Best Air Rifle?

[MarkP]

I used JB Weld on the lower rings. It is supposed to have metal in it. The rings still hold the scope by the clamping effect of the top rings. The epoxy is only supposed to fill in the gaps. I cleaned the bottom halves of the rings with solvent and waxed the scope so the epoxy should stick to the rings but not the scope. With the rings tightened fully onto the gun I applied the epoxy to the rings, set the scope in place, and barely tightened the top rings into place just to hold the scope in place. After the epoxy cured I tightened the top ring screws fully.

[rocketman]

Birdmove
Try using the "artillery hold"
http://www.pyramydair.com/article/The_ar...ne_2009/63

I have been shooting springers for many years, this seems to work the best.
BTW, are you birdmove on ADVrider?

[birdmove]

Here is a really good free airgun forum with loads of information:

http://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/inde...tion=forum

As far as having to spend $300-$400 for an aiir rifle that will group well at 25 yards, I'm not sure that's correct. I'll have to set up at 25 yards for my Crosman Custom Shop carbine. That's in .177 caliber, and is a CO2 gun. I do most of my shooting at 10-11 yards (because that's the distance I shoot rats at that go into our chicken coop). I can say that, every time I take that CO2 gun out and shoot targets, I am getting several groups measuring about as close to 0" center to center as it is possible to get. It's about an $85.00 airgun (not including the scope). These are still very reasonable, and I've had mine 5-6 years.

Also, bear in mind, that most airguns that come with a scope, that scope is extremely crappy. Most shooters toss that scope in the rubbish, and get something decent on day one. Also, inconsistent grouping can be caused by using a scope at airgun ranges (10-20-25 yards) that has a parralax setting for centerfire rifles (set at 100 yards). If your scope is set for 100 yard shooting and you are shooting an air rifle at 10 yards, you will have parralax related problems. Try a scope wit AO (adjustable objective) that can be set for 10 yards (or even less on some) and greater distances. I have found that some non-AO scopes can still be adjusted at the front lens by unscrewing the front most ring in front of the objective lens, viewing a target through the scope, and turning the next ring inside the scope tube in or out till the bullseye is in crisp focus, then reinstalling the front ring. Now your target is in focus. Then adjust the rear lens to get the crosshairs in crisp focus. Most scopes have an adjustable rear lens. The good things about AO scopes, is that you can quickly adjust them on the fly as your shooting distances change. There are decent AO scopes out there, like, say, a 4 power, for about $40.00, and that feature is well worth it. If parralax is off, first, the bullseye may be out of focus. Also, at the shooting bench you'll notice, when sight aligning, if you move your head slightly, the relationship between the crosshairs and the bullseye change drastically (go out of alignment as you move your head).

As I mentioned above, don't count a good CO2 rifle out, as pour climate here is ideal for CO2 use. Cold, mainland winters are the worst for CO2 use.

I'll test my $85.00 CO2 shooter at 25 yards soon, and see how the accuracy holds up. My eyesight isn't good, as I'm 62 years old with cataracts, astigmatism, and not good vision for distance OR reading. That gun, to my delight, has an affinity for inexpensive Crosman pointed pellets. But at longer distances, it's likely the accuracy will fall apart worse than some premium pellets that I can't buy here.

For the original poster, if you buy a pellet gun that will shoot pellets AND BB's (such as the Croamsn 2100B multi-pump), do not shoot BB's in that airgun, as most shooters agree that they can damage the rifling and then degrade the accuracy with pellets. You are never going to get anything like an accurate group anyway shooting BB's. If you want to shoot BB's, get a cheap smooth bore (Crosman 760 for example) and have at it. Expect 3-4 inch groups at 10 yards, while a good rifled pellet rifle is capable of 1/4" center to center, and even 0" center to center sometimes. BB's are for shooting tin cans. A good shot with a pellet rifle can shoot flies at 10 yards (hence the "Bugbuster" scopes).

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[JohnDW]

Jon in Keaau/HPP

This is the second 392 I've had. It seems to be exactly like the one I had as a kid. Although the iron sights work just fine, I installed a picatinny rail and Bug Buster scope. My old one was a .177 but this one is a .22. They make a .25, but the reviews weren't so good. I practice at 25 and 50yds. With 8 pumps it's extremely accurate(good enough) at both distances. It will increase velocity a bit if pumped up to 12, can be dieseled and all that, but eight pumps will penetrate a coke can and 3/8" T-111 at 25yds with regular old WalMart pellets. The 392 will last a lifetime if you take care of it.

