As many of you allready know, I recently got into prairie dog hunting. Me and my boys made a trip out to western SD about 3 weeks ago to make our first attempt at getting the critters.
The hunt was both entertaining and educational. I was hunting with my .25 impact x shooting 34 grain pellets at 905 fps. My son was shooting my .22 edgun cruising at 930 fps.
Both guns shot very well for being pellets and having to "stretch" to 130 yards very regularly. Even 150 yards with my .25 impact.
We greased approximately 12-14 critters before the wind became untenable gusting to 15-20 mph.
"I need a slug gun". I said to myself. "How do I get a slug gun without having to "pull hairs in frustration" and dump oodles of pounds of lead experimenting with different slugs and different barrels and different speeds and different harmonic vibrations.
"I need to buy someone's gun that has allready done the homework.
Enter the classifieds.... lol
My very next trip shopping on the Nation classifieds I found a .25 r3m edgun that the owner claimed was shooting slugs at 945 fps with very "reasonable"results.
"It will whack a 2" spinner 10 times out of 10 at 120 yards!" He said.
My ears jumped a quarter inch. My heart started pounding in my chest. My palms started getting sweaty.... my mouth started to drool.
I have owned 3 edguns before and had nothing negative to say about them. They were excellent PELLET shooters, but SLUGS?
Long story short, I shovelled out some cash through my PayPal account, and presto! She arrived at my doorstep 3 days later.
My hands shook with excitement as I squeezed the 29 grain NSA slugs into the magazine and lined her up at 40 yards. 1,2,3,4 and 5! Wow! This is looking promising! Here is my very first 5 shots doing groups with her....
Who shoots groups at 40 yards? Let's take her to 50!
By now I was beside myself. I have had many guns that shot pellets as good as this, but not slugs slugs were like shotguns. 2" or 3" at 50 yards not uncommon. Mostly I tried my .25 impact with either an A or B barrel liner. Absolutley no luck.
So now it's time to stretch her to 100. Can she hold groups together at 100 yards? I shot about 6 or 7 5 shot groups. Most of them were at moa or just over!
Here are some of the better ones! Obviously I cherry picked the groups a little bit, but also also bear in mind these groups were shot in 5-10 mph winds. Far from ideal conditions, but still pretty nice!
Bottom 2 shots are from another group.
I hardly know what to say. This truly is a dream come true! A slug shooter without the hassle of tuning!
Here is the sweet part. The gun shoots 34 grain pellets beyond average. And within a quarter inch of the same impact as the slugs at 50 yards. No resighting the scope! Wow! Here is a five shot group the previous owner shot with the 34 grain pellets at 50 yards.
Ok. I can't find that group anymore. But they are 5 shots virtually touching. Truly stacking in under 1/2"
So what I'm getting at is this gun is absolutely AMAZING with pellets, I guess we all knew that, but what seems to be a well kept secret is its tremendous potential with slugs as well!
Now granted, this R3M is not exactly stock. It has a huma reg with a power plenum, plus a hammer weight installed. But even with all these add-ons, my guess is one would still be well under the price of an impact. Especially a tricked out one.
The other nice thing about this edgun is how amazingly simple it is to strip down and fix leaks and tune.... etc. 5 or 6 different orings and presto! Good for another 2 years!
Ok. I guess you guys get my point! I love my edgun! I shall now see myself to the door... lol
God bless! Shoot safe!
