630

HW 110’s in stock BERETTA/HARKILA/SEELAND/RIDGELINE CLOTHING

Daystate, Air Arms, Brocock, BSA, Kral, Weihrauch etc in stock SHOTGUNS ● RIFLES ● AIR GUNS ● LARGE STOCK OF GAME CARTRIDGES ● LARGE STOCK OF ALL MAKES OF AIR RIFLES ● CLAY AND GAME SHOTGUNS ● FULL AND SMALL BORE RIFLES

Zeiss, Leica, Leupold, MTC, Hawke, S & Bender, Redﬁeld, Nikko Sterling Scopes in stock

Tel: 01349863737 | Email: [email protected]

www.highlandcraftsman.co.uk

108 | AIRGUN WORLD | www.airgunshooting.co.uk

www.theskiptongunroom.co.uk | 01756 792 630 Open 9am to 5pm Tuesday to Friday inclusive and 10am to 4pm Monday & Saturday

READER FEATURE

PREPARE

FOR ACTION! Reader, Jamie Usedon, enjoys a successful morning hunting squirrels planned to shoot a few squirrels because the farmer had asked for them to be thinned out in one of his woods, but rather than stalking through the wood, I decided to put a couple of feeders up in some tall oaks, set up a small hide and then sit in wait, hoping that they would come to me. I filled the feeders with crushed peanuts and left them, sure that the squirrels would find them soon enough. I’d been checking the feeders every couple of days throughout the week to get an idea on activity, and after two or three days the feeder was half empty, so I knew they’d found the peanuts and had

I

been feasting on the strategically placed bait. The coming Saturday, I’d get into the woods nice and early, set up the pop-up hide, get all the gear in it and sit and wait with a nice warm cup of coffee in the hope that the squirrels would be on the feeder for breakfast.

READY TO GO On Friday night, I got all the gear ready for the following morning’s shoot; the rifle, a comfy seat, shooting sticks, pellets, all the usual essentials were checked, prepped and placed in the hallway ready for the morning. At 6am my alarm sounded and like any eager air rifle enthusiast I leapt from my

bed, like a dog bounding to the food bowl. I made a flask of hot coffee and then put everything in the truck. After a 15-minute journey, I arrived at the entrance to the farm, drove in and stopped outside the grain barn to set up a target and check the zero before going into the woods. I set the target up at 20 yards and took three shots to make sure that all was okay, and then got back in the truck and made my way to the wood, where I parked the truck on the tree line and walked the gear the last part of the journey to the feeder, being as quiet as I possibly could so not to alert anything of

my presence. I set up the hide and put everything in place, then poured a cup of coffee and the wait began.

TREETOP ACTION It wasn’t long before the sun was up and I started to see movement in the treetops. Quite a few younger squirrels were running and playing, and a few had made their way to the forest floor, around the tree with the feeder, but nothing had presented a shot at this point and I didn’t want to move about too much in the hide and cause a disturbance, so I was still sitting still and playing the waiting game.

»

A perfect platform.

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

109

READER FEATURE

I filled the feeders with peanuts and monitored them for a week.

Scope-cam view. The shot was perfect.

Taking the shot is only part of the process.

The hide-feeder combination worked, but it’s not the only way by any means.

After about 45 minutes, some movement caught my eye – the first squirrel of the day coming on to the feeder and presenting the shot I’d been waiting for; it reached in for a handful of the crushed peanuts and sat down just as I’d hoped it would. I lined up the cross hairs and placed my finger firmly on the trigger, taking up the first stage, and when it felt right, I gently squeezed into the second stage, sending the pellet on an inevitable collision course with the skull of the squirrel. I heard a thud as it fell off the feeder and lay at the base of the

tree, with its tail twitching, signalling the shot placement was good.

SIGH OF RELIEF I sat back with a sigh of relief knowing that the first squirrel of the day had dropped and I was hoping it was a sign of better things to come. Not too long after the first squirrel had succumbed to the FX Impact, another had taken its place on the feeder, oblivious to the fact that I was sitting 20 yards away in the hide, lining up the cross hairs of the Hawke Sidewinder on its head.

