Things have clearly slowed down for me on many fronts. One of them for sure is my air rifle shooting. I told myself that the next schtick was testing out those speed loaders I had with different pellets and different rifles and getting used to handling those rather than individual pellets. It has been less inspiring than I really thought and I have been dragging my heels.
Since I started this journey, I have been on a quest to try all different kinds of ammunition. I have gone through a lot of different ‘heavy’ pellets and now I am on the lightest of the bunch. The current group I have been shooting is the Gamo Blue Flame. I am going to talk about my impressions of this particular load.
The Gamo Blue Flame is a lead free, pellet of 5.4 grains. It is commonly referred to as PBA or Performance Ballistic Alloy. It is made of tin even sometimes plastic and the theory is lighter is faster is more energy. This also comes at a cost of about $0.12/pellet versus about $0.02 for lead.
While I clearly understand the value of energy, I think it comes with a compromise of other factors. Take noise for instance. Air rifle pellets can break the sound barrier causing a supersonic crack. I am also not convinced that they are as accurate. The rifling is optimized for projectile weight and my testing has yielded less than ideal groups. You can see from my picture that I have some scope work to do to get them on target but the grouping is rather large.
I think my biggest complaint is the quality of the product. The picture does not show it well but at least five of the pellets came out of the can severely deformed. One in fact was not even able to be loaded. Four of the pellets had the blue polymer tip fall off in which I painstakingly hand applied and re-crimped. By my calculations, that is a 9% defect rate. And just think that only two of these pellets equals one 9mm cartridge in cost.
Another reason things slowed down for me is that I was last shooting 14gr pellets. As a result of my testing, I feel like my rifle performs best in the 7-10 grain range. My personal favorite right now is the Crossman Piranha at 10 grains. It is just a little harder for me to find on retail shelves. I know Walmart carries it but I do not have a Walmart close and I despise ‘mommy may I’ games.
This last one isn’t on the pellets but the rifles. Just like you never get EPA rated mileage, I have not gotten manufacturer velocity results. I have published my results but truthfully I have only seen about a 5% increase in velocity and 250 fps less than advertised. I am measuring no where near the stated potential.
End Your Programming Routine: Granted, I have primarily done most of my shooting with the Crossman 1000, results could change with different platforms. My honest opinion is that PBA pellets are not worth the money. I am sticking with the fatter and slower loads because they are also significantly cheaper as well. Dead doesn’t come in degrees but accuracy and money do.
A few months ago, I was killing time at Walmart. I had dropped my wife off for some medical test and it was a time of night that not many things were open. I walked by the sporting goods counter to try and see what kind of air rifle pellets they kept in stock and I noticed this pen looking device. It turned out to be a ‘speed loader’ for air rifles.
I wasn’t going to buy it there. It annoys me that half of the items are locked up and there is no one in the area. The more these stores like Walmart and Target lock up more and more items, the more likely I am going to buy things online rather than at the store. It is a hassle factor for me that I dislike.
I never knew that anything existed like this. I am less interested in the speed loader function than the ability to portion off a smaller number of pellets. Typically when I am doing my daily practice, I portion out ten pellets into the lid. That is how I know I have done my proper daily routine.
But more so than that, I like the idea of taking these tubes out in the field rather than a whole can. Cans rattle with noise. They are also prone to spilling. I don’t really take my rifles out to the field, but if I did I would take these full of pellets. You can see that they have a pocket clip to keep them quickly accessible and safe.
So, how do they work? So, so. The fat rubber tube on the end has a propensity to block the view of the chamber causing a partial insertion or even miss. These work best on the break action, single shot, spring or piston driven rifles. This is where you break open the barrel and use the device to feed the pellet into the chamber by pushing the orange plunger. I found that I often have to finish the job with my thumb.
Despite the drawbacks, I still like the ability to portion off pellets. The ones that I have pictured here are Crossman. This is not the brand I saw at the store, but they were several dollars cheaper at $7 versus $10. Is this a must have accessory? Definitely not but it definitely satisfies my fully accessorizing obsession disorder.
