The new Marauder gets a scope

My new Gen 2 Marauder now has a scope and is sighted in for 25 yards.

It took a while because the Millet mounts I used are wendage adjustable thru the clamps that hold the mount to the mounting rail. Putting the scope in usually results with the mounts not in alignment with the barrel. It takes a few shots and some adjustments with an allen wench to get it aligned. The good news is that when I swapped scopes, the new one was within a few MOAs.

The mounts ate high mounts and the Simmons 6.5 to 20X has a 50 mm objective. You can see that the scope to barrel shroud clearance in minimal.

How Dose It Shoot?

At 25 yards, In sitting I hit 5 out of 5 1/5 scale chickens.

For now this Marauder is a one clip wonder. At 50 yard hits on the target past ten drop like a rock. Fortunately, the Marauder is highly adjustable. More on this to come.

Generation 2 Marauder

My new Marauder arrived. It is a member of the black plastic generation. I wanted one with a wooden stock, but they are not projected to come out until July. Any doubts I had about the synthetic left when I picked up. Not only is it a pound lighter, but it fits my hands, especially the grip to trigger relationship, much better then the Gen 1 wooden stock.Blindfolded your hands can tell the difference.

Over all the stock is slimmer with a flaired portion on the bottom of the fore arm to fill your palm

There are other differences, but one I noticed is the bolt probe is a smaller diameter. The old probe was a flow through design, and I felt it made seating JSB kings harder then it should be.  MOre on this later when I have had a chance to shoot some Kings.

More then the design changed, the question is how does it stack up to my old marauder, after comparing each gun's performance, one is going to be tuned to 24 shots in the mid 30s FPE and the other for 16 somewhere in the 40s.

It ought to be an interesting story.

Ron

75 Yard Chickens

A couple of weeks ago I went to the range to shoot my half scale chickens at 75 yards. They would be fun and also good for working on my benchrest form since the body was about the same size at the paper bull on the 75 yard target at Extreme Benchrest in Arizona. Each chicken weighs a two and a half pounds and their weight makes for a slow motion fall that connotes power. My rifle is a ,25 caliber Benjamin Marauder. And yes, it will down a half scale chicken at 75 yards.

It will only down all the chickens I can hit, and on this day I was bating 500. I shot about 40 pellets and only brought down just over 20. With a 24X scope I can spot all my hits and misses, but about half of my misses threw up dirt from behind the bird suggesting that those misses were passing just over the bird's back and doping out of sight before hitting the berm about 4 feet further on.

What to do?

To look for the suspected high shots on my next trip to the range, I took a half scale ram target. It is OK to shoot at chicken targets to test your marksmanship, but when you are testing a supposition, the target needs to be far larger to capture all the high or low shots. I could have taken paper but the sound of the pellets on steel is too good to pass up. I shot at 75 yards since my goal to shoot BR at that range, but also because, variability in velocity brought on by changes in pressure in the gun's air cylinder are more apparent at longer ranges.

Results - Some good some not so good.

I shot four, 24 shot sequences. Each time the starting pressure was between 3000 and 2900 psi and the ending pressure was between 2000 and 1900 psi. That's one clip more then I thought I was going to get when I bought the gun. Airgunners are always happy when their precharged gun has a longer then expected shot count.

But, there were high shots. More then I expected. The first, eight shot clip shot to the point of aim (POA), but the second clip went 1 ¼ inch high, and the third clip worked its way back down to the cross hairs. The 24^th shot would go three inches low. This cycle repeated itself in each 24 shot string. A few shots went high or low, but the procession of hits stayed the same. On the fourth string I compensated by holding low on the second clip and shot a better. Those hits are in the middle of the shot pattern on the pig in the photo. The horizontal stringing on the pig and the ram are the effects of the wind. Beeman Kodiak Match pellets were used.

This time my Marauder showed the potential to put all shots into three inches at 75 yards. My goal is to shoot 25 shots into a two and a quarter inch circle at that range.

Ron

Super Airguns

Air rifles on the firing line at the Extreme Benchrest in Green River Arizona.