I was well rewarded for my preparation work.

110

AIRGUN WORLD

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

Once it had settled in to feed, I gently squeezed the trigger, sending another JSB pellet downrange. Again, that thudding sound echoed through the wood as the squirrel dropped to the base of the tree, with the odd flick of the tail.

THIRD ONE DOWN The next squirrel to fall to the FX Impact wasn’t from the feeder. It sat in the tree beside the feeder looking down, and it was only by chance that I managed to see it due to the nervous flicking of its tail. From the position I was in, I could see enough of its head to take a well-placed shot and drop the third of the morning. For the next hour or so I didn’t see any action on the feeder, but the movement in the trees was hard to miss. There were plenty about still, but none ready to climb down to the feeder just yet. I poured another coffee and was enjoying the sounds of the woodland when again, as if by magic, one just seemed to appear on the feeder and it already had a mouthful of peanuts. I rushed to put the coffee down, and get the gun onto the Primos shooting sticks, but I managed to do it nonetheless, and within a few

seconds the fourth of the session was on the floor.

GREAT MORNING’S SPORT No more than five minutes passed before a woodpigeon flew in and landed in the tree opposite the feeder, so without hesitation, another pellet was released from the FX magazine, zeroing in on the pigeon’s head with the distinctive thud, and after a flap of the wings the woodpigeon came crashing to the ground. The morning carried on much the same with a total of eight squirrels falling to the FX Impact before I called it a day at around 11am, when I picked up the shot quarry, topped up the feeder and packed up all my gear ready to head off home. Sometimes, just sometimes, things go according to plan, especially if you do your preparation work thoroughly. ■

DO YOU HAVE A STORY TO SHARE? We’d really like to share our readers’ experiences, so if you’ve had a remarkable day, please let us know about it. As ever, please contact the editor at [email protected] and we’ll do the rest.

PRIVA E SMALL ATD

BULLSEYES BARGAINS GALORE - DIRECT FROM THE AIRGUN WORLD READERS

ONLY

£4

For only £4 your advert will appear in the next issue of Airgun World and on our website www.airgunshooting.co.uk

S

Are you look ing to sell yo ur gun? Are you a co llector lookin g for that rare gem? Th ousands of de dicated enthusiasts read Airgun World every month. Look no further this is the pl ace to buy and sell!

Post your ad to, Airgun World Bullseyes, Evolution House, 2-6 Easthampstead Road, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG40 2EG Please include your name, address, telephone number and a maximum of 40 words and we will contact you for payment if necessary. Please make cheques or POs payable to Airgun World. Get your entries in before the end of January to be in the March issue. Unfortunately we cannot guarantee which issue your ad will appear in. Please note that we cannot take your advert over the phone. For further information call Sharon on 01189 742524

FOR SALE: My collection of airguns and telescopic sights from BSA, Gamo, Weihrauch, Feinwerkbau.Prepared to sell items individually. Buyer collects, based junction 5 M40. Tel: 07526 676036 (High Wycombe) WANTED: Airgun World back issues containing early articles in the ‘Airgun Student’ series by Naylor Ball, up to and including July 2015. HATSAN MODEL 125 SNIPER .22 nearly new, ﬂagship springer model, dual scope rail standard and Weaver Picatinny, adjustable cheek rest and butt pad, polycarbon stock and fully adjustable trigger and silencer. Very quiet springer £130. Tel: 07890 781668 (Leicester). SWAP: BSA Meteor Mark 4 .177 stock, has a few marks but action is pristine. Recent service, exchange for singlestroke pistol or single-shot Co2 pistol or sell for £100. Tel: 07890 781668 (Leicester). THEOBEN MK1 RAPID 12-shot mag, 500cc and 400cc bottles, bipod adaptor, 7 litre scuba tank, charging gear and scope. Lots of extras £495 (Colchester). Buyer must collect. BSA SUPERTEN MK3 in very good condition with 6-24 x 50 AO scope. Extra buddy bottle (needs new

