30-Yard Challenge

[TheAirgunnero]

Jim, David, Ricky

All - phenomenal accurate shooting! It’s getting to the point that a ‘200’ score is getting to be commonplace, except for me.

David - Can you share some facts, pricing, pros/cons about your one piece mechanical rest?

Tx…..Tom

Tom,

With patience, perseverance, practice, focus, effort, etc you will get to the 200pt mark.

Factors that will affect your score are the wind, harmonics, improper rifle tuning, bad batch of pellets, unstable platform (bench,shooting table and rests), hold and the shooter himself.

One good way to practice is to shoot under “stress or pressure” as if you were competing in a tournament. Try my technique by videotaping your shoots like I do. Getting high scores off camera is easy but with the camera/s rolling it will be more difficult.

Rinse, repeat and don’t give up!

-Ricky

 

[TheAirgunnero]

Today’s 30 Yard Master Class speed shoot submission using my FX Wildcat Compact MK2, JSB 15.89gr unsorted pellets, Vortex Diamondback Tactical 6-24X50 scope, ACCU-TAC FC-4 G2 bipod, three 8 round magazines and Protektor rabbit ear rear bag.

Card #1 Magazine in
Score: 198 15X
Time: 54 seconds

Card #2 Magazine out closed bolt
Score: 200 18X
Time: 1 minute 2.78 seconds

Card #1 Video:

Card #2 Video:

 

[mreynolds]

I submit the attached target as my initial 30yd Masters Challenge entry for my .177 CZ-200S. The gun is unregulated, sub-12 ft./lb. shooting 8.4 gr. JSB's averaging 795 fps. Wind was L-R @ 1-3 mph. The scope is a Bushnell 8x32 @32X. I did sort the pellets as multiple damaged skirts were observed when I opened the tin. Discarded forty-nine pellets from the tin.

 

[dgeesaman]

David - Can you share some facts, pricing, pros/cons about your one piece mechanical rest?

Tx…..Tom

It’s a PQP joystick rest. I bought it for rimfire benchrest but it’s well suited for airgun tuning and testing.

 

[TheAirgunnero]

@EPG here are my submissions for the 30 and 40 yard Master Class leaderboard…

 

[tommyb]

It’s a PQP joystick rest. I bought it for rimfire benchrest but it’s well suited for airgun tuning and testing.

Thanks!

 

[tommyb]

Tom,

With patience, perseverance, practice, focus, effort, etc you will get to the 200pt mark.

Factors that will affect your score are the wind, harmonics, improper rifle tuning, bad batch of pellets, unstable platform (bench,shooting table and rests), hold and the shooter himself.

One good way to practice is to shoot under “stress or pressure” as if you were competing in a tournament. Try my technique by videotaping your shoots like I do. Getting high scores off camera is easy but with the camera/s rolling it will be more difficult.

Rinse, repeat and don’t give up!

-Ricky

Thanks Ricky, well stated.

 

[nomojo65]

No speed shooting for me (yet). This gun will always be slow and I need to get a mag for my .22.

Yesterday was another perfect day for a night shoot. That was momentarily in question with a skunk passing nearby, which forced us to turn all the lights back on to ensure it hadn’t snuck up behind us. But skunks travels never crossed ours. I shot 2 30 challenge targets and 2 40 challenge targets with my .177 Thomas. It shot very well at 30y (200-19x, 200-19x) and good with room for improvement at 40y (193-13x, 195-10x). Not bad for a sub-20 .177 rifle.

The better 30y target was actually a 240-20x if you took all 24 shots, the other was 239-20x.

Next time it’s this calm I think I’ll attempt some fine tuning on this gun. It seems some shots just start spiraling off between 30 and 40. At the moment it’s just set at 19.5fpe based on ES and 21y grouping.

View attachment 480862

View attachment 480863

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View attachment 480865

I suspect the 13.4’s start to destabilize past about 50 yards in my Thomas but I also think it depends on temperature and humidity? I live in a pretty humid environment also pretty cold temperatures 4-5mo. A year! I just need to find the magic lot of pellets and be good to go…

 

[EPG]

I’ve been shooting .177 with my Benjamin Akela lately. I shot a 192 30-Masters that I will submit at some point if I don’t better it.

The past two days I shot four 40 yard cards with my .22 Taipan Veteran 2 (550mm CZ). I was using JSB 25.39 MRDs for the first time with the Taipan. The first 2 cards yesterday were 191 (Challenge) and 193 (Masters). I increased velocity to 860 today and shot 190 6X and then this 197 10X - both 40-Masters.

I’ll submit the 197 card for the 40-Masters leaderboard.

40-Masters: 197 10X
Taipan Veteran 2 .22
JSB 25.39g @ 854-865fps
Sightron SIII ED 45X

I think this is the pellet for this gun with the current reg pressure (Huma @ 150bar).