End Your Programming Routine: No regrets here, they just don’t work as well as I would like. Maybe I should try the other brand too? At $7, they could be garbage and I wouldn’t have lost much. This isn’t the case, they are well made and I can envision use case scenarios where I would be glad I had them. I will keep using them because they fill a role in partialing out my daily allowance and maybe I will get better at using them.
Happy leap day everyone. It may be that I am getting older and lazier but I haven’t been to the range since November. My renewal date is around the first of the year and I haven’t hardly even thought about going. It kind of makes me wonder if I should keep up my membership if I am not going to use it.
Another possible reason is that since I have setup my basement, pellet trap I use it multiple times a week. So, I feel less of the need to go to the range because I am always shooting without going anywhere. Recently I upgraded the scope on an air rifle so I am going to talk about the process today.
My son has a Crossman 760. It is a straight tube (non-rifled), multi-pump, bb/pellet combo. It is one of those classic bb guns. I can remember my cousin’s had the same one in the 1980s. My son’s looks exactly the same but today’s model has a sleeker, more updated design. It has a 3/8 rail for a scope addition.
When I purchased my first air-rifle, it also came with a very in-expensive 4×15 scope. It truly is better than nothing but for not much money you can do much better. But, the better part of my motivation was to put a scope on my son’s rifle. I figured I would upgrade the scope on my rifle and move the old scope to the 760.
Since the 760 is not rifled, it is not likely to be the most accurate of the bunch. By my reasoning, a significant scope upgrade would only marginally be of value on that rifle. The sights aren’t that great either and my groups are more like 2 inch groups with the 760. Additionally, I am noticing my eyesight is starting to degrade rapidly. Even this scope would help.
I took the old scope off and sighted the new scope on my rifle. It is shooting pretty good and I think the $40 investment was worth the cost and effort. I put the old scope on the 760 and the picture above represents how things went. Despite the fact that things were pretty dialed in my first shot was six inches to the left. As I kept working at it, I kept walking right and up. The final three shots above the center is where I left it.
Keep in mind that changing the number of pumps or the projectile will also change how things work. In my case eight (out of ten) pumps with a BB (5gr, one of the lightest projectiles) at ten yards will likely yield lower impact for heavier projectiles or less pumps. Given the same conditions, farther distance will likely have some drop as well. I think it is about perfect.
One other thing about inexpensive scopes is the adjustments are kind of poor. It is marked as on click per 1/4″ at 100 yards. So, at ten yards 1/4″ is supposed to be 10 clicks. But when it makes no clicks, you are not totally sure what the adjustment actually is. They also tend to act erratically sometimes by having different results the next day because something finally sprang into place. Some people actually tap on their scopes after adjustment to try and help them set in place.
End Your Programming Routine: I am happy to report that things were still in place the next day and I think this is an improvement over open sights. I do have a picture here somewhere with some previous testing I did but I couldn’t find it. And there is a real improvement in my rifle with the new scope on it. Win-win, I say.
I was looking through my stuff and I realized that I had six different cans of white spray paint. I don’t exactly know why that is the case but I was going to paint a project that I was working on white and I wanted to see what I had. As it turns out, three of those cans started spraying and then plugged up. I tried to clean them and figure out their day had passed.
I was going to throw them away, but I didn’t want to do so pressurized. I also didn’t want to poke a hole in them pressurize because that is a good way to have white paint sprayed everywhere. So, decided to shoot them with my pellet rifles. I thought I would use the same pellet in three different rifles to see the performance difference at three different power levels.
What I learned was actually not as much as I thought I would. All three rifles shot through both sides of each can. I have the energy calculations for each combo but when that exceeds the standard, it doesn’t tell much about performance. For a while now, I have been thinking about how I would test performance of these difference rifle/pellet combinations.