valve), new spare magazine and Jack Pyke gun bag, £425 ovno, buyer must collect. Tel: 07894 008661 (Leicester). AIR ARMS .22 S510 SL carbine with walnut stock, ﬁtted with Air Arms silencer and Deben Hawke Varmint scope, plus a 3 litre air bottle. All items are as new and unmarked. Gun still on its ﬁrst tin of pellets, £780. Tel: 01709 581956 (Rotherham). BUSHNELL LEGEND ULTRA H.D scope, 4.5-14 x 44 mil-dot reticle side parallax, unwanted comp prize still in box and unused, would retail at over £200 selling for £130. Pistol scope 2 x 20 boxed £30. Tel: 07890 781668 (Leicester). BSA S10 .22 good condition £250. BSA Airsporter S .22 good condition £160. BSA Airsporter .22 good condition £140. Sussex Armoury Jackal with scope .22 £140. Webley MK3 .22 £150. Lincoln Jefferies riﬂe £200. Tel: 01263 761518 (Norfolk). THEOBEN RAPID 12 .22 with Anshutz safety catch on top and trigger, Bushnell Banner 6-18 x 50 AO wideangle scope, ﬁrst-class condition, very little use with Theoben gun bag. Theoben Rapid 17 .177, walnut target stock, Bushnell Sport Chief 4-14 x 50 scope with

sunshade, adjustable butt pad in Theoben gun bag, immaculate, as new condition will only be sold as a pair £2000. Will not separate, no offers. Tel:07930 612612 (Gwent). SANDWELL FIELDSPORTS BANSHEE HW 95K .22 walnut sporter stock, HW silencer, immaculate condition, super-quiet, super-smooth £400 buyer collects. Tel: 07871 731858 (Lancashire). WANTED: Airgun World complete set, number one to date in binders or loose. Travel Essex, Suffolk. Tel: 01621 855580. WANTED: for Rotion Co2 Action model pistol. Looking for a replacement grip, anatomical right-handed grip in wood or plastic. Text: 0778 6010805. HATSAN 125 STRIKER .22 nearly new polycarbon stock. BSA Meteor mark 4 .177, very good condition for age. SMK Victory Series, Co2 multi-shot riﬂe .177. Tel: 07890 781668 (Leicester). BARGAIN NIGHT VISION, ATN Aries Guardian riﬂe scope with variable IR £200. Yukon Photon XT 4.6 x 42 day-night scope £200. Both mint with cases. Tel: 01912 366271 (Newcastle).

WEIHRAUCH HW97K .177, 22ft lbs plus Nikko Sterling scope 12-9 x 50, new gun second-hand in excellent condition, also 1500 pellets and gun bag. First to see will buy it! FAC holders only, bargain price £150, no offers, buyer collects. Tel: 07926 567845 (Llandudno). HW97KT .22 plus Hawke Panorama, (latest model no. 15131) 4-12 x 50 AO 10 x ½ mil reticle, Sportsmatch one-piece, Jack Pyke padded zipped carbine cover. All new 2015. Outﬁt cost £650, hardly used, looks new. Will sell for £360. Tel: 07860 202788 (Preston). WALTHER LP3 model, very good original condition but needs new seals, otherwise excellent condition £135. Webley air pistol WK1 35154, .177 in very good original condition, good working order, (around 1925), £275. Tel. 01276 29460 (Surrey). WEBLEY VISCOUNT SIDELEVER RIFLE .177, genuine mint condtion £195. Hawke XB30 Pro scope, 1-5 x 24 illuminated reticle. New in box £175. Gamo C11 pistol, compact semi-auto, new £35. Millett 1 x 25 red-dot sight, 3MOA dot, adjustable brightness, new in box £30. Tel: 01977 661671 (Yorkshire).

The Bullseyes service is for readers wishing to buy and sell airgun equipment as part of a non-commercial transaction. There is no need for such transactions to be made face to face (unless an airgun is FAC rated), but Airgun World requests that due caution is exercised when buying or selling an airgun. You must adhere to the current airgun laws. You cannot buy an airgun if you are under 18 years of age. Bullseyes are not offered to those who sell airguns as a way of trade of business

www.airgunshooting.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

111

DEALERS DIRECTORY 1

2

3

BORDERS GUNROOM

BRADFORD STALKER

BROM SPORTS

New & S/H Air Riﬂes bought and sold. Repairs carried out on the premises. Full range of accessories. Delivery service available for air weapons. South of Scotlands largest retailer of Shooting and Fly Fishing equipment.