-Ed

 

[tommyb]

I’ve been shooting .177 with my Benjamin Akela lately. I shot a 192 30-Masters that I will submit at some point if I don’t better it.

The past two days I shot four 40 yard cards with my .22 Taipan Veteran 2 (550mm CZ). I was using JSB 25.39 MRDs for the first time with the Taipan. The first 2 cards yesterday were 191 (Challenge) and 193 (Masters). I increased velocity to 860 today and shot 190 6X and then this 197 10X - both 40-Masters.

I’ll submit the 197 card for the 40-Masters leaderboard.

40-Masters: 197 10X
Taipan Veteran 2 .22
JSB 25.39g @ 854-865fps
Sightron SIII ED 45X

I think this is the pellet for this gun with the current reg pressure (Huma @ 150bar).

-Ed

View attachment 481907

View attachment 481908

That Taipan is shooting really good!

Good card Ed.

Could anyone imagine 40y Masters cards even one year ago?

 

[EPG]

That Taipan is shooting really good!

Good card Ed.

Could anyone imagine 40y Masters cards even one year ago?

Thanks Tommy.

It seems that 860-865 is really good with MRDs out of my Taipan Vet 2.

I shot a couple of 40-Challenge cards after the 197 40-Masters… hoping to beat the 197 since the Challenge has a couple “mulligans”.

No dice… the wind kicked up due to thunderstorms, but I still scored well - 193 and 196. I’ll submit the 196 for the 40-Challenge leaderboard.

 

[EPG]

It was almost still wind conditions here today! Since this is rare, I shot 5 40-Yard cards in a slight drizzle rain… one 40-Challenge with the Taipan Vet 2, two 40-Masters with FX Crown and two 40-Masters with FX Power Pup (with new to me 600mm superlight barrel).

Every card was 190 or better at 40 yards. I’m extremely happy with that for my level of shooting - no wind even makes me look good, lol.

Of course, the 195 12X last card of day 40-Masters with Power Pup could have been awesome… but in typical EPG fashion I shot 17 across the final target pair… still, I am enjoying an after-shooting bourbon . I’ve got quite a string of 190+ 40-yard cards going.

Picture of my Crown with shooting setup - it ain’t exactly a cement shooting table with adjustable chair, lol - adds to the “Challenge”. (Although I’ll bet The Airgunnero could stand on the rickety chair and beat my score while taking less than a minute to do it !).

-Ed

 

[EPG]

I had close to perfect wind conditions yesterday.

This was the 1st card of the day - FX Crown Mk2 with 500mm barrel.

I thought it was a 200 40-Masters ! Wound up a 197 12X (which doesn’t beat my 197 13X previous best on 7/2). The three 9s were all darn close to being 10s, lol - rats!

I had accidentally left the power wheel on the setting I use for 20.83g when I shot the 196 10X with the Crown two days ago - so those 18.13s were likely going 925fps on that 196 card.

For this 197 12X 40-Masters, I had the power wheel back at 890-900fps setting.

I tried another 40-Masters after the 197 and shot 191 - good, but the magic was gone … at least for the day.

-Ed

 

[JimD]

I have another small improvement for the leader board. I shot this 199 17X this morning with my Caiman X using it's Arken EPL-4 6-24X set at 24X. I shot H&N Baracuda 18s at about 900 fps out of the stock magazines straight from the tin. I needed one more good trigger squeeze. I am sure one of the 9s was me on the trigger, not sure about the other two. The wind picked up a little towards the end and might have contributed to the last 9. This is still the same pattern as last year with my P35-22. I shot 3 199s with the P35 before shooting my one 200 and now I have three with the Caiman. One of the P35's 199s had 18Xs I think. So pretty similar there. I hadn't shot any of my airguns for about 5 days before shooting this target. I warmed up a bit first. After sitting that long it seems the velocity and point of impact take a few shots to settle in with the Caiman. I started another target but I'm not sure the first shot was even a 9. Definitely got shifted some by the wind. I shot three more shots to be sure what was going on and decided to quit for at least awhile. It's been raining here about every day and the mornings are the only safe time to shoot from a weather standpoint. I've been volunteering at church in the mornings which cut into my shooting time. That is completed now so hopefully I can get some calm wind and shoot a 200. Any shooting is better than no shooting.

 

[TheAirgunnero]

It had been raining for the past several days and today was fine. I got curious on how my WRABF BR25 HV rifle would fare at 50 yards and I’m quite happy considering that the pellets were unsorted and there was mild wind.

Score: 190 10X
Target distance: 50.53 yards from muzzle end (tape measured)

Rifle: made WS Airguntech
Pellet: QYS 9.56 unsorted straight from the tin
Velocity: 918fps
Scope: Vector Optics Sentinel X at 20X magnification
Front rest: Protektor Model Deluxe
Rear bag: Protektor rabbit ear
Scoring plug: .224

Video:

 

[EPG]

It had been raining for the past several days and today was fine. I got curious on how my WRABF BR25 HV rifle would fare at 50 yards and I’m quite happy considering that the pellets were unsorted and there was mild wind.