I have the pictures in order of power where the first one to the left is the lowest. One other thing you might observe is not every shot is dead center. This is because I don’t have every rifle sighted in for this pellet weight. But, I will say that this is an honest to goodness, three shots. There were no misses.
The first shot (left) was the most fun. When it hit, it twisted out of the box and sprayed paint all over the place. This is why the term reactive target exists. The target is hit and reacts. I thought that all three might do that, but that wasn’t the case. Since I have shot spray paint with 22lr before, I was kind of expecting it. This is why I had them inside a box to contain the mess.
I have heard from others that cans of shaving cream will do this as well. The advantage of those is the foam dissipates with the addition of rain. In my case, the small amount of paint on the grass will eventually get mowed and collected. But, if you are going to do something like this, be sure you have a good radius between your target and anything you wouldn’t want sprayed with paint.
End Your Programming Routine: I will continue to collect energy information and that is a good baseline to know. But I will also continue to look for a way to quantify what energy means against some sort of target. It appears that spray paint cans are not the answer, but I kind of wish that I had some more.
Maybe you get tired of me talking about this, I don’t know. What I have to say is that I have been on an adventure over the last couple of years and have learned a whole lot of things. With Christmas time coming, it is a good time to think about the different options for that firearms enthusiast in your life. As an adult, I never thought that I would get into air guns. I thought that I had grown up and that air guns were for kids that couldn’t be trusted with real firearms. I have grown to appreciate the role that they can play in a shooters life.
First, I can shoot an air rifle at home every day. It takes me an hour to drive to my range, that is also an hour back home. Then there is the gathering up stuff and the put away plus the clean-up which takes another several hours. What I am saying is that going to the range is a significant investment in time.
Then there is the cost. Pellets range from $5 for 300 to $12 for 100 and all over in between. This is analogous to range versus premium ammunition. If I was shooting 22lr, it would be about $16 per 100 but I couldn’t do that at home and I would have cleanup as well. What I am saying is that consistent practice with air rifles is extremely approachable compared to firearms.
Let us not forget that air guns are not firearms by the definition of the law. A couple of weeks ago I purchased a new air rifle. I walked up to the shelf, picked up the box and went straight to the cash register. Store policy required purchasers to be 21 but the cashier didn’t even make me show my ID. There is no hours long waiting for background checks and hoping that somebody didn’t make some critical clerical error denying me my 2nd amendment rights. There is no fee for me wanting to exercise my rights and get my ‘mother may I’ approved.
As far as I know, there has never been a run on pellets or implements. Air guns don’t seem to be popular amongst the firearms crowd, probably because they thought like I did. One hundred dollars can literally buy months worth of shooting. But running to the store to reload is not a gamble and stores that have gone woke still carry pellets like the Kroger stores, variety stores and even Walmart. Have I convinced you yet?
What is there to know? I am still looking for that genie in the bottle but I am going to share some tips now. I have experience with three brands and that is Daisy, Crosman and Gamo. There are other brands out there that are popular but these three seem to be the most prevalent around these parts. I have experience with four variations of delivery. That would be the single pump, multi-pump, break action spring pump and the break action gas pump.
I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t like variable pumps. For a first air gun or a rarely used, it would be OK. The pumping gets old, quick. Pumping 12 times takes a lot of effort and time. Fine for one shot but ten is a real pain in the butt. Their primary advantages are that they are the quietest, cheapest and they can shoot BBs and pellets.
I am not even sure if you can buy the single pump rifles new other than the Red Ryder. My first one was a Daisy 840. I didn’t realize that this was an advantage until I had a multi-pump. The primary disadvantage is they are very limited in power, but they have all of the advantages of the multi-pump.
My recommendation if you were only going to own one air gun, own a break barrel. They are faster to load and more powerful. But beware, this comes at a price. They cost significantly more and can be loud enough to require hearing protection. I fired my newest rifle twice inside and it cause my ears to ring the rest of the day. It also has recoil, which I was surprised when it happened.
