Well, I told Jan and the rest of ya that I'd try shooting groups at 70m (the longest range easily available to me) with my untuned Model 34 in .177. Weather and life conspired to delay the attempt till tonight.

The wife and kid packed off to her church meeting for the evening, leaving me to my own devices. Spent a while culling the invasive english sparrows in the back yard when it occured to me that the weather was pretty good. Light breeze, sun setting in front of the house, and about 45F. I had about 20 minutes till dusk, so I'd better hurry.

Made a 2" red dot on a sheet of paper, stapled it to a handy backstop and set the target as far as the sight lines allowed, 70m up the back trail past the shed, under the big spruce tree. Probably 10' above the shooting position.

I took my place in the cheap plastic lawn chair and adjusted the precision shooting rest LOL. Stacked a pair of 4x4 chunks on the railing, and rested my hand on that. It was a bit low for the elevated target, but we'll make do. Time and sunlight is burning.

Warmed up shooting a few spoons on the spinner target at 30yds. Gun's sighted in for 20yds, makin everything from 20-35yds basically point and shoot. Didn't feel like changing the sight-in since groups were the aim here, looking to learn about the gun right now.

After the spoons I shot the first target as a warmup. Nothing great, took a bit to get a seating position that worked with the poor rest height. About 2" wide and 4" high for 10 shots, I ain't posting it here! Once I figured it out, i switched to the second target.

Shot 5 CPHP's at the target. Blew off a loose fitter (fired it at the spoons) so it wouldn't have the chance to ruin my group. Result was fair, I figure, for such an informal attempt. 2" ctc, and just about exactly where the ballistics calcs said it would be WRT the point of aim, centred just over 6.5" down and 2" right of the bull. The windage musta been the breeze.



Next time I'm home on a nice day like this and the neighbours are out, I'll see if I can eak 100m out of our 2 properties. They'd have no problem with me using thier land, I just don't wanna try while cars are there.

I had fun with this. I think I can do better. I was pleasantly surprised doing as well as I did this time! From the look of this, perhaps a high velocity .177 would be an interesting competitor in Jan's 100m shoots. This gun is shooting right about 930fps.

J

No doubt you'll soon be getting some inchish groups at 70 yds.

Try nailing a small soup can at 100 yds. - I'm sure you'll
get good results and probably get penetrations through both
sides of the can with that rifle.

Even with a very mild springer it's amazing how far one can
still hit fairly small objects. Using a Diana 24 .22 with
red-dot sight on top I was able to hit small soup cans at
100 yds. 5, 6 times out of 10. Slight dents and little pings
that I could still hear. Calm clear day shooting from a seated/
rested position and launching .22 JSB Exacts at 430ish fps MV.

Herb

I'll try that! I have plinked pop cans at this range (well within 2m of this range). With a coke can standing vertical, I could hit it 8 in 10 or better, and penetration was still effortless. One hit unzipped about 1" of the top seam, and as the can was tilted about 30 degrees back from my line of sight, another shot went in thru the bottom of the can and out thru the side, that thick area below the colouring.

I'm hoping the neighbours go out this weekend, allowing 100m to the far side of their property. My only concern making me wait for their absence is the expense of automotive glass and body work . They'd have no trouble with me using their back yard in any event.

I have a plotter here at work, I should print some of Jan's targets myself... I did this test to get an idea of how a mid powered .177 springer could perform compared to the artillery pieces most have tried here so far (48, 460, 350 and various pcp's). I was very pleased with the performance of the CPHP's even at quite a significant range.

The woods behind my house extend for about 300m to the sea, completely untrailed and uninhabited. I picked a large spruce tree (8" trunk or so at 30' up) about 150m from the patio. Late sun was setting in front of the house, behind my back. I had decided I'd see if I could hit that tree trunk, and took a shot at it. I was surprised to see the sun reflecting of the tail of the pellet, making it a tracer round. I'd seen this, of course, with lesser guns (450fps-ish), but this was a first for a 900+ pellet to me. It arced beautifully tru, perfectly in line with the vert. cross hair for it's entire flight, dropping ALOT in the last few moments of flight. A second later I was rewarded with a solid TWOCK of it striking the trunk. I repeated that 5 or 6 times for the sheer joy of the sight and sound. Strange to evaluate the flight of a pellet by sight!

Anyway, hope to post a 100m group sooner or later. Trouble is, the RC flying season has finally arrived (back on the sticks last night, yeah!) and such weather tears me between shootin' and flyin'. Right now flyin's winning!

J