Looking around the forum I realized that I haven't introduced myself, so here it goes.
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I'm Joe and I started airgunning with a Daisy BB gun at a young age. I can't recall the exact model but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a Red Ryder. I remember being envious of my cousin's Red Ryder and believed it "shot harder" than my gun. In any case, it looked like this and would have been a 1970s model. Perhaps the 1894 "spitting image" model?
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Then I moved on to a Daisy Powerline with a Tasco scope (both purchased from Walmart).
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My best airgun from back then was a Sheridan blue streak. I sure wish I would have kept it. A decade or so later, I got back into airguns with a Beeman Goldfinger R9 though I never could shoot it well beyond 15-20 yards or so. I guess that goes for any springer in my case, even an ultra smooth shooting Paul Watts tuned HW 95 in .22.
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Fast forward to the past several years and I've had and parted with a few dandy rifles:
- Paul Watts tuned HW95 .22
- Daystate Huntsman / Midas .22
- FX Royale 500 .25 tuned by Mr. Allen Zasadny
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Today, I'm getting back into the sport with a few new precision airguns: Brocock Contour S6 .22, Brocock Bantam .22, and Taipan Veteran .25
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Mostly I like to shoot airguns (PCPs specifically) so I can quietly and efficiently lower the population of varmints such as raccoons and non-native birds. In fact, here's the runner up for my avatar pic:
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Below is a photo (not mine, stock) which sums up why brown headed cowbirds are on my dirty bird list. Here we see a jumbo young brown headed cowbird being fed by a hardworking common yellow throat.
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I've been in government for over a couple of decades now and, upon retirement, aspire to be a full time "precision airgun bum".
Well, I suppose we'll also garden and raise some livestock. We're currently in VA but will build our retirement home in eastern Texas.