Fun day NOT in the shop shooting pellet guns

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mmayo

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A good friend (and superb shooter) visited my home and we removed pests from three properties today safely. We had a request for assistance. He shoots a RAW HMX 1000x LRT .22 and I shoot an FX Crown .22. We were fortunate at ranges from 20 yards to 107 yards.

The last photo shows six consecutive shots of his RAW at 20 yards. Those are tiny, tiny dots. That, to me, defines shooting skill.
 

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mark james

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I remember bench resting my Savage Anshutz Match 64. No issue for dead center. A month later my buddy and I at age 17 & 18 were asked to leave a Turkey shoot (offhand position, 35 yards). I took the first two, he took the third. A quiet discussion was had and we were asked to enjoy our prizes and leave. 😊. Three turkeys and we were gone.

Edit: Never shot beyond 40 yards. And now with my eyes, I still have the Savage, but the racoons have a chance at 30 yards.
 
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Now try it off hand Mark! I used to shoot high power rifle competition and offhand was my best position, usually in the high 90's out of 100. Nice group and that's some fine shooting...even off a bench.
 
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I remember bench resting my Savage Anshutz Match 64. No issue for dead center. A month later my buddy and I at age 17 & 18 were asked to leave a Turkey shoot (offhand position, 35 yards). I took the first two, he took the third. A quiet discussion was had and we were asked to enjoy our prizes and leave. 😊. Three turkeys and we were gone.

Edit: Never shot beyond 40 yards. And now with my eyes, I still have the Savage, but the racoons have a chance at 30 yards.

My longest shooting competition was 1,000 yds. Talk about stretching a barrel!
 

mark james

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Sep 6, 2012
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Medina, Ohio
Now try it off hand Mark! I used to shoot high power rifle competition and offhand was my best position, usually in the high 90's out of 100. Nice group and that's some fine shooting...even off a bench.
I still get the Savage out during good weather. My property sloops up towards the back, so I feel OK. With my eye floaters and cataracts, I'm pretty fuzzy. As typical, off hand was my worst of the four. At best high 80's/100. For the Jr NRA competitions, I got to 361/400, which was decent for my area.

1,000 yds o_O !
 
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I still get the Savage out during good weather. My property sloops up towards the back, so I feel OK. With my eye floaters and cataracts, I'm pretty fuzzy. As typical, off hand was my worst of the four. At best high 80's/100. For the Jr NRA competitions, I got to 361/400, which was decent for my area.

1,000 yds o_O !

361 out of 400 ain't that shabby Mark. The thing about a 1,000 yards is the wind. It can blow one direction at 400 yds and blow another direction at 800 yds. Flags on the firing course will always help. I'm now relegated to shooting chipmunks with a .22 except during hunting season. But I can still nail them at 50 yds which is good in my opinion.
 

mmayo

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Day two. We were much more experienced at this venue and had no wind! We consistently shot ground squirrels at 40-120 yards. The closer, the better, but we were very successful at the longer shots without wind. Neighbors with horses loved us, the property owners with damage to the wood on their house loved us, squirrels or particular feathered critters not so much. At first there were so many pesky birds I thought I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie but with a great pellet gun, lots of air and ammo.

We have a standing invitation anytime.
 

robutacion

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Australia - SA Adelaide Hills
Both of those PCP's are capable of amazing groups particularly at short distances, quite recently I decided to get rid of the only centrefire rifle I had left from my professional shooting and animal control 20 yeas career this was/is a 243 short more known as the 6mm BR, this was the last hunting centrefire I put together, the long ribbed stainless bull barrel was ideal for shooting from the vehicle platforms but not so easy freehand, the weight was considerable but in all, it shot beautifully.

This rifle cal is often used for long long-range target shooting after retired from professional shooting a friend mentioned to some folks in the Adelaide rifle range that I had a 6mm BR so I was invited to have a go on one of the shooting days which I did. They asked me if I was used to long distance shooting, well, they obviously didn't know that I was in the special forces as a sniper paratrooper in my young years so I said yes but not for a long time. What was the average distance you shot as a professional shooter and animal control, my answer it all depends on what I was shooting at and from what platform, that confused them slightly and asked me to explain, I said, the answer is very simple, if I was shooting from helicopters, the weapon used was a semi-automatic with red dot so distances would not extend more than 60 meters as my policy but shotting from the vehicle or fixed platform 100 meters was the average but 300 meters was my limit as most species I was shooting had to be shot in the head and some animals have really small heads such as kangaroos, etc.

They then asked, what was the longest shot I have done with the 6mm BR, I said 420 yards on a 180kg boar with an 82gr spitzer projectile as this was what I mostly used, their behaviour in the wind and grass was very good.

Interestingly, they used their 6mm BR's on shots from 600 to 900 yards mainly on metal targets/dongers so I was most interested in having a good and see what would happen. After some tuning up, I was on target at 600 yards so reaching 900 yards was not that "difficult"/impossible and I managed 3 good hits out of 5. They wanted to try further out, 1200 yards they said but I replied no, not without a different scope as I was already running out of elevation at 900 yards and secondly, I needed to make my rounds a lot hotter and I saw no purpose in that so that was it.

Since then this rifle and all reloading equipment were sold, I no longer had use for it, instead, I started to use air rifle/PCP's more one .177 and one .22 Hammerli 850 CO2 rifles that I converted to HPA and then I got an FX Wildcat in .25 this one more as a hunting rifle than the others, the .22 was now very capable but very heavy while the FX is very lightweight. I don't have any air-rifle range near me but I don't really need it, I have plenty of local small properties where I shoot rabbits and some birds and while we are not allowed to use silencers in Australia none of these PCP's are loud so all good, I have smelled enough burnt gunpowder in my life so time to change.

PS: Sorry for the long post, I can't help myself...!🥺

Cheers
George
 
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