Extreme Benchrest speed shoot

Extreme Benchrest speed shoot with my Generation II .25 Marauder, sometimes known as the evil black rifle.

The Match

This course of fire is 16, ⅕ scale silhouette targets set out at 30, 40, 50 and 60 yards. A good workout for a shooter with a hunting rifle powerful enough to hack the program at 60 yards. A 20 FPE .177 will do quite nicely by the way. If you can hit the rams at 60 yards, and your rifle will shoot 20 good shots on one fill you've got the basics for this match. I bought the evil black rifle with the intention of turning it down to 35 FPE, but the rules were changed to allow up to 50 FPE, so I left it in its factory tune. I did buy a Wicked Airrifles single shot tray, because in the speed shoot loading magazines is the quick way to come in last. That still could happen, but nothing ventured nothing gained.

My Marauder

My Gen II Marauder will shoot three magazines (24 shots) before pellets drop off the target . I can only shoot three banks of targets on my home range so I set up 5 each Turkeys, 50, Pigs ,40, and chickens, 30 yards. With a 3 K fill and a 50 yard zero,  I hit em all with 16 shots. My holds were dead on for 50 then belly line on pigs, and foot for chickens. Ending pressure was 2 K. Three more shots conformed all zeros. This gun has the air to go the distance.

My Scope

My scope is a Simmons Whitetail Classic 6.5 - 20 power with a dual X reticle.  A throwback to my pre mildot days, it has been on several rifles before landing on my Marauder. Set on 12 X the lower picket is zero at 60 yards, and the cross hairs are 50. I have to hold about ½ inch low at 40 and 1 inch low at 30.

Many Marauder owners, that post on the web, tune and modify their air rifles for performance. I think it is interesting that a stock Marauder has what it takes for this course of fire, and that it would serve most hunters well as it came from Crosman.

Speed Shoot Strategy

I made a hash out of this match in 2013, but came away with some ideas to do better in 2014. First is to use pellets larger than .177 or get a hand transplant with much smaller fingers. Second don’t try to pluck the pellets out of the tin. dump then out on the bench. Third, fire and forget, don’t watch the targets fall, use that time to start reloading the next shot. Lastly shoot the targets from far to near. Groups tend to open up near the end of the shot string. So, use those shots on the closest targets.

Today, I shot a practice run at 16 targets, turkeys, pigs and chickens, All the zeros were good. 16 shots ran the air cylinder down from 3 K to 2 K. Four more shots at 50 were all hits on a swinger so 20 shots give me 16 record shots and 4 for a cushion.

Next I’ll try it with rams.

Ron