Armada Outshoots Two Other PCPs.

On the internet, no air rifle gets trashed as often as the .22 Marauder.  We have heard all the comments. “Shoots like a shotgun”, a statement that is truly meaningless. “It’s not up to my standards,” well, excuse me, your lordship. Lastly, “Don’t expect me to buy one,” this guy usually has a flock of $1500 to $2500 air rifles. Does he consider it “slumming” to shoot a $500 Marauder? The heart of an Armada is a Marauder. In this small sample, the Armada shot the tightest group.

Deal with it.

I shot three air rifle at 25 yards. The rifles were a .25 second generation Marauder, a .25 Daystate Air Ranger, and a .22 Benjamin Armada. I had chosen each one for a specific match and range in a club tournament, but here they were going to be shot at 25 yards to test their performance with different pellets. I chose 25 yards to reduce the impact of wind on the group.

Groups were recorded on the green United States Bench Rest target. These targets are meant to receive one shot in each bull, but here they would serve as aiming points for five shot groups.

I had 4 tins of pellets. .25 JSB Kings, .25 Benjamin Domes, .22 Crosman Premier hollow points, and .22 BSA Wolverines (these were marked “made in Czech Republic”). In the following table, Crosman Corporation pellets are marked with a * and the others are marked with a #.

Groups size is expressed  in inches center to center. The USBR target has 5 rows of 5 bulls and the table is in the order that the bulls appear on the target.

Rifle						average *	average #
.25 Marauder	DNF	0.4  *	0.7  *	0.4  #	0.65  #	0.55	0.60
.25 Daystate	0.75  *	0.6  *	0.55  #	0.45  #	DNF	0.68	0.59
.22 Armada	0.73  *	0.68  *	0..23  #	0.38  #	0.53  #	0.71	0.38

Without  going into a lot of numbers, the overall average of all groups in 0.56”. There are too few data points for statistical analysis. If you want to compare numbers, a pellet’s width is a significant number.

The third Armada group in the table stands out. It certainly stood out when I shot it. I had thought, based on some 50 yard shooting, that the Armada shot these two pellets about the same, but it looks like the Wolverines have a definite edge. I hope that they are the same as the 16gr JSB.

More to come.

After the above target I fired another on 5/19/15. I shot the same pellets at all five bulls in each row. The range was the same 25 yards and all groups are center to center  are in inches. I had thought that the JSB 15.9s would do better, and I was pleased that my old favorite Barracudas did the best.

.22 Armada	5/18/201	25 Yards				Average
JSB 18.1	0.63	0.88	0.38	0.43	0.48	0.56
JSB 15.9	0.73	0.68	1	0.63	1.03	0.81
Trophy	0.58	0.83	1.08	1.23	1.28	1.00
FT Trophy	0.38	1.03	0.43	0.48	0.28	0.52
Baracuda Match	0.33	0.58	0.23	0.83	0.43	0.48
Overall average						0.67

I can say that when the planets are aligned, this Armada in a sub 2 MOA rifle at 25 yards. Also that tight group in the first target was not a fluke.

Fifty yards and tuning the power up form 21 fpe to 30 will be the final test.

International Readership

Pageviews by Countries Entry Pageviews United States 366 China 338 Russia 59 United Kingdom 21 Canada 12 France 12 Greece 10 Mexico 8 Indonesia 7 Brazil 5

This is my readership for the last 30 days.

Firstly, thank you to everyone who viewed my blog.

Secondly, if you haven’t thought about the international aspects of airgunning take a second look at the stats above. I have been surprised and gratified by how far across the map my readership stretches. For the last few weeks The count from China has exceeded all other nations. Again, thank you. Without conscious thought, I write for an American audience, so it is especially flattering to find readership in other countries.

Last week I posted about the Snowpeak P-12 bullpup, and it has received no greater views than any other post. I think this means that folks are reading the all posts. I hope that that means that they are all interesting.

You might ask. “What is the point, Ron”?

I would greatly appreciate a “Hello” from time to time and a comment. Like most writers, I write because I want folks to read my work. Some feedback would be very helpful.

Besides the comment block at the bottom of each post, my e-mail address is airgunsidaho@gmail.com

Ron

PANSAL Lollipop challange

Covey Wins Coveted Lollipop Challenge!

Dateline: Idaho, somewhere west of Boise

Ash, from Pocatello Idaho, today won the  Lollipop Challenge in a dramatic 11th hour tour d’force of airgun marksmanship at the 2015 PANSAL, Pacific and Northwest States Airgun League,  airgun meeting.

The Challenge consists of four 1.5 inch lollipops set at 12 yard intervals from 12 to 48 yards. Starting with a mandatory offhand shot at 12 yards and then working on to the next furthest target, the contestant shoots until each lollipop is hit. the lowest shot count is the winner. With a four being the highest possible,

Ash was the last to come to the firing line.

Ash had suggested that his air rifle was not up to its usual brilliance, but his Daystate came through on the first shot, an unsupported shot at 12 yards, when he burst the target to splinters with a shot placed directly in the center. Targets two and three similarly met their fate to scatter empty calorie candy across the desert landscape. On the forth shot, however, the pellet veered low and right to strike the up til then untouched white card a nearest hairs width off the sucker at the four-O-clock position.

All was silent. He had not “run the table”, nor could Ash or several spotters clearly see the shot hole. He could still win on the next shot or if he missed be faced into a three way shoot off with  two other airgunners who had shot 6s.  

But his next shot was proof positive that candy could not stand up to lead. Cheers rang out as the candy shards settled to the desert floor.

Ash had won the match.

Snowpeak P-12 Bullpup

P-12 Bullpup

A gentleman from Oregon brought his P-12. This .22 caliber air rifle is made in China and imported into the United States by Mrodair. Like many airgunners he is a machinist and customizes his rifles in various ways, but always in the pursuit of accuracy. This rifle had two modifications. The first and most important is a Lothar Walther barrel. As delivered. the bullpup shot slightly over one inch, at least that is about the size of the circle he made with his thumb and fore finger, and he had to do better. You know that when someone is talking about his rifle and hunting through his wallet that something interesting is about to happen. This something was a plum colored postnote with a hand drawn circle and a cluster of pellet holes that looked to my eye to be ⅜ inch. “53 yards.” he said. Later I made a head shot with the P-12 on a ground squirrel at that distance. So I can believe his group.

Leonard shoots the P-12. The owner allowed that it could use higher mounts.

He also extended the shroud and added some baffes, there were none in the gun to begin with, to make it very pleasant to shoot.

It was very obvious that he was a fan of the P-12. “This rifle is very easy to modify. The transfer port is in the breach and there is very little machining to do on the barrel”.

Easy for someone skilled with machine tools, I thought.

His next project is a breach that accepts Marauder magazines. He told me that There are such breaches on the market for reasonable prices. “But, I’ll just have to do it myself”.

Ron

Crosman 101, 60 Years of Service

PANSAL 2015

Friday and the air gun clan is gathering in the desert west of Boise. One of the membership showed me his Crosman 101 pictured here with an Armada for contrast.

“That’s the gun I learned to shoot with, right there”. I extracted this man’s heirloom air rifle form it’s caseal the time being careful to show it the respect it deserved. for three decades the 101 was the Crosman rifle and this one was the last of the lot. “My dad bought that for me is Sears in 1955. It was my first airgun.” You could tell that it was still was number one to him.