Visit our spacious showroom with hassle free on site parking. Wide range of riﬂes & pistols: BSA, Weihrauch, Daystate, Webley, Brocock, FX, Air Arms, Gamo, Umarex, Walther. Clothing & accessories inc, Night vision, Scopes, cylinders, bags, pellets, lamping equipment. Airgun & cylinder reﬁlls available, services & repairs arranged. Opening Hours: Mon- Fri 9.00 – 5.30/Sat 9.00 – 5.00. Credit cards and Finance available. Ouston Bank Farm, Ouston, Chester Le Street, County Durham DH2 1BB

Hereford Airgun Specialist. A large range of Air guns and accessories available including: Air Arms, BSA, Daystate, Webley, Crossman, SMK, Hawke and many more. Also available: air cylinder charging, archery, crossbows, soft air, repairs & servicing and much more. A family friendly outlet, with help and advice always available. Open 9’till 5 Tuesday to Saturday. Bromyard Sports 66 Widemarsh Street, Hereford HR4 9HG

Tel: 0191 4100565 [email protected] www.bradfordstalker.co.uk

Tel: 01432 344610 [email protected] www.bromsports.co.uk

Main St, St Boswells, Melrose, TD6 0AA

Tel: 01835 822844 www.bordersgunroom.co.uk

13

CHICHESTER ARMOURY

Guns & Accessories

4

C&H WESTON

12 East Street, Brighton, Sussex BN1 1HP. Opening hours: MonSat 9-5.30. Sun & Bank Hol 10.30-4.30. Established 1819, C&H Weston offer a friendly service. We stock all good brands such as Air Arms, BSA, Daystate, Brocock, Weihrauch, Gamo, ASG, Crossman, SMK. We stock a massive range of pellets and other shooting accessorises. Scopes by Lightstream, Hawke, Nikko, BSA, MTC. PX a pleasure. Second hand guns also stocked.

Tel: 01273 326338 [email protected] www.chweston.co.uk

CHICHESTER ARMOURY

5 COUNTRY SPORTING GUNS

Wide choice of air riﬂes, pistols and accessories.

Cannons Cottage, Punchbowl Lane, Brothertoft, Boston, Lincolnshire PE20 3SB. Opening hours: Mon - Sat 9am - 5.30pm. We supply airguns and shooting accessories, stocking all major air riﬂe brands, optics and silencers. Setup and tuning service. We are selected BSA area dealers. Sporting riﬂes and shotguns including ammo. New and secondhand riﬂes and shotguns. Shooting Range. We buy airguns. This is the home of the Grand European 80 Varmint air riﬂe.

43 West Street, Chichester, Sussex PO19 1RP

Tel: 01205 311246 [email protected] www.countrysportingguns.co.uk

Tel: 01243 774687 www.chiarm.co.uk

7

COUNTRYWIDE

Offers a great selection of new & used air guns. Stockists of Weirauch, BSA, Air Arms, Daystate, Gamo, Umarex, SMK and Crosman. Repairs available. Good selection of scopes on site. Bradford Road, Melksham, Wiltshire SN12 8LQ. Other stores located in Bearley, Bourton on the Water, Chepstow, Chipping Norton, Gloucester, Ledbury, Melton Mowbray, Salisbury and Thornbury. Open Mon-Fri 8.30-6.00. Sat 8.30-5.30. Sun 10.00-16.00.