Read my article" Super Airguns" on Western Shooting Journal.

http://westernshootingjournal.com/productreviews/super-airguns/

Ron

Yellow Forum Competition

Steve in CT, owner of the Yellow Forum, has proposed a match where contestants submit 3, 5 shot groups each spanning one inch or less, shot consecutively at 100 yards with pellets. The first five to do so wins 5 tins of pellets from Wild West Airguns.

For Steve's post see:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/message/1390432461/Here+is+a+Yellow+Forum+Competition+I+want+to+do+and+it+will+be+limited+to+first+5+shooters

What a great idea. There are far too many posts boasting of this group or that group that seam incredible. It is about time somebody gently called for some accountability.

Aside from tweaking those who inflate their accomplishments, Steve’s standard of accuracy is significant challenge for a marksman. Many times I have shot on ranges that did not allow your condition of light and wind to remain unchanged for 15 shots. If I read his rules right, you cannot return to the sighting target once you have started the 15 shot sequence.

The target above is one I fired at 100 yards with my .25 Benjamin Marauder with Beeman Kodiak Match pellets. The match rules were the NRA's High Power Sporting Rifle. The target shows 32 hits fired in Sitting and Standing. I can't always get into prone. And five sighers. It was fired with one 3000 psi refill after 21 shots. It is a good representation of how well I could shoot the rifle on that day although standing was a mess and accounts for most of the shots outside of the eight ring. The ten ring is 3.3 inches wide. A full set of dimensions can be found in the rule book for High Power Sporting Rifle on the NRA web site. Usually, we set up ½ size targets at 50 yards for air rifles, but at that match I was the only one, so I shot at 100.

Steve's match will be interesting to follow. Three consecutive one inch groups an 100 yards with pellets is a high standard.

Gee I’d be thrilled with 24 shots into 2 inches at 75 yards with unlimited sighters. 

Ron

Your comments are appreciated

If you are on Google + you can comment with a minimum of difficulty, and we get to see your avatar. If you are not a Googlonian, or do not wish to reveal your mane, I *have heard* that you can sign in as a guest.

One advantage of a blog is that the blogger gets to engage the audience. So comments are important to me. Comment away! Please.

I am working to see if there is a way to facilitate comments, but Google+ is a work in progress. Tomorrow may bring a solution we do not have now.

Ron

Rapid Fire Silhouette

 

 

I have never had anyone say “marksperson” to me, but I know it is just a matter of time. ;)

Rapid Fire Silhouette

Rapid fire silhouette, some folks would call it *rabbit fire* which may be more to the point, you don't study a target, you just shoot it. Or so I thought.

At Extreme Benchrest in Arizona, we shot a rapid fire silhouette match. It had another name, but it was too steeped in the gunfight at the OK Corral. Besides, didn't the Clantons and McLowerys get to shoot back? Also if you’ve shot metallic silhouettes, it was nothing like the game you know. Set that all aside, because only the targets are the same.

We shot at 1/5 scale metallic silhouettes. They were placed according to species: chickens at 30 yards, pigs at 40 yards, turkeys at 50 and rams at 60. There were four at each distance for a total of 16 shots, You could shoot from a bench or you could sit or stand any way you wished, but the bench was the best choice because you started with an unloaded gun,unloaded magazines and an open pellet tin.

What a great idea. Unloaded magazines levels the playing field between magazine loaders and single shots in one fell swoop. It also changes the match strategy with magazine shooters having to concentrate on loading while hearing the sounds of shots and hits. Lots of them.

In the 2013 match, single loaders had the advantage with top scores (the shortest time knock over 16 targets) all loading pellets singly. Shean Kaller won the Pro division with a time of one minuet

five seconds. You can see his first place run, as well as his 57 seconds practice run on You
Tube at the Airgun Gear Show channel.

The Rapid fire silhouette shoot is not only timing the time you take to shoot, but is also timing the time you take to load.

Getting ready for this match I worked out aim points for 25, 30, 40, 50 and 60 yards. I also shot the course of fire twice. Hitting the steel animals at those ranges with my S400 was easy. I worked on speeding us my trigger squeeze. This was not enough. At he match, while I fumbled pellets, knocked over my pellet tin and hunted for targets through my scope set at 32X, other shooters smoothly and quickly loaded their guns to mow down targets. They called time and I had three rams left to go.

Now, older and wiser, I will work on how fast I can load my air rifle as much as how fast I can shoot it.

Ron