30-Yard Challenge

[EPG]

Hi Guys!
Along with everyone else on this coast we have had crappy weather since the start of the year. It finally warmed up enough for me to trudge through the remaining snow and set up a 30 yd target - first of the year. I figured I would try an easier one to kick the year off. Light wind and above 40 deg so I got out the FT Crown rig and had a go.
Had a really good card 198-17x except I can't submit it for the leader board. On the second target in block 8 I managed to pull the trigger before getting the reticle on target (See marked hole on the line between 8 and 10 blocks.). I was pissed! But decided to just shoot out the rest of the card to see what I could get. Of course, the next shot was a clean bullseye on that target. Anyway, it started to rain as I finished and will now have to wait for the poler vortex to go away before trying again. Oh well, what could have been.
Cheers,
Greg
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Awesome card with 17X Greg!

Yeah, these guys like TommyB are tough on granting obvious Mulligans, lol. I asked one time if they would forgive an obvious error (forgot to drop cocking bolt down on my DS Regal) on an otherwise great card…

… it was met with a resounding NO! , lol .

Mulligans are interesting. I was watching Ricky ( Airgunnero) shooting his “inside the ring” Challenge on Facebook. Basically, Ricky is putting 50+ shots INSIDE a 1” ring at 50+ yards - without any shots touching the ring!

On one of his videos, Ricky has every shot go inside the ring except one. That errant shot missed the entire page! Someone asked him about it - thought it was a bad pellet. Ricky responded that it was a gust of wind!

Crazy stuff happens to our pellets as they streak across 30+ yards..

-Ed

 

[TheAirgunnero]

Awesome card with 17X Greg!

Yeah, these guys like TommyB are tough on granting obvious Mulligans, lol. I asked one time if they would forgive an obvious error (forgot to drop cocking bolt down on my DS Regal) on an otherwise great card…

… it was met with a resounding NO! , lol .

Mulligans are interesting. I was watching Ricky ( Airgunnero) shooting his “inside the ring” Challenge on Facebook. Basically, Ricky is putting 50+ shots INSIDE a 1” ring at 50+ yards - without any shots touching the ring!

On one of his videos, Ricky has every shot go inside the ring except one. That errant shot missed the entire page! Someone asked him about it - thought it was a bad pellet. Ricky responded that it was a gust of wind!

Crazy stuff happens to our pellets as they streak across 30+ yards..

-Ed

Ed, you’re so right. The wind plays magic tricks even at shorter distances and it is important to have wind flags when shooting.

My advice to everyone is to buy or make at least 2 wind flags. Trust me your scores will go higher once you all learn how to read the wind.

-Ricky

 

[EPG]

A couple of submissions from January for me - almost no shooting weather, but got out a couple times:

30-Masters: 193 12X - Daystate Huntsman Regal .22 with JSB 15.89 @ 796fps - Athlon Midas Tac @ 24x
40-Challenge: 191 10X - FX Power Pup .22 with FX 18.13 @ 926fps - Sightron SII 36x

I have sourced a number of springs from AliExpress and the Huntsman submission was the first 28 or so shots with a custom spring I developed. My goal is to drop the cocking effort for the Huntsman bolt - while dropping the power from 29 ft/lbs to around 23 ft/lbs. I was astounded how well I measured this first hammer spring.

As it turns out, Daystate uses the same hammer spring diameter in all three Daystate rifles that I have: .22 Huntsman, .22 Wolverine and .25 Renegade. Their springs have an 18mm diameter. The length of the springs varies a bit between the rifles.

I have a bunch of different wire gauges as well (thicker wire = stiffer), so I'll experiment with that.

Of course I know that you can adjust power on Daystates via the length of hammer throw adjustment on the Slingshot hammer, but that has no impact on cocking effort. It also has no impact on how hard the hammer spring throws the slingshot hammer at the valve (think shot cycle smoothening).

Lot's of time now that I'm retired, so I'll be sharing info on how to tune Daystates with hammer springs in the future. Super simple to swap springs, and its reversible. Stay tuned...