Tel: 01225 701473 [email protected] www.countrywidefarmers.co.uk

DAI LEISURE

Full range of air riﬂes and pistols: Webley, Weihrauch, BSA, Crosman, Logun, Air Arms, Brocock etc + Scopes, Lamps, Archery 8 Egerton St, Wrexham Town Centre

8

Tel: 01384 265151 www.daileisure.co.uk

Supplying all types of Air Riﬂes and Pistols. PCP/ Spring/Gas Ram/CO2. Optics and Nightvision. All associated accessories. Clothing and Footwear. Wykeham, Scarborough, Yorkshire YO13 9QP

Tel: 01723 865039 [email protected] www.daveyandson.co.uk

12

11 DRAPERS AIRGUN CENTRE

FIELD SPORTS EQUIPE

The Midlands largest Airgun Showroom and Sales Experts. Selling everything from spare parts to accessories to the most sought after riﬂes and collectors pieces! We supply everything from new and used airguns and their accessories through to clothing, hunting knives and binoculars, and we offer a great service at the shop itself along with competitive prices. Opening Times Tuesday – Saturday 9am-5.30pm. Closed Sundays and Mondays. 124-128 Hartley Road, Nottingham NG7 3AJ

20a Elwy Street, Rhyl LL18 1BP. 10am-5pm Tuesday to Friday Saturday 10am to 4pm. Riﬂes/Pistols, Optics, Ammunition, arms, Clothing, Gun Cabinets, Quality Knives, Lamps & Torches & Archery, Full Service, Spring Riﬂes, PCP Riﬂes, Air Pistols, Shotguns, Riﬂes for £35.

Tel: 01159702525 [email protected] www.drapers-airguns.co.uk

Tel: 01978 290990 www.dragonﬁeldsports.co.uk

9 DAVEY AND SON

DAI Leisure is one of the largest suppliers of Airguns, Shotguns, ﬁrearms and Sporting Equipment in the West Midlands. We supply BMX, mountain bikes, stunt scooters, radio control and all other types of sporting goods. Visit our store 7 days a week. Mon - Sat 9.30-17.30. Sun 10.00-16.00. Unit 1, Enterprise Trading Estate, Hurst Lane, Brierley Hill DY5 1TX

10 DRAGON FIELD SPORTS WREXHAM

6

13

17

Tel: 01745 353 476 info@ﬁeldsportsequipe.co.uk www.ﬁeldsportsequipe.co.uk

14

15

16

FIELD SPORTS

GREENFIELDS AIRGUN CENTRE

HENLEY COUNTRY SPORTS

HENRY KRANK

Glasgow Field Sports, Unit 1 The Point Retail Park, 29 Saracen Street, Glasgow G22 5HT. Edinburgh Field Sports, Unit E Granton Retail Park, 65 West Harbour Road, Edinburgh EH5 1PW. Central Scotland’s premier retailers of shooting and hunting equipment and clothing.

The Shooting Grounds, Sturry Hill, Sturry, Canterbury CT2 0NG. Stockists of BSA, Webley, Air Arms, Daystate, SMK, Hawke, Weihrauch, Gamo and many more. Helpful Friendly Advice Always Available. Open Tues-Sat 8.30-5.00. Sun 9-1. Closed Mon. Canterbury airgun club on site.

Offering a range of accessories, airguns, riﬂes, shotguns and ammunition for the country sports enthusiast.. Visit our shop at: Friar Park Stables, Gravel Hill, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 4NR. Opening Times: Tuesday – Saturday 9:00-5:30pm

We stock Air Arms, BSA, Weihrauch, Hatsan, Walther, Gamo, Crosman and Umarex air guns both new and second hand. Extensive range of antique air guns also in stock. Visit our shop at: 100-104 Lowtown, Pudsey, West Yorkshire LS28 9AY

Tel: 01227 713222 sales@greenﬁeldsshooting.co.uk www.greenﬁeldsshooting.co.uk

Tel: 01491 576689 [email protected] www.henleycountrysports.co.uk

Tel: 01132 569163 [email protected] www.henrykrank.com

Tel: Glasgow 0141 212 8880 Edinburgh 0131 202 6351

sales@glasgowﬁeldsports.co.uk www.glasgowﬁeldsports.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

Red numbers are on the next page, turn over for more details

34

Please turn the page for even more shops in your area

43

17 IAN HODGE SHOOTING & FIELD SPORTS

1

Penbarn, Burlawn, Wadebridge, Cornwall PL27 7LA. Cornwall’s premier gun shop. New and used guns and accessories.