Un Mojado Sin Licencia

[dmbwest]

Mark ... NOT busting your balls here ... No blame on JB weld unless mixed wrong ... IM(humble)O, you should have used it on top AND bottom rings + cranked it all down as adjusted to perfect and let it harden as long as the JB weld wants. Letting it seat and THEN tighten is the same as where you started from pretty much.


There is big difference between the original and the fast harden stuff too. ... Good idea on waxing but the epoxy will not really stick to any smooth anodizing unless its been roughed prior to bonding up. It will readily pop out of anodized knurling even. That said, I would have waxed the scope as well.


Again, NOT a gun guy, but an epoxy guy who makes compression molded parts.

aloha,
pog

ETA, if you really don't want anything to ever move ... Sand every interface down and bed with the JB or epoxy combined with high compression filler. Mixed SUPER well, since thin - to almost nothing bond lines. Also don't worry, it will always come apart .

[MarkP]

I realized over the last couple of weeks that I had an uninvited house-mate of the rodent kind. Mostly it was things found nibbled here and there. One night I saw the bugger climbing up the wall behind my shelves above the sink (vicinity of cereal boxes). Eww. I set a snap trap on the counter where items had been nibbled but no luck for a couple of days. I then moved the trap to the floor behind the reefer. Later that night just after lights out I heard the trap snap.

Sure enough there was a rat in the trap but he was still alive. I had a range of weapons at my disposal. There were of course the standard rocks, clubs, and pointy sticks, none of which appealed to me. The re-curve bow also did not make the short list and I quickly rejected even the Marlin 60 as being too much gun for dispatching a trapped rat at point blank range flopping around on a nicely finished floor. That left either a Gamo Hunter 220 in .177 or the aforementioned NPXL 1100, which is .22 cal but considerably less powerful than the Marlin 60. As I write this it occurs to me that I also had a CO2 BB pistol that I inherited from a friend but I had forgot about it and I am not sure if it is powerful enough anyway, plus I would have had to put a new CO2 powerlet in.

I settled on the Gamo Hunter 220. The NPXL was too powerful and would go right through and into the floor plus it had no iron sights, only a scope, and would be a pain to aim under those conditions, whereas the Gamo now sported only the factory iron sights which are of course really made of plastic, having given up on scopes for that gun and having discovered that up to about 15 yards I seemed to do just as well with the plain sights as with a scope. Only problem was that I had just put 3 or 4 drops of silicone chamber oil into the chamber and was working on distributing the oil around the inside of the chamber. My last step was going to be standing the gun on the muzzle for a few days and letting any excess lube migrate out of the compression chamber. The stuff is not supposed to cause dieseling but apparently everything is relative and it still does to some degree.

While I was mulling all this over, ratty freed himself from the trap so I just grabbed the Gamo and put one as near the base of the skull as I could. He reacted, flopping around bloodily a couple of times, then lay still. I turned away to set the gun down and as I turned back I saw ratty groggily staggering from behind the reefer. Not dead yet it seems. I grabbed the Gamo again and spent several seconds trying to get a bead on him but not wanting to fire while he was in the middle of the floor since I was pretty sure I had already put a hole in the floor behind the reefer. He finally lay still right in front of the reefer. He was pretty much dead by then so I pushed him along the floor with a rolled up newspaper which added its own distinctive blood trail to the rest and scooped him out onto the gravel in front of the door. I figured I better apply a coupe des grace, which I did. Nope, not completely dead yet. Not trying to be gross but my final shot was made with the barrel pressed directly against his skull and there was ample evidence that he should have been killed instantly but he still flopped a bit. Weird.

I took the Gamo and some flat nosed 7.9 grain pellets up into my sleeping loft just in case there were more since it was very frustrating watching a rat cavort about my food preparation area without being able to do anything. Two nights later a movement caught my eye and I spotted a rat, on the stove top, INSIDE MY FRYING PAN! He quickly started climbing up the wall in a remarkably athletic manner and made his way to the C-channel at the joint between the wall and the roof of the container. I had never thought about this before but it was the perfect access way for rodents. As I sat up in bed and frantically cocked and loaded, he paused, right above the cereal boxes. It was dimly lit, the sights on the rifle were plain black plastic, and it was only at this point that I really gave any thought to the bloody scene that ended up completely surrounding the reefer, but I felt it was now or never. At least the heavy steel channel that he was nestled in was the perfect backstop. It would have been hard explaining away a dent in the frying pan in any way acceptable to future dinner guests. I fired. He instantly flopped off of his steel ledge and on to the top of a box of Fruit Loops that fortuitously was nearly empty.