-Ed

 

[EPG]

Cold and wind be damned, I got out and got some lead downrange today !

I shot just one card - with Daystate Huntsman Regal - 2nd card with custom hammer spring. I tied my first card score, but less Xs on this card. Trying this new Airgun Capital moderator on the Huntsman. It works well for noise, even though I bought .25-.30 caliber size. The Huntsman is a bit moderator picky, so I wanted to ensure no clipping.

I'm reduced to hand pumping for the time being, so using small air tube rifles, lol.

It felt good to pull a couple triggers today, despite the cold. Actually, 33F did not feel bad at all - but the wind is not conducive to high scores.

Hope you guys are getting some lead downrange - not too many leaderboard submissions so far in 2025... but we have some good ones.

BTW, I printed Ricky the Airgunnero's 25 meter IVAC BR25 target... it makes our Challenge target look big, lol. There are always more levels to shooting.

-Ed

 

[TheAirgunnero]

Cold and wind be damned, I got out and got some lead downrange today !

I shot just one card - with Daystate Huntsman Regal - 2nd card with custom hammer spring. I tied my first card score, but less Xs on this card. Trying this new Airgun Capital moderator on the Huntsman. It works well for noise, even though I bought .25-.30 caliber size. The Huntsman is a bit moderator picky, so I wanted to ensure no clipping.

I'm reduced to hand pumping for the time being, so using small air tube rifles, lol.

It felt good to pull a couple triggers today, despite the cold. Actually, 33F did not feel bad at all - but the wind is not conducive to high scores.

Hope you guys are getting some lead downrange - not too many leaderboard submissions so far in 2025... but we have some good ones.

BTW, I printed Ricky the Airgunnero's 25 meter IVAC BR25 target... it makes our Challenge target look big, lol. There are always more levels to shooting.

-Ed

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The IVAC BR25 is very difficult if you don’t use any wind flags. I’ll try to shoot one at 30 yards of the wind dies down.

 

[tommyb]

Cold and wind be damned, I got out and got some lead downrange today !

I shot just one card - with Daystate Huntsman Regal - 2nd card with custom hammer spring. I tied my first card score, but less Xs on this card. Trying this new Airgun Capital moderator on the Huntsman. It works well for noise, even though I bought .25-.30 caliber size. The Huntsman is a bit moderator picky, so I wanted to ensure no clipping.

I'm reduced to hand pumping for the time being, so using small air tube rifles, lol.

It felt good to pull a couple triggers today, despite the cold. Actually, 33F did not feel bad at all - but the wind is not conducive to high scores.

Hope you guys are getting some lead downrange - not too many leaderboard submissions so far in 2025... but we have some good ones.

BTW, I printed Ricky the Airgunnero's 25 meter IVAC BR25 target... it makes our Challenge target look big, lol. There are always more levels to shooting.

-Ed

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Ha ha - I think our 30&40 yard challenge card targets are small enough. I’ll let Ricky tackle the IVAC BR25 targets.

Ed - The Regal is shooting very solid at 30Y with the Masters targets. I would not have thought the 15.89 would have done that well ( I.e., two 193’s) at 790-800 FPS. My Revere .22 shoots the 15.89 typically at 870-880 FPS range, so will be watching your progress with the lighter HS and slower velocity.

We keep finding that various rifles, different tunes, lighter pellets and lower velocities are conducive to achieving pretty spectacular scoring results at 30y, or even at 40Y.

Faster and more power doesn’t always equate to optimum accuracy, at least at 30-40y.

 

[EPG]

Beating the wind...

Today the forecast here had strong winds moving in 11:00am - so I ran out to get a card in with my Weihrauch HW110 .22 - shooting 15.89g at just 710fps. I'm hand pumping... so gotta use my small cylinder rifles, lol.

The wind kept increasing as I worked down the card... and got a bit crazy by the last couple rows. I hung in there and kept shooting... by the last target I was holding on the left 6 ring and with wind blew the pellet completely off the target!