Tel: 01208 813651 sales@ianhodgeﬁeldsports.co.uk www.ianhodgeﬁeldsports.co.uk

2 32

26 4

24 12

38 40

36

31 22 11

10 37

6

Friendly Family Run Business in Wellington Market Town. New and used air riﬂes bought and sold. We also sell a range of air pistols, pellets and accessories. Open Monday - Saturday from 9am. Find us at 41, Market Street, Wellington, Telford, Shropshire TF1 1DT

Tel: 01530 260901 www.ibstocktackle.co.uk

Tel: 01952 257400 www.jaynesﬁshingtackle.co.uk

20

21 MAY OF LONDON LTD

“The county’s friendliest gun shop!” New and used guns always in stock, and if we haven’t got it, we can get it. Ammunition, optics and accessories. Full servicing and repair centre. 12 North Street, Leighton Buzzard LU7 1EN. Tue-Fri 11-5.30 Sat 9-5

Air riﬂe and pistol sales. Gunsmith on-site. Dive cylinders and ﬁlling station on-site. Indoor range. Vast range of goods and accessories. Expert and friendly advice always given. We also sell Shotguns, Riﬂes, Cartridges, Ammunition, Cabinets and Clothing. Open: Tues-Fri 9.30am-6pm & Sat 9.30am-5.30pm. 21-23 Cherry Tree Rise, Buckhurst Hill, Essex IG9 6EU

Tel: 01525 851700 sales@justﬁeldsports.com www.justﬁeldsports.com

Tel: 0208 504 5946 [email protected] www.mayoﬂondon.com

28

39

19

61-63 Chapel Street, Ibstock, Leicester LE67 6HF. Wide range of air riﬂes, scopes and accessories at discount prices. Daystate stockist. All repairs undertaken. Guns always wanted - Cash paid.

JUST FIELD SPORTS

16

42

JAYNES TACKLE AND GUN SHOP

9

41

19

18 IBSTOCK GUN & TACKLE

18 22

8 30 3

35

20 33

29 25 21

15 7

23

MELBOURNE TACKLE & GUNS

MFC OUTDOOR STORES

64 Church Street, Melbourne, Derbyshire. Large selection of new and second hand Sporting riﬂes, Shotguns and Air Riﬂes. Outdoor, Waterproof Clothing & Footwear. Barbour, Aigle & Seeland stockist.

9 Station Road, Hailsham, East Sussex, BN27 2BE. New and Secondhand Airguns Bought and Sold, Pneumatic Service Centre. Also spares, repairs, scopes, Soft Air, Sling Shots, Decoys, Cartridges, Huge Stocks of Army Surplus, Camo Clothing & Gortex, Invisible Clothing, Combat Boots, Ammo Boxes, Camo Netting plus lots more.

Tel: 01332 862091 www.melbournegun.com

Tel: 01323 846883 www.mfcoutdoorstores.co.uk

14 31 23 27

5

4 MOOREDGES AIRGUNS

PARK STREET GUNS

The Chantreys, Mooredges Road, Thorne, Doncaster DN8 5RY. Extensive range of all leading airguns, scopes and accessories. Mail order available. pen 6 days a week 9.30-5.30pm Mon-Sat Sunday 10-4pm. Closed Tuesday.

4

Tel: 01405 741706 www.mooredges.com

26

27

Registered Firearms Dealer. 1-2 Park Street Lane, Park Street, St. Albans AL2 2NE

Tel: 01727 872646 [email protected] www.gunshot.co.uk

28

PICKERING GUNS

PORTSMOUTH GUN CENTRE

PNEUMATIC BALLISTICS

Large display of new and second hand shotguns, riﬂes, air weapons, and general shooting accessories. Part exchange welcome. Guns bought for cash. Opening hours: Mon-Sat 9-5pm. Closed Wed. 8 Birdgate, Pickering, North Yorkshire YO18 7AL

We stock riﬂes, pistols, shotguns, airguns and black powder weapons. Keeping the leading brands in stock, the business can accommodate all enquiries from customers and shooters alike. Complimenting the vast range of ﬁrearms, Portsmouth Gun Centre also carries a large amount of accessories, ammunition, clothing and miscellaneous shooting equipment.