I should also mention that all of my experience is with the 0.177 caliber. I have stuck with this particular caliber because of caliber commonality amongst all of my rifles for one. The other reason is that the larger calibers start to have enough energy to rival real firearms making them impractical (and unsafe) to shoot at home. The other common caliber is 0.22. If you were doing to do a lot of small game hunting or daily pest elimination, the 22 is a better choice than 177.
Picking an air rifle larger than 0.25″ makes the easy to obtain pellet more like a unicorn. Your best bet is buy them online because I have never seen them in local stores. Then again, you are probably not going to find a rifle in stores of larger caliber either.
Looking at the two break barrels that I own, one is a Crosman and the other is a Gamo. To date, I think that the advantage of the build goes to Crosman. All parts are metal and they are an American company. Everything except the powerplant on the Gamo is plastic. I feel like someday, there is gong to be a tab break off or something rendering this pretty expensive item useless. Time will tell.
As far as I have recorded, I have not been able to get the published velocity on any rifle pellet combination. What I can say is that the faster the advertised velocity a rifle can achieve, the louder it will be. Since air guns are not firearms, they are not governed by the same laws. Therefore, many have integrated silencers which do not seem to have any impact on the noise that the powerplant generates. I think that they actually make more noise than my 22lr rifles which seems bizarre to me. I can fire those all day and not feel the effect of noise but the break barrel rifles hurt my ears.
The pump rifles can vary in construction. I have several that actually have tubes rather than rifled barrels. This definitely impacts the accuracy with pellets. I have proven that the number of pumps effects accuracy of BBs in rifled barrels but it seems to have no effect with pellets. This is because there is very little velocity change between between six and 12 pumps, only about 10%. So, consider the purpose of what you are going to do.
End Your Programming Routine: My newest rifle is a super magnum. It has a magazine to fire up to 10 shots at an advertised velocity of 1600 fps. It definitely pushes pellets faster than my spring powered rifle but I am not really happy with how loud it is. I wanted a silenced version because I thought my first rifle was too loud. This is why I am looking for that genie in the bottle. I have a recommendation at this point, but I don’t have any personal experience with it so I will withhold any further information. Email me and I will let you know which one I would choose.
Every since I purchased my Crossman Optimus spring piston, air rifle my Crossman 1000 has sat in the corner. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with it but that it is a variable pump rifle. That means to get the same performance (actually less than) from the 1000 to the Optimus, it takes twelve pumps. I know that I am aging, but this wears you me as well as it takes a long time for a follow up shot.
I continue to collect pellet ballistic data, looking for that magic combination of energy between velocity and weight. The other day, I was thinking, I should do some work with the Crossman 1000 because it also shoots BBs. Maybe I can practice even cheaper? Maybe I can burn up those BBs I loaded on day one and haven’t shot since I went to pellets with the Optimus?
I am not going to bore you with more numbers. I find it interesting and maybe if you really want, e-mail me for the results. But, one of my going in theories was that BBs would not be accurate. As I was trying to measure velocities across that 1 1/2″ window, I was struggling. I shot probably 30 shots to get ten measurements. When you have to pump the rifle 12 times with increasing force, it really gets to be a chore.
The scope that comes with the rifle is cheap and barely useable. I do not recommend the Crossman 4×15 that you can purchase for $20. Since mine came with the rifle, I will use it for now until I get fed up with it. The point of that is that it is not easy (or clear) to see through it well. But, from what I could see, it looked like was shooting all over the place. Hence, why it took me so many shots to get measurements.
All of these shots were from a rest with 12 pumps at 10 yards. The ones in the red represent the first 5 shots whereas everything else happened afterwards. It is no wonder I struggled to get measurements with the chronograph.