The 1st half of the card was surprisingly solid... and I wound up with a 189.

Ricky would be proud that I didn't give up... but I sure didn't know how to manage that much wind as it got stronger.

Can't wait for spring here.

-Ed

 

[TheAirgunnero]

Beating the wind...

Today the forecast here had strong winds moving in 11:00am - so I ran out to get a card in with my Weihrauch HW110 .22 - shooting 15.89g at just 710fps. I'm hand pumping... so gotta use my small cylinder rifles, lol.

The wind kept increasing as I worked down the card... and got a bit crazy by the last couple rows. I hung in there and kept shooting... by the last target I was holding on the left 6 ring and with wind blew the pellet completely off the target!

The 1st half of the card was surprisingly solid... and I wound up with a 189.

Ricky would be proud that I didn't give up... but I sure didn't know how to manage that much wind as it got stronger.

Can't wait for spring here.

-Ed

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Ed, I am proud and also happy that you didn’t give up. Sometimes we have bad days (often) due to weather conditions that affect our shooting.

I would suggest to buy wind flags or make them yourself (DIY) out of ribbons for gifts and tie them to a pole. Also buy some anemometers and place them on different distances (near wind flags) so you’ll know what the wind speeds are and take some notes on where the pellets hit at a particular wind speed and wind direction.

 

[JimD]

I struggle with the wind. I have a couple flags out but one is missing it's tail so it doesn't tell me much. Need to fix it. The weather is too nice here not to shoot a couple targets this morning. Nothing for the leader board but fun. I shot a 190 with the P35-22 in light wind and then a 184 with the Caiman. The P35 is still shooting the Baracuda Match but the Caiman is now shooting g 21 grain H&N slugs at 900 fps. Had to increase the regulator to 120 bar. Not sure if slugs are OK for this but I was interested in what it could do. The wind picked up between the two targets and particularly the last half of the Caiman target. I made a scope adjust.ent before the last row and did a little better. In less wind I am pretty sure I can do better than 190 with the slugs.

 

[EPG]

It was raining today, but finally just mild wind. I had to try the Regal with the custom hammer spring. Unregulated - shooting 15.89g at 797fps. This is the 3rd card with the spring and I definitely think I can shoot 198+ on a 30-Masters with this setup. I almost did here but started to get uncomfortable in the freezing rain on Target pair #11.

At least I got some lead downrange. I really like the feel of the rifle with this spring, but I've got lots of other springs to test in it.

30-Masters: 195 11X
Daystate Huntsman Regal .22 unregulated (custom hammer spring)
FX 15.89g at 797fps
Athlon Midas Tac 6x24 @ 24x

-Ed

 

[RCope]

Took the Redwolf .22 out with a low wind day. After I cleaned the barrel really well... Shot 4 cards, 2 each at 40 yd Challenge and 30 yd Masters. I have two for the leader board ;-). Four of the tens on the master card could have been called either way...Cheers! Rick

 

[WoodWelder]

Brocock Sniper XR

.22 JTS 18.1
30M
I need to change the backboard as some of the shots look like hit twice due to paper tear.

 

[Tomiboy]

Tom,

As far as I can remember (12 years ago) I played around with different speeds and different reg settings on the Royale. The best groups I could get at
70 yards using 2011 JSB 18.13gr unsorted pellets was between 890-935fps.

Here’s an old video…

Does this advice apply to other rifle/barrel combinations? Say a new Wolverine R? I believe it has a Lothar Walther barrel. My week old Wolverine shoots 18s really well at 23 yards indoors, but it came from Daystate shooting them at 833 FPS. I was thinking about increasing it to 890 ish

 

[beerthief]

I wondered what was meant by plug.......I'll find and purchase one. With the iphone pic and unaware of a plug it all makes sense now.

Edit: I might as well pickup an MOA coin as well.......I'm retiring in less than 8 months, I'll need something to do!