Tel: 01751 476904 [email protected] www.pickeringairguns.co.uk

Tel: 02392 660 574 [email protected] www.portsmouthguncentre.com

Clochemerle, 45a Station Road, Ormesby St. Margaret, Norfolk NR29 3NH An innovative developer and retailer of revolutionary technology for Air Riﬂes. We sell new and used riﬂes and shooting accessories including pellet magazines which we manufacture ourselves. We offer repairs and servicing for most makes of ﬁrearms which is carried out by our experienced gunmaker. Go to our website to ﬁnd out more.

(Listed in alphabetical order)

25

24

Tel: 01493 733462 [email protected] www.pneumaticballistics.com

29 RONNIE SUNSHINES 4 Canalside, Northbridge Road, Berkhamsted, Herts HP4 1EG. Opening hours: Mon - Sat 9 – 5 Hertfordshire’s leading airgun specialist. We stock Weihrauch, Daystate, Air Arms, BSA, FX, Webley, SMK, and many more. Plus a large range of CO2 pistols, scopes, clothing and a comprehensive stock of airgun accessories. We are also a Bushcraft and Survival specialists supplying all the kit you need to survive. Come and visit our shop and try before you buy on our purpose built indoor range.

Tel: 01442 872829 [email protected] www.ronniesunshines.com

AIRGUN WORLD

DEALERS DIRECTORY 43

To advertise here phone Tom Richardson: 01189 742 514

32 42 42 40 36 37

38 39 30 35 31

34

32

SUNDERLAND SCUBA CENTRE

Stockists of Weihrauch, Webley, BSA, Norica, Gamo, Hammerli, scopes, lamps, pellets and accessories. Airsoft guns stocked, crossbows & archery available. Guns serviced and repaired. Airgun and cylinder reﬁlls to 300 bar. 4A Atkinsons Buildings, Trimdon Street Sunderland, Tyne and Wear SR4 6AH. Mon-Fri 9-5:30 | Sat 9-4:30 | Sun 10-3

Tel: 01915 670147 [email protected] www.sunderlandairguns.com

TONY’S CAMO & AIRGUN CENTRE

36

Tel: 01244 681191 [email protected] www.tonyscamo.co.uk

AIRGUN WORLD

316 High Road, South Benﬂeet, Essex SS7 5HB Full range of Air Riﬂes, Pistols and Telescopic Sights. Tuning. Servicing Kits. Airguns Bought and Sold. Tel: 01268 752888 www.trrobb.com

THE SHOOTING PARTY

40

WIGHILL PARK GUNS Visit one of Britain‘s best stocked Airgun Shops in the heart of the Yorkshire countryside. Try before you buy on our indoor airgun range. Part exchange a specialty. Wighill Park, Nr Tadcaster, North Yorkshire LS24 8BW.

Tel: 01937 833757 www.wighillparkguns.co.uk

41

31

Established in 1892 we supply a large selection of airguns, pellets, optics, clothing & shotguns. Open Monday-Saturday 8am-5.30pm. Sunday 10am-3.00pm Closed bank holidays. 28 - 30 South Street, Dorking, Surrey RH4 2HQ

Tel - 01869 338558 www. otmoors.co.uk [email protected]

Tel: 01306 882177 [email protected] www.scfuller.co.uk

THE GUN ROOM IVYBRIDGE

34

Tel: 01752 893344 [email protected] www.thegunroom.co.uk

37

S.C FULLER

Otmoors specialises in the supply, repair and tuning of legal limit / license-free air riﬂes and pistols. Run by airgun enthusiasts, our goal is to provide a level of knowledge and service that exceeds that often encountered in more “general” gun shops, many of which rarely have any interest in airguns. Opening Hours Monday Friday 10:00 - 17:30, Saturday 10:00 - 17:00 Sunday & BH Closed.