I started out with a whole series of velocity/energy measurements with BBs and pumps just like I did with pellets. This time I went 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12 pumps. Skipping all of those other intervals saved my arms a lot of movement and I didn’t really care to get that much data. I am pretty sure the velocity curve follows the one that I previously calculated for pellets. The other thing that I did differently was measure the velocity at the target (10 yards). The reason I did that was because I am trying to determine how effective this rifle with BBs really for pest elimination.
I already know that 8 ft/lbs at the muzzle is lethal on pests. The last thing I want is an ineffective tool. After I got all of my measurements, the next thing that I wanted to determine was how accurate is this rifle with BBs anyway. So, I just started shooting at targets. At first, my groupings were pretty tight, then things started to go a little wonky.
By the time I got through my planned magazine, I was struggling to pump the rifle even on the first stroke. After I ran my magazine dry, I tried another test. I simply cocked the bolt and pulled the trigger. Low and behold, it fired. Then I did it again and it fired again. I did it a third time and it was just the thud of the spring.
So, it appears that twelve pumps puts more air in the chamber than is used to drive the BB. This is the cause of the increasing difficulty to charge the rifle after firing. I believe that it is also the cause of increasing inaccuracy. I really don’t know where the line is between expected results and chaos, but I would say five shots is a safe bet since that is where I got my best groups.
I am going to continue this test with other pumps groups. The reason being is that I am trying to determine if it is even worth training marksmanship with this rifle and BBs. Ideally, I would like to know this rifle well enough that I could say, this is where I train and this is where I could use it if need be. After all, an inaccurate rifle is pretty much useless. You don’t do anything for marksmanship or pest elimination and you might shoot something that is not intended.
End Your Programming Routine: The big drawback is the multiple pumps. I am hoping that my data says that 3 pumps is adequate. This would relegate the Crossman 1000 to mostly just target shooting, but it would be worth it for the practice. If the accuracy proves to be a problem, then it may relegate the rifle to the garage sale pile.
You know that I am a scientist and that I like to do things just for the heck of it. An experiment if you like. Well, this is an experiment. I found some .177 pellets online that I purchased a few years ago. They are 16.4 grains in weight which would be double the normal weight of run-of-the mill air rifle pellet. For reference, that would be in the 5-9 grain range.
In my quest to find the best pest elimination combination i.e. energy, I thought that I would give these things a try. Because of the weight of these pellets, they are not able to achieve the velocity of the lighter pellets and therefore, they make less energy than the other pellets I have tested. But what about accuracy?
I was reluctant to shoot these because the label said for PCP (Pneumatically Charged Pellet) rifles only. These are rifles that are filled with SCUBA tanks or air compressors like Lewis and Clark used (did you know that?). PCP rifles are becoming a thing because they are not considered firearms and are made all the way up to 50 caliber making them suitable for hunting large game.
When I put these pellets in my break barrel Crossman, they stuck out about 1/16″ of an inch of the chamber. A normal lead pellet would compress to be forced all the way into the chamber. This was my hesitation to trying them in the first place. But I closed the barrel anyway and gave it a shot (literally). It worked. OK, now I am going to zero the scope. And here is where the problem was manifested.
The picture above shows 10 and 50 shots with no scope changes at ten yards; the rifle is on a rest. My rifle cannot shoot these pellets with any degree of precision. The reason is that these pellets are heavy for caliber and why I think they were marked PCP rifle only. I will explain the phenomenom.
Heavy for caliber means that the projectile does not match the rifling groves in the barrel. In this case, the rate of twist is not significant enough to stabilize the projectile in flight and therefore accuracy suffers. For instance a .223 Remington typically shoots a 50-60 grain bullet in a barrel that is 1:9 or sometimes 1:8. The translation of those ratios are one full revolution in 9 (or 8) inches of barrel. The faster the rate of twist, the better heavier bullets will be accurate and fly true.
This is all fine until you look at the 22-250 which uses the same bullet as the .223 Remington. Those rifles come out in the 1:8 to 1:14 rates of twist with the typical being either 1:10 or 1:12. The primary difference between the two cartridges is velocity with the 22-250 being 33-50% faster. The same rate of twist equation doesn’t apply equally between these two calibers. Here is a link to an article that goes more in depth on the subject.
