Not my Fathers Oldsmobile


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Old 09-03-17, 01:53 AM
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Not my Fathers Oldsmobile

Picked up a discontinued switch barrel Beeman Silver Kodiac spring pellet rifle at WM for 1/2 price. Had been sorta interested in a pellet rifle but didn't want to pay what even the cheapest decent one would cost. Well, originally $98, was marked at $74 on clearance, when I got to checkout it rang up at $49...woo-hoo...score!

Brought it home, cleaned it, put the .177 barrel on (I had 2-250 count boxes from way back), just went out to the garage to test it (this is about 11PM). Put like 8 pieces of thick heavy cardboard against wall (also leaning against garage broom and heavy duty plastic dustpan) about 15 ft away. Cocked and loaded, fired it, about soiled myself.

Sounded like a .22RF had gone off, ears were ringing a bit even. Went through the cardboard, through the broom bristles (cutting off about 10) through the heavy plastic dustpan, into the wall taking off about 2 sq/in of plaster.

Well holy C#@p! That was nothing like my old Crosman 760 with 10 pumps even!

Ok, lets try this again, because obviously I didn't learn anything the first time. (Hey Bubba, watch this!) This time with 1/2" 5 ply plywood scrap in front and hearing protection. ****, load, fire...THWACK as more plaster flies. More loose bristles, another hole in dustpan, more plaster damage, went though the plywood like it wasn't there.

Ok, third times the charm right? Move the broom and dustpan, put a sheet of 28ga galvanized behind the cardboard and plywood.

Zipped through the ply and cardboard, left approx a 3/16" deep by 3/8" dia dent in the metal. Pellet was as thick as a dime with a shiny slight dome, bout 1/4" diameter.

Read some complaints about weight and recoil and the incl scope is probably a POS on this gun (because of recoil), but man does it have some power! Can't wait to get some .22 pellets and take a trip to the range.
 
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Old 09-03-17, 05:24 AM
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Don't know much about firearms (just got my first Marlin 50/50), but what you have sounds interesting.

Looks impressive (https://www.pyramydair.com/s/m/Beema...Air_Rifle/4118)

Happy shooting!
 
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Old 09-03-17, 11:03 AM
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Airguns are no joke. They were invented about the same time as the first flintlocks came to be (~1560), and they initially were created to compete directly with "real" firearms. Back then gunpowder created a lot of smoke and stench, and ignition systems were temperamental. Airguns suffered from neither of those foibles. It was a long, long time after that before they started being thought of primarily as a kid's toy.

Thomas Jefferson had an Austrian-made 22-shot .46-caliber Girandoni repeating precharged pneumatic air rifle which at the time also happened to be the standard arm of the Austrian army. (bit.ly/1P1kbEa) Meriweather Lewis carried an identical air rifle on the Corps of Discovery and used it for hunting game as large as deer.

There had been a number of "repeating" reloading mechanism firearms before that, most of which were notoriously fickle, but the Girandoni was the first repeating arm to be the standard rifle of any army. It fired a ball of about 150-grains at 400-450 fps, gravity fed from a tube magazine, and could discharge all 22 rounds in about a minute.

The Girandoni actually had a number of tactical advantages. It had a rifled bore, so it had better accuracy than a smooth-bore musket. It could be reloaded while lying prone almost as easily as while standing, whereas a muzzle loader pretty much obligates you to stand to reload (so you might as well keep standing to fight). And its rate of fire was well more than twice that of a musket with even a well-trained shooter (and the only reason muskets held on as long as they did is that they could be reloaded faster than a rifled-bore firearm, ...at least until the advent of the Minié ball). So anybody tells you the 2nd Amendment was never intended to apply to "assault rifles" because they didn't have them "back then" doesn't know bean soup from split pea.

There's a 'smith in Missouri by name of Dennis Quackenbush who makes precharged airguns up to .50-cal, which have been used to kill African plains game and American game as large as black bear and bison. Quackenbush sounds like the name of a character in a Marx brothers movie, but that's really his name. He's a distant relative of Henry M. Quackenbush, who made airguns and firearms around the turn of the 20th Century. The starting price on his guns is only about $600, which I think is remarkable for what is essentially a custom-made, hand-made rifle, ...and you never have to buy gunpowder for it. I'd be on one like a duck on a june bug but I can't convince the game&fish folk in my state to let me hunt deer with it. Might have to get one anyway, just for curiosity's sake.

But I do have an old-school German-made .20 top break springer airgun. I bought it quite a few years ago when I decided to bite the bullet and spend what I thought at the time was a ridiculous amount of money on what I expected to be little more than a glorified Red Ryder. But it turned out to be a serious rifle. It proved so effective on small game that I gave up on the old .22LR and switched to using the airgun exclusively for rabbits and tree rats. My tactics have had to change a bit because it lacks for a .22LR's range, but I'm just as likely to take my limit with the .20 pellet rifle as I ever was with the .22 bolt gun that was handed down to me from my great grandpa. I routinely take rabbits and skwerls with it at 30-40 yards, and I can't remember the last time I had a crawl-off. It's especially handy for pest removal because it's relatively quiet, not silent by any measure but quiet enough it can be used in close quarters without ruffling the neighbor's feathers. Considering all the different uses I put it to, and considering I pay about $15 for 500 shots, it turns out it's not just a glorified toy. I think it's the most practical long gun I own.

EDIT:
Gunguy45:
...THWACK...
That brings up one of the reasons I so enjoy hunting with the air rifle. The gun makes so little noise that I can hear the pellet strike the target, and I get a perverse gratification hearing it go THWACK! and seeing the critter keel over like it was pole-axed.
 
 

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