Air rifle queries...

by Hoot @, Diversityville, Liberal-sota, Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 19:46 (770 days ago)

So, I have a woodpecker who thinks my wood siding is the tastiest thing in the 'hood. I disagree with his assessment but he doesn't seem to take my opinion into consideration. Being in an unfortunately urban area, limits my ability to change his opinion. I have, in anticipation, unlimbered my Ruger Air Hawk in the basement. At 15-ish feet (most I can get easily), I am 2" or so low. Great groups but I'm sure the short distance has a lot to do with it. I mounted an RWS air rifle scope that I picked up along the way but I've run out of upward adjustment (windage is great).

I have not looked due to me "supposed to" being be doing other things, but what should be my expected trajectory? If I am low by 2+ inches at 15-17 feet, what can I expect at backyard distances? Maybe 30-ish feet. Of course, woodpeckers are not part of this discussion.

I also have a Chinese side-cocker with open sights which seems to be on point at the same distance with the sights up a bit from their lowest setting. (I missed, if you really have to know.)

Cheers!

One of the handiest things going...

by Paul ⌂, Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 20:04 (770 days ago) @ Hoot

is the Chairgun application, available for Android or Windows PC. It's by the Hawke company and they no longer support it, but it works fine on my Windows 11 laptop.

But first, here's a quick thing to try - bend your barrel up. At least, that's where I'd start. Take off the scope, lay a straight edge down the compression tube and along the barrel. I'm sure you'll find that it's a "drooper". You can take off the barrel assembly off and use something to hold the breech block while you apply a little bit of pressure to cause the barrel to lift up. A Brit I know has a "magic gate post" with a hole through it that he uses for these operations. Air rifle barrels aren't that hard to get to bend so a little bit at a time and use a straight edge along the barrel/breech block to check progress. Reassemble, install your scope and try again. I'd center the cross hairs mechanically first, before trying to sight it in. Count all the clicks from bottom to top, divide by two and count half the clicks down. Same from side to side. Your scope is now mechanically centered. Reinstall on the rifle, try a few shots, rinse, repeat as necessary until you get it close to where you want it. At around 15 feet I'd not want it hitting more than a inch or inch and a half low at mechanically centered on the scope.

As for trajectory, it will depend on your pellet and velocity. DO NOT accept the manufacturers claims for velocity, most of them are "wildly optimistic". Run a few pellets over the chronograph and you'll be able to plug the info into Chairgun and come up with a good guestimate for where it's going to be hitting at "x" range.

Below is a chart I saved from Chairgun with the info from my ProSport. It's set up with a "point blank range" of 13.5 to 37.4 yards, keeping an 8.44 grain pellet at 762 fps inside of a 15mm kill zone at that range. In theory anyway. :-D


[image]


Here's a link to the Chairgun "End of Life" page. You can scroll down and find the link to the "legacy" downloads. X-Act is another handy tool, also at "end of life", but also still completely functional.
https://www.hawkeoptics.com/chairgun-and-x-act-end-of-life.html

Note that...

by Paul ⌂, Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 20:06 (770 days ago) @ Hoot

you'll need to figure in the height of the center of the scope over the center of the bore. That works out to 2.15" on my AirArms ProSport and UTG 6-24X56 scope. Your mileage (er, measurements) will vary.

By the way...

by Paul ⌂, Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 20:08 (770 days ago) @ Paul

the Ruger Airhawk is a clone of the Diana TO5 Model 34, and a pretty decent one, too. When properly set up and with pellets they like, they can be quite accurate. I kind of miss the one I had that I sold to buy something else. :-D

Thank you Paul.

by Hoot @, Diversityville, Liberal-sota, Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 20:17 (770 days ago) @ Paul

I was expecting/hoping you'd weigh in. I've shot air rifles for many decades now but not a lot and never seriously. I pretty much take 'em where they are WRT accuracy, point-of-aim, etc. The Ruger seems to be a nice rifle but I've never gotten into it for numerous lame reasons. I have been thinking of late that I should come up with a "range" to keep my hand in, so to speak.

Thanks again!

There are ways to improve it...

by Paul ⌂, Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 20:51 (770 days ago) @ Hoot

One easy way would be to contact Mike at http://flyingdragonairrifles.org/ and getting one of his triggers with the two screw modification. Or you could find a tutorial on the 'net (I could help you look if you're interested) on doing it yourself. That'd give you a better trigger. I'm trying to remember if the Ruger Airhawk was oversprung, I KNOW the Crosman Optimus I briefly had was. I've found these relatively cheap rifles to be a lot of fun to play with. The US versions need a spring compressor for disassembly, but an appropriately sized bar or pipe clamp can get the job done.

Here's a forum thread on the trigger mod...

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespringerlounge/th208-trigger-t2059.html

And here's the write up I did on my old project AirHawk

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespringerlounge/ruger-airhawk-in-hand-12-fpe-build-co...

Sold the rifle to a young man interested in Field Target, but then Covid hit and that was that. As I recall, that rifle was only putting out 12 FPE - an 8.44 grain pellet at around 800 FPS, no where near the 1,000 FPS they advertise. But that's "par for the course". Hatsan is the only company that I've noticed comes close to posting real life velocities for their rifles.

And a similar rifle

by Paul ⌂, Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 20:55 (770 days ago) @ Hoot

gone over by one of the pros over there... Those guys take their springers seriously and Solar is one of the best. I've been following his work for a few years now.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thespringerlounge/th208-strip-with-t06-trigger-mod-t204...

I had the same problem years ago

by Brien @, NWArkansas, Wednesday, October 19, 2022, 08:30 (770 days ago) @ Hoot

I used a 3/8" blow dart broad head to eliminate several of the varmints. This sticks them to the wood and is silent. We eventually had vinyl siding installed. I have upgraded to a cold steel .625 blow gun. Sometimes one will attack my rain gutters. That will wake you up early in the morning.

Years ago my neighbor's house was attacked by a woodpecker

by JimT, Texas, Wednesday, October 19, 2022, 09:10 (770 days ago) @ Brien

It would wake them up in the morning, hammering on the house. One morning it woke them up and he could tell it was outside the bedroom window, just above it. He slipped across the room to the widow, eased it up and while his wife was wondering what he was doing he suddenly reached out and grabbed the woodpecker, pulled it into the room and jerked it's head off.

I think he was part Viking.

His wife was impressed. :-)

I love it when a plan comes together.....

by RayLee, Wednesday, October 19, 2022, 14:58 (769 days ago) @ JimT

However, I can imagine it could have gotten ugly and the wife not so impressed.

Just remembering a few times when I thought I'd be clever and do something brave in the name of animal control. My beloved bride was not at all impressed.

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