Generally speaking, the heavier the bullet, the faster rate of twist you want in your rifle. Like all compromises, the better you are on the heavy end of the scale, the more likely you are going to struggle on the light end of the scale. Somewhere out there, there is an optimum ammunition and barrel combination. This one is not it for me.
Now, contrast that to this target. This is 10, 10.5gr pellets at the same distance on the same rest as the picture above. I would estimate this to be about a one inch group. I fired these cold for the first time.
End Your Programming Routine: As I say all the time, know your equipment. Now that I know, I am going to burn up these heavy pellets to get to more productive practice. The truth will be that I won’t get much out of the rest of those pellets, maybe I will work on trigger and breathing discipline. I almost thought of trying to buy another PCP rifle for this fact. But then I also need a way to charge it and the rifles are pretty expensive, in a lot of cases more than a real rifle. So, maybe sometime in the future. For now, I am going to keep going to see if I can find the inflection point.
It turns out that an air rifle needs more lubrication than once every forty years. I purchased some a few weeks ago to attempt to ressurect my Daisy 840. Looking at the problem more carefully, I definitely have a seal problem. I noticed while I was messing around that the cylinder was not holding air. Within two minutes, the air chamber was empty.
My initial impression was that things were fine. When I got the rifle from my parents about ten years ago, it was still charged to my surprise (big firearms violation on me?). It was probably set at my parents house for 20 years unused so it is hard to say who left it loaded but it wouldn’t surprise me if I did.
Of course, I haven’t messed with it much at all since I decided to upgrade to the Crossman Legacy 1000. Only when I was doing my velocity testing and I got extremely erratic behavior did I start to wonder if I had a problem.
It is pretty simple to figure out where to put the oil. Where it say “Oil Here” seems like the right place. As to how much, I really don’t know but a good rule of thumb in firearms is that you can always add more, don’t get carried away. Not only are you wasting lubricant with too much but it often causes more dirt and grime to collect on the surfaces that the oil touches.
Those of of you that are not familiar, not all oil is the same. The tube on the left is the general purpose lubrication that I used on my Daisy. The oil on the right is a special type of oil for spring and pneumatic guns. It turns out that you are supposed to add 1 or two drops every 500 rounds into air chamber. Supposedly, I need a third oil that is for my Crossman Legacy.
To date, I have not been able to save the Daisy. The truth is, I don’t know that it will come back. My brief looking is that these Daisy parts are obsolete. So, it very well may be that the seals are damaged beyond repair. I am hoping that if the oil sits a little bit of time on the seals that they will re-swell to work again. So far, it has only been a week but no dice.
End Your Programming Routine: It might be too little, to late for the old Daisy. I kind of hope not but it really has become obsolete in my fleet. To be sure, I am going to pay more attention to my newer air rifles, hence why I bought the different lubrication products. This represents about $10 of care, I think that it is money well spent.
A few years ago, I had a varmint problem. I will be vague because what I did was technically not legal. Nevertheless, a few years before that I had purchased an inexpensive Crossman bb/pellet rifle. That rifle did the job. The only complaint that I had was a followup shot took ten additional pumps to get the right pressure.
I have used that rifle for the same purpose several times since. However, I am always extremely leary of doing so because if the first shot doesn’t do the job, there is a wounded animal on the loose and I really don’t want that. I also bought some subsonic 22LR and those were very quiet. I have never used those because I haven’t had the opportunity since I purchased them
A word about urban shooting. This needs to be done with extreme caution. It is illegal to discharge an air rifle (and 22LR for that matter) in the city limits. A person needs to be extremely cautious about where that shot is going if you miss. I don’t worry much about BB’s, they can bounce off hard surfaces and tend to be very inaccurate. But, pellets can penetrate fencing, 3/4 plywood and even be fatal.
