Blueflax Airguns Magazine 3 Gun Shooting

The first issue of my magazine is on sale at blurb.com.
http://www.blurb.com/b/7341789-blueflax-airguns-3-gun-shootingThis issue covers 3 Gun Shooting. Future issues will cover airguns as well as firearms. 

http://www.blurb.com/b/7341789-blueflax-airguns-3-gun-shooting

American Field Target at Extreme Benchrest

Extreme Benchrest is one month away, and I am signed up for American Field Target.

American Field Targets at the 2015 Extreme Benchrest

Oh yes, I remember checking that box. Now what did that mean?

American Field Target is the field target for more powerful rifles that the twenty foot pounds (ft/lbs) recommended by the American Airgun Field Target Association (AAFTA).

The air rifles are more powerful. The targets are bigger. The ranges are longer, up to 100 yards at ERB. The rifles are divided into two groups .25 to .35 up to 150 ft/lbs and .22 up to 50 ft/lbs. The minimum power in both classes is 28 ft/lbs. Targets are set between 15 and 100 yards.

I am signed up for the .22 class. I have two .22s, an Armada, and a Career 707, but which one? With one month to go it is time for a shoot off. I haven’t shot the Career since 2013.

Today I shot the Career and was glad to see that it held pressure and needed only 2 minutes of windage to be zeroed on the 50 yard target. I shot Baracuda Match pellets. Best five shot group was 1.1 inches. At the same range I shot six ⅕ scale chickens with 8 shots. I knew that this gun would shoot possibles in our 50 yard sporting rifle matches, but that target has a 1.6 inch ten ring. Today’s shooting was better than I expected.

How will the armada do? I have been shooting it with iron sights lately. So they must come off and be replaced by a scope.

Ron

Airforce target sight

After  shooting the Benjamin Armada with MBUS (MAGPUL back up sights) for about a year. I decided it was time to take my “irons” to next level. Why? Because I am not good changing elevation with the front sight. Especially when I am in prone and confined by a shooting coat and a sling.

Now the scene dissolves to firing line. I am struggling to raise my 50 yard sight in group from the bottom edge to the center of the black when I learned that match time waits for no man.

“Is the line ready”

“Not ready on 3”!

“YOU are not READY. How can this possibly be, SHOOTER NUMBER THREE ”?

“Please forgive me, Mr. Range Officer, Sir.  I am just a poor air gunner who doesn't know up from down. WAHHHHHHH”!

You get the idea.

After 40 years of changing elevation on the rear sight, the front sight with its reverse movement (raise the front sight to lower the impact), and finding that the little elvaton tool  was in my gun bag behind the firing line was more than I wanted to put up with. Don’t get me wrong, the MBUS sights are great. They held a 50 yard zero no matter how many times I folded them up and down, and the rear has the flip up small aperture that target shooters love, but on that day they weren't helping.

I tried holding a little higher. The front post disappeared into the black target and I sent a lot of shots too high to score.

The Armada has a long Picatinny rail that is just right for mounting the MBUS. To get windage and elevation I needed a new rear sight and at the same time replace that front post with an aperture. There are sight sets for  AR-15 “space guns” (used in national match competition), but a set with mounting brackets are on the south side of $500.

Sights in my budget fit on a receiver grooved for tip off mounts, and as far as I could find, there aren't any adapters from Picatinny to tip off. Sunk again.

Looking further, I found a sight set from Airforce that could be attached using a Weaver compatible scope mount. On my .22 Armada I found that the front mount had to be between 0.10” and 0.15” lower to get a zero at 50 yards.

SIG MCX air rifle

Friday getting to PANSAL

After fixing a busted pipe in my barn and the five hour drive to Ontario, I was pooped! 

The drive didn’t seem so long with all the familiar landscape and P. D.James to fill in the blank spaces. I drove thru a hale storm with lightning that looked like a cloud of dust coming at me. On the highway everyone pulled over and sat out the worst ten minutes. Then one at a time and slowly we got going.

Did it storm in Pocatello?

The motel in nice, and right next to the freeway. I didn’t hear it and slept all night.

I got loaded up and after things dry out I’ll go to the campsite. That hale storm was near to the PANSAL site.

Ron

Is the MCX air rifle a true semiautomatic?

At our monthly indoor shoot everyone who shot the SIG liked it. The ability to have a shot on demand every time the trigger was pulled was a new airgun experience. The rifles they brought all required some kind of a loading procedure. Even though their 10 meter rifles could put shot after shot through the same pellet size hole, of each shooter enthusiasm was evident.

Is the MCX a true semiautomatic? It seems like a combination of trigger movement and gas pressure that advances the belt  and cocks the hammer. So it is not like a semiautomatic firearm where energy from the shot does the loading and the cocking.  However, it does not feel exactly like a double action revolver where everything is keyed to the trigger’s movement.

The recommended trigger pull is one that starts with the trigger all the way forward and then returns it to the forward position after the shot is fired. The chamber that is lined up with the barrel is not the one that’s empty after the shot is fired. If the trigger stroke is interrupted then the next shot is from the next pellet in the belt leaving a saved round in the belt as it moves around.

The gun jammed twice in 4 magazines (120 shots). Each time the trigger was locked, the magazine would not come out, and the charging handle would retract but there was no felt resistance. These jams were cleared with a cleaning rod. The rod’s tip found the front of the pellet just far enough forward into the barrel to jam the gun, and pushed it back into the belt. Once again, a cleaning rod proved useful accessory for the MCX.

We each shot a magazine and a lot of that was spent getting familiar with the rifle. Several pellets were tried and our groups were about the same. Our target was an international air pistol set at 10 meters.  Ashe’s 30 shot group is shown below. We all had flyers, and I think they were related to loading the belt. With some practice loading the belt and the trigger, this gun ought to shoot inside the nine ring at ten meters.

Idaho Airgun Field Target Club 2016 schedule

The 2016 schedule for the IAFTCcan be found at http://www.gatecityssa.org/calendar.html      You can read about the matches and find contact information on the Events page.

If you can get to Pocatello for one of our shoots, I an sure you will have a good time.

Ron