I bought my first, and last, air-rifle in 1980 for PCYC competition, in .177.
My memory as a thirteen-year-old kid shooting his very first rifle was that it was pretty neat, but I don't think it struck me as being particularly potent.
This week I bought my second air-rifle, also in .177. It seems to pack quite a decent punch!
When I decided I wanted one I had a look at some forums to see what was being said about various springers. I can't be bothered with scuba tanks and pumps, and I have no interest in trying to get .22LR levels of power out of it, I have eight .22's I can use for that. And I don't see any real value to a magazine repeater for the same reason. I figured something that comes with a factory-fitted scope would be good as it saves me having to research air-rifle scopes, and decided on the Gamo G-Magnum 1250 in .22. A dealer gave me a price of $450 but the distributor was closed until January 7th.
I mentioned to my (now-retired) dealer, while collecting other things, that I was ordering an air-rifle in a few days and he mentioned he had one he could do me a great deal on. Sounds good to me, a great deal on a rifle, and I help him out by taking it off his hands. Having said yes to this one though, I asked him what else he still had to dispose of, and promptly bought two more rifles as well. Of the three, I had seen pictures of one (Ruger Precision Rimfire), but hadn't heard of the air rifle, or the manufacturer of the third one (Dickinson). I went home and Googled them
The air-rifle is a Crosman Slayer in .177, 18ft-lb, with a scope, "Nitro Piston" rated to 1200fps with alloy pellets. I've seen the term "alloy pellets" a bit and I think they mean aluminium, or a hybrid of aluminium and polymer. I have found a Youtube video of a quick test, and that's it. I'm starting to think it must be called a different name overseas or something. A customer ordered it in some time ago, and never showed up again, as all too often happens to retailers.
I'd forgotten that part of my reasoning for the .22 was that I already have some .22 pellets, so I neglected to grab any .177 ammo for it. I've ordered the Gamo and H&R samplers, but the RWS pack is out of stock just now. Until the sample packs arrive next week I went into town and picked up a pack of Alcock & Pierce Pro-Pell pellets. I weighed them at 8.3gn and they're a round-nose design.
I mounted the scope yesterday, which didn't look promising, and fired a few shots at a sheet of steel plate at about ten meters to zero it. The steel was ringing impressively! Then I set up some targets at 30m and put about 100 shots through it fairly informally. I'm assuming it'll need some lead down the tube before it settles, so I just want to get this can of pellets through it to be ready for the sample packs. The scope is abysmal, I Googled it and found them for $14! The vertical hair is fine, but the horizontal is impossible to focus and is a double-vision line regardless of the focal adjustment. It quickly settled into groups around 65mm, pretty poor I think, although I wasn't trying to shoot really well. As a kid, prone, unsupported, with open sights, my targets were always a single ragged hole at 10m. I am surprised by the amount of upset when that big piston lets go though, and I think it'll take some practice to shoot well with this. And I need to learn about cleaning and maintenance as well.
The trigger was very heavy, although a fairly clean break with good feel. But it is adjustable, although the adjustment is different from what the manual describes, making the screw quite difficult to access. It's supposed to be a slotted screw that aligns with a hole in the trigger guard for a screwdriver. Mine is a phillips screw that is not aligned with the hole. The manual stresses that tiny adjustments are easily felt and quarter turns are all you need. After two full turns I finally started to feel a little difference, another turn and I thought I was feeling some improvement. I want to drill a hole through the trigger guard for fine-tuning it so I settled there. I shot a few five-shot groups around 50mm at 30m. I dug through some boxes and found a Chinese Bushnell 6-24 scope, jumped online and found it listed as air-rifle compatible, so I mounted that today.
I was setting up this arvo to zero the scope and shoot some groups off a proper rest to find out what this little beast is actually capable of with this pellet. My eye was caught by a big, very dark-brown fox dawdling across the paddock in front of me, about 60m away! He was oblivious to me while I sat and watched him until he disappeared behind the house. I fired about a dozen shots to zero the new scope, then I figured I should go and check that he hadn't ducked around to our rabbits. I put the air-rifle away and pulled out the still-unfired Ruger Precision Rimfire that I'd mounted an AR Optics 4.5-18x40 on last night.. I pulled the bolt and sighted down the bore at the wire fence at 60m. The scope was about 900mm low, so I'm wondering if the RPR might come with a canted rail on it? I wound the dial up, but the windage needed no adjustment at all. I was confident for a stationary shot on a fox within about 30m and loaded the magazine, then went for a walk down around the house. Rabbits were quiet and no sign of Ol'Red. The adjacent paddock is two-feet deep grass just now so I thought he might be in there somewhere, and sneaked up to the fence. Pop! The little prick was lying in the grass about twenty-feet away, leaped up and bolted for the road. I wasn't happy with the zero against a running target so I made some whistles to make him stop, but he kept going. He reached the road fence and melted into the grass. I stood watching figuring he was watching me. I thought I saw a flicker about ten meters further along the fence and think he crawled away before ducking under the fence. Oh well, I can wait
On the way back I put some rounds on steel gongs to confirm the zero was in the ballpark, which it is, only about 30mm high-right at 50m. Tomorrow I'm hoping to do some proper shooting with it and the Crosman.