I have had my eye on a spring piston pellet gun. With one pump, there is more energy than that ten pump combo rifle. Of course it is also four times as expensive. I recently purchased a Crossman Optimus to do this job (on the left).
One thing to note is these rifles need some break in. You will see in my target the progression of the days. The center target was my first day, then I moved to upper right, lower right, upper left and then finally lower left. I only messed with the scope on the center target. Right now, I am shooting until the groups become consistent, which I think they are after 50 shots. Then I will sight the scope in.
I read that older rifles needed more in the range of hundreds to thousands of pellets to become consistent. I have also read that the break in time has gotten much shorter. I am still function firing right now. I have my pellet trap setup at 10 yards in the basement and I fire a few rounds during the day. It is a nice stress reliever.
This rifle is in 0.177” bore diameter There are 0.22” and 0.25” which are technically much better at pest removal. Remember that energy is mass * velocity * velocity. That means a bigger pellet is going to have more energy at the same velocity. The good news is that smaller pellets are easier to deliver faster. And you can see by the equation that velocity has a much bigger effect on energy than mass.
My decision to go to the 0.177 was to share pellets between the two rifles. I don’t like stocking multiple calibers if I don’t need to. The one downside to the rifle is that it is very loud when it fires. The spring mechanism is unexpectedly noisy. Since air rifles are not firearms, there are many models that have integrated suppressors, mine does not have that and the pellets are firing supersonic anyway which significantly reduces the efficacy of such a device.
End Your Programming Routine: If you read the journals of Lewis and Clark, you would know that they used a pre-charged pneumatic air rifle to kill all kinds of game including bear and elk. Those are making a comeback as well but they require a SCUBA tank to fill the reservoir. I wanted something simpler and less dependent on another input. I am rather enjoying my mid-day marksmanship sessions.
There are several ways to spend time with firearms in during this quarantine. I am going to mention some ideas and focus on one in today’s post.
First and foremost, most indoor ranges are closed. Mine happens to have both an indoor and (mostly) outdoor component. The pro shop is closed, but as long as you stick to your personal space rules, you can shoot at the rifle range, shotgun range or one of the numerous private bays.
Then, there is dry fire practice. That is pulling the trigger on an empty firearm (please make sure it is unloaded!). There are a number of drills that you can do to practice trigger control. I have heard that professional shooters spend as much time dry firing as they do actually shooting. Try using your offhand, I bet you can use some strength training.
Something I like to do is reload ammunition. Unfortunately, I have loaded all of my spare brass. I will do a future post about this. So not to much more today. With kids, decorate paper plates to be later used as targets. You can make them up and put them away to be shot at later. They can keep them when they are done too. Clean your guns or inventory model and serial numbers for insurance are some other ideas.
Finally, I wanted to talk about air gun shooting. I suppose that you could also do Airsoft (I don’t have any) as well. Be mindful that in a lot of jurisdictions it is illegal to discharge an air rifle. In my mind, if you do this with some degree of discretion, it can be done safely and under the radar.
Air rifle with pellet trap
This trap I built during the summer. It holds two bags of rubber mulch and is constructed of 3/4″ plywood. Shooting pellets, I was shooting straight through 3/8″ plywood and BB’s were tearing up the rest of it. This rifle can kill a 20lb animal. My point is just because it is an air rifle doesn’t mean that you don’t have to wear safety glasses or treat this tool seriously.
My intent was to set this up and fire 10 shots or so a day. That hasn’t turned into reality, but my son and I occasionally set it up and fire a few shots. I think that I would like to eventually buy a better rifle because pumping 6-8 times gets to be a drag as well.
When my brother and I were young, we liked to setup catalogs along the fence line and shoot at them. Then we would thumb through them and be silly about how each shot would hit the different pages incidentally. We also liked to shoot at reactive targets (filled with water, etc) but that can get a little messy if you are doing this inside.
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