Score: 190 10X
Target distance: 50.53 yards from muzzle end (tape measured)

Rifle: made WS Airguntech
Pellet: QYS 9.56 unsorted straight from the tin
Velocity: 918fps
Scope: Vector Optics Sentinel X at 20X magnification
Front rest: Protektor Model Deluxe
Rear bag: Protektor rabbit ear
Scoring plug: .224

Video:

View attachment 483256

Hi Ricky,

I am an absolute fan of your shooting. Congratulations on a 190 10x at 50 yards on a Masters card !!

Even more incredible is that you did it with .177 caliber – and pellets slightly under 10g.

I’ve been meaning to try a 50-yard card, but have not to date. I certainly would use .22 caliber, but your achievement with .177 at 50 yards has opened my eyes to what is possible with a great shooter and a competition-grade rifle.

I saw that you had an 8 on the last shot, did the wind get you or did you pull the shot – or was it a “flyer”?

Another question – was that card your first try at 50 yards – or did you have to shoot a few to achieve the 190 10X result?

Awesome !!

-Ed

 

[bearbar]

I shot these two cards today with very switching and variable win conditions. The wind was 5 to 12 mph and very unpredictable. This was shot off of Ahrens pendulum rest. It's a raw bm500 with a benchmark barrel and a 45x sightron benchrest scope. All shots that were close were plugged and looked at with a 20 power lighted magnifying glass.

 

[EPG]

I have another small improvement for the leader board. I shot this 199 17X this morning with my Caiman X using it's Arken EPL-4 6-24X set at 24X. I shot H&N Baracuda 18s at about 900 fps out of the stock magazines straight from the tin. I needed one more good trigger squeeze. I am sure one of the 9s was me on the trigger, not sure about the other two. The wind picked up a little towards the end and might have contributed to the last 9. This is still the same pattern as last year with my P35-22. I shot 3 199s with the P35 before shooting my one 200 and now I have three with the Caiman. One of the P35's 199s had 18Xs I think. So pretty similar there. I hadn't shot any of my airguns for about 5 days before shooting this target. I warmed up a bit first. After sitting that long it seems the velocity and point of impact take a few shots to settle in with the Caiman. I started another target but I'm not sure the first shot was even a 9. Definitely got shifted some by the wind. I shot three more shots to be sure what was going on and decided to quit for at least awhile. It's been raining here about every day and the mornings are the only safe time to shoot from a weather standpoint. I've been volunteering at church in the mornings which cut into my shooting time. That is completed now so hopefully I can get some calm wind and shoot a 200. Any shooting is better than no shooting.

View attachment 483020

That’s an awesome card JimmyD !

If your last shot was 12b - welcome to my 12b club of how to blow a perfect card, lol. I think I’m up to 5 30-Masters 199s where I blew the last shot on 12b.

I still have never shot a 200 on a Masters card… takes a bit of pellet luck too.

-Ed

 

[Loff]

Finally had some time to shoot a card with FX Dreamline. Not very good card but to open score fore my Dreamline, it's OK.

Submitting card for 30-yard challenge leader board with .177 SLUGS.

30-yard Challenge: 190 8X
FX Dreamline GRS with FX Maverick dual reg. system .177 600mm barrel, STX Superior Heavy.
ZAN 20gr @ 926fps
Element Helix 6-24x50 FFP, magn. 23X

Need to shoot my FX more and get used to it. While shooting that card tried different holds. Firm hold worked better. This gun packs a punch - 38fpe from .177. And it "jumps", so need to add weight or try to hold my left hand on the scope to calm the gun down . Stapled target to a almost 2" (45mm) board and one slug went through other one almost.

Also tested out new NateChrony chronograph - nice little unit and accurate, compared to FX pocket chronograph. And that verified that my FX is working good. With FX chrono I was getting shot strings with 42 fps spread. NateChrony showed that the spread in strings is only 2 fps or so.

 

[dgeesaman]

I shot these two cards today with very switching and variable win conditions. The wind was 5 to 12 mph and very unpredictable. This was shot off of Ahrens pendulum rest. It's a raw bm500 with a benchmark barrel and a 45x sightron benchrest scope. All shots that were close were plugged and looked at with a 20 power lighted magnifying glass.View attachment 483339View attachment 483338

I shot these two cards today with very switching and variable win conditions. The wind was 5 to 12 mph and very unpredictable. This was shot off of Ahrens pendulum rest. It's a raw bm500 with a benchmark barrel and a 45x sightron benchrest scope. All shots that were close were plugged and looked at with a 20 power lighted magnifying glass.

I was shooting right next to him. Those switching winds kicked my butt.

David