4 Western Road, Ivybridge, Devon PL21 9AN. Probably the best selection of Airguns in the South West. Daystate, Weihrauch, BSA, Air Arms, Webeley, Logun. New and Secondhand – Quality Service.

Tel: 01543 480 361 www.shootingparty.uk

Selection of air riﬂes including BSA, Air Arms, Daystate, Cometa, Brocock, Webley, Weihrauch, FX, Walther, Edgar and more. Rimﬁre and centre ﬁre riﬂes, shotguns, ammunition and cartridges available here. Open 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM Mon - Fri, 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM Sat. 53 Norris Street, Warrington, Cheshire WA2 7RJ

Tel: 01925 415901 [email protected] www.warringtonguns.com

33

We are the exclusive importer and Distributor of PAO Riﬂe & Pistol scopes, sights, lasers and Range Finders and the AirForceOne range of Airguns & Accessories, including the MOSIN-NAGANT Steel BB Riﬂe, the Trophy & Taichi Pistols and Panther pellets. 100 + Airguns always in stock. Used airguns always wanted – cash paid. Try before you buy in our indoor range.

A Huge Range of Guns, Accessories and Clothing. Open 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM Tues - Sat, Tony’s Camo & Airgun Centre, Moorcroft Mews, High Street, Saltney, Chester, Flintshire CH4 8SH.

WARRINGTON GUNS

T.R. ROBB AIRGUN SPECIALIST

30

OTMOORS

33

THE OXFORD GUN CO

Air Gun Centre Air Riﬂes by Air Arms, BSA, Gamo & Webley etc. Air Pistols by Beretta, Walther, Umarex, Smith & Wesson etc. New & Second Hand available. Full range of accessories: from pellets to slips & all in between. Part Exchange welcome. Oxford Gun Company. Jericho Farm, Oxford Road, Oakley, Bucks HP18 9RG. Opening Hours- Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri & Sat 9.00-5.30. Closed Wed & Sun & Bank Holidays. Est. 1982. Members of the GTA.

Tel: 01844 238308 www.oxfordguncompany.co.uk

38

TRACKSIDE GUNS & ARCHERY LTD

WALKERS OF TROWELL

Trackside Guns and Archery is a retail shop with an indoor and outdoor Archery Range and an indoor Airgun shooting range based in Lincolnshire. At our shop we sell Airguns, pellets, shotgun cartridges, live rounds and everything you need for Shooting Sports. We also stock a large range of Archery Equipment. Open Mon 9am - 8pm, Wed 9am - 10pm, Tues, Fri, Sat 9am - 5pm. Thursday and Sunday Closed.Trackside Guns and Archery Ltd, Station Yard, Station Road, North Kelsey Moor, Caistor, Lincolnshire LN7 6HD.

Nottingham Road, Trowell, Nottingham NG9 3PA. Stockists of: Daystate, BSA, Weichrauch, Air Arms, Umarex, Hawke. Large range of Pellets & Accessories. Fishing Tackle & Outdoor Clothing.

Tel: 01652 678895 [email protected] www.tracksidegunsandarchery.com

Tel: 0115 930 7798 www.walkersoftrowell.com

WIRRAL GUNS

35

42

2F Whitby Rd, Ellesmere Port, South Wirral CH65 8AD. Air riﬂes, Air pistols & Accessories from all manufacturers. Air ﬁlls for PCP & Paintball, Air gun repairs. Airguns to suit everyone’s budget £££. Monday – Friday 10am-5pm - Saturday 10am-3pm Closed Wednesdays & Sundays. Finance available. Tel 0151 355 6666 [email protected] www.wirralguns.co.uk

WONDERLAND MODELS

39

43

Edinburgh’s leading air riﬂe, air pistol, air gun pellet and accessories supplier. We are dealers for Air Arms, Anics, BSA, Crosman, Gamo, Sportsmarketing, Umarex, Webley and Weihrauch. 97 Lothian Road, Edinburgh EH3 9AN. Members of the Gun Trade Association. Tel: 0131 229 6428 www.wonderlandmodels.com