I only shoot .177 wadcutters and only use a .177 plug in nicely cut round holes . Just me , not diminishing this challenge in any way , just a bit harder on my shooting . If i want to beat myself up i will shoot springers @ 30 yards (rather low scores BTW haha )

 

[tommyb]

I only shoot .177 wadcutters and only use a .177 plug in nicely cut round holes . Just me , not diminishing this challenge in any way , just a bit harder on my shooting . If i want to beat myself up i will shoot springers @ 30 yards (rather low scores BTW haha )

So you mean I’m not shooting/scoring as well with the RAW TM1000x .177 as I thought I was, by using my .22 cal scoring plug? I’m heartbroken.

Ha ha, I’m teasin’ you. I suppose using the .177 scoring plug would be tougher for sure, but all the other paper target challenges or BR competition events use generous larger caliber scoring plugs. I. E., RMAC, EBR, N50, PA Cup, etc.

 

[beerthief]

So you mean I’m not shooting/scoring as well with the RAW TM1000x .177 as I thought I was, by using my .22 cal scoring plug? I’m heartbroken.

Ha ha, I’m teasin’ you. I suppose using the .177 scoring plug would be tougher for sure, but all the other paper target challenges or BR competition events use generous larger caliber scoring plugs. I. E., RMAC, EBR, N50, PA Cup, etc.

I do score according to the rules , just use a .177 plug is all . But ! (there is that word again ?) when i score for ME , my rule is :at least 1/2 of the pellet hole has to be inside the 10 ring or cutting the X in half .

 

[WoodWelder]

Close but no cigar.......I'll let one of you gentleman grade it!

 

[RCope]

@WoodWelder I had the same scoring questions at the outset. But once you get a scoring plug there is no guess work. Consistent calling is paramount in all sports and the .22 scoring plug (which is a bit bigger than .22) makes consistency easy and comparable to others. I got mine from Creedmore, they are out of stock right now.

Of course, there is that really close one that is always hard to call...By eye, assuming you are shooting .22 I score that card 194 12X Which is definitely good enough for the leader board!. You just need to add the specifics so that the rest of us can see what you used, this is a great database courtesy of @EPG . Cheers! Rick.... Here are some examples... the second "10" is real close :

 

[RCope]

And I score your card at 194 12X assuming this is a .22. Which is definitely good enough for the leader board! We just need the info on what you used, (caliber, pellet, FPS, Rifle, Scope, magnification). @EPG amazingly puts all that data into a spreadsheet which can help us all.
1: 10, -1(9), 2: 10, -2(8), 3: 2X, 4: X,10, 5: X, 10, 6:-1(9), X, 7: -3(7), -2(8), 8: 2X, 9:-1(9), X, 10:-1(9), X, 11: -1(9), -1(9), 12: 2X

So, for each pair, skipping the ones with 10s and/or X's, you have -1,-2,-1,-5,-1,-1,-2. Subtract the -5 and one of the -2's and you get
194 with 12X's. Cheers! Rick

PS: Score your own damn card next time ;-)

 

[WoodWelder]

And I score your card at 194 12X assuming this is a .22. Which is definitely good enough for the leader board! We just need the info on what you used, (caliber, pellet, FPS, Rifle, Scope, magnification). @EPG amazingly puts all that data into a spreadsheet which can help us all.
1: 10, -1(9), 2: 10, -2(8), 3: 2X, 4: X,10, 5: X, 10, 6:-1(9), X, 7: -3(7), -2(8), 8: 2X, 9:-1(9), X, 10:-1(9), X, 11: -1(9), -1(9), 12: 2X

So, for each pair, skipping the ones with 10s and/or X's, you have -1,-2,-1,-5,-1,-1,-2. Subtract the -5 and one of the -2's and you get
194 with 12X's. Cheers! Rick

PS: Score your own damn card next time ;-)

I'll pull the sheet off the board update/fill in the card the information tomorrow with an updated photo. I'm unable to order a plug because of no stock.

Thank you for taking the time, much appreciated!