Pellet shooters are great for 100 yard bench rest shooting and out to 125 to 150 yards, but the pellet design and lack of velocity hampers them.
When I first started long range shooting, I was retired from the Bureau and working as a pester and living on a vineyard. I used pellets because of the rapid velocity decay Diablo shaped projectiles have. I was shooting mainly to 100 yards on a vineyard surrounded by a Doug fir forest with neighbors I could not see. I found the distance to those neighbors with Google maps and used Chaigun Airgun calculator to avoid them. For that task pellets were ideal.
I shot 1800 birds in a 2-3 week period with a 22 Condor that year.
I then bought 2 FX Royales, a 400 and 500 and tried shooting at 150 yards and beyond. I found pellets were not the route to go, I could see them spiraling if the afternoon sun was right.
I also had a Ranger 45 I cast for. If I could cast for a .452 Airgun, I felt I should be able to do it for a .25 bore, but the Airgun barrels designed for pellets did not have the twist rate and groove diameters needed for the molds and casting equipment available.
Doug Noble and Cedric were having great luck with TJ barrels and we came up with the ‘Pepsi challenge’, or how far could you bust a lasered 12 oz cola can on video? Cedric set the bar with a 440 yard shot with a Doug Noble AF gun that was both videoed and lasered.
I found Jack and Reba Haley and their friend John Bowman who was in a relationship with their daughter. John Bowman was killing coyotes at 300 to 400 yards on a bait pile with his .257 Haley Scndalous and his expertise guided me on how to cast for Airguns. I had cast for decades at that point for both smokeless and black powder and was shooting at local 1000 yard gong shoots with my 2 45-100’s Sharps, I was also killing elk and deer with my cast bullets.
But Airguns we’re different. I had a 1100 yard range on my old mountain place and a great mine tailing to see my hits on, so I bought a Haley Scandalous in 257 and my wife videoed me with a Sony Handycam at 500, 550 and 615 yards busting 12 oz cola cans.
Bottom line, for long range, 300 yards and beyond, you need a firearms barrel like the LW on a Texan or a souped up TJ barreled Condor like Doug Noble makes or high fill pressure single shot like the Haley, which had a 1-14 .257, 36 inch TJ barrel. You need to shoot cast or swaged bullets sized to .001 to .0005 over groove diameter, never under sized. Those bullets need to be what most air gunners would consider heavy for bore compared to pellets, ie., a 80 grain in a 25 bore. Yes the Airgun weight slugs formed of sheet lead are better than Diablo’s, but you need weight and velocity and correctly sized bullets to shoot very long range.
Hope this helps your quest.
Regards,
Roachcreek.