That's it. He kicked a couple of times but basically he died almost instantly. He was hit through the chest. I found no marks on the steel from the pellet, only a tiny spot of blood and a raw spot on his side opposite the entry wound. I speculate that he was pressed against the steel on that side and the pellet, while it did not penetrate, caused some trauma by compressing tissue between itself and the steel. I threw the Fruit Loops away and cleaned the tops of the other boxes.

It's a good thing I had taken the scope off of that rifle because the regular sights work so much better at such short range. Also the Gamo Hunter 220 which claims 1,000 fps muzzle velocity was less overpowered than the NPXL but much more accurate than any pistol due to the much longer sight radius. I just put a shelf up in my loft for my DVDs and there is room for the rifle just in case although it has been days now with no sight of other rodent intruders.

With regard to "iron" sights, any recommendations on how well a ghost ring rear sight would work? I have to do something about the plain black sights if I hope to get results in low light conditions. This time I was darn lucky it seems.

[knieft]

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkP

This time I was darn lucky it seems.

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Too much time on your hands, Mark.

Cheers,
Kirt

[terracore]

Thanks so much for an entertaining and informative read.

I wouldn't worry at all about a lead pellet vs steel container. Lead is so soft compared to steel, at air rifle velocities I would be surprised if there was any other outcome other than coating the steel with lead.

I also agree that iron sights should be the method of choice within ~50 feet if your vision is good.

Rats leave piss and pheromone trails that other rats follow. The old adage "where you see one, there are a hundred more you don't see" comes into play. If it were me I would put out the "Just one Bite II" snack bars for them. They are probably doing quite a number outside your place too. Rats tend to bloom in huge numbers and the more of them there are, the bolder they get: Food competition.

[birdmove]

The thing about these vermin is, even when shot with a very potent pellet (or whatever), they often move a lot, and even jump and run around, though they are no longer among the living. I remember when I was a little kid, my mom beheaded a chicken that was always eating her garden goodies. Tbat chicken, very much without a head, ran around and around in circles in our yard, to my amazement.
Rats often twirl their tail when shot, which some of the Brits that do youtube videos in large numbers of them helping farmers, chicken farms, etc, etc, try to eradicate these things, call "helicoptering".
Speaking of dieseling airguns, I was in Wal Mart in Hilo a couple years ago, when some neanderthal grabbed a brand new break barrel air rifle, cocked it, and then fired it (empty). These guns new come with a lot of oil in them, which most buyers know to clean out before they shoot their new airgun. This thing, I assume dieseling, was easily as loud as a .22 long rifle, and fired like that in a store. You can imagine the commotion that caused, and I saw Wally World people descending on the ne'er do well. Also, you are never supposed to dry fire on of these because of the violent action and reaction of the powerful spring inside. I think I would have made the dude buy the gun, and get out. But, that's just me. I would not buy a break barrel that had been dry fired, as it can break, or crack that spring.

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[MarkP]

There is in fact a narrow range of pellet weights that constitutes "ideal". If you go light enough and certainly if there is no pellet then there is no cushion of air to stop the piston. Instead it is stopped abruptly by having an inelastic collision with the end of the cylinder. Too heavy and I assume that the chances of dieseling are increased. Also with a very heavy pellet the plug of air trapped by the piston is unable to expand into the barrel fast enough and the piston bounces back. While this doesn't hurt anything by itself it means that the pellet didn't get all the energy from the piston. The ideal weight of pellet would have the piston brought just to a stop at the end of the cylinder by the built up pressure while that pressure bleeds off propelling the pellet down the barrel. In other words the piston reaches the end of the cylinder with no kinetic energy left, having turned it all into compressed air, and that compressed air leaks away down the barrel just in time that there is no pressure left when the piston reaches the end. I am actually very fond of the Crosman Premier Ultra Magnum 10.5 grain pellets as I think I get better accuracy with them but I may be leaving energy behind in the gun. There is a school of thought that the resulting bouncing around of the piston can cause premature spring failure. That may be. There is another school of thought that you should just use the gun and fix it when it breaks. That's my philosophy too.

When I fired the first shot from several inches away there was indeed a very loud bang and some smoke. I don't think there is any point in speculating about whether the dieseling affected my accuracy since my aim would be enough of a reason for the miss.

Back on Oahu I have a Beeman P1 pellet pistol. It is actually acceptable to dry fire it a limited number of times. Doing so crushes the hard plastic piston seal against the end, deforming it and actually creating or renewing a sealing effect. It is the exception to the rule and it does do a certain amount of damage in that it uses up the capacity of the seal to withstand subsequent firings.