Well I "Pulled the Trigger"

OK that was a bad pun, sorry.

I just bought my first modern air rifle. It’s a Hatsan Edge, .22 caliber, rated at 800 fps with lead pellets. It’s a “springer”, you cock the barrel to charge it. It came with a 3-9×32 scope as well as fiber optic iron sights. It’s full sized and heavy, it feel like my 30-06 when I pick it up.

I understand these guns have a break in period. I’ll probably leave the scope off while I put some rounds though this thing. According to the reviews the scope isn’t very robust and will fail eventually. That’s consistent with what Grouse said in an earlier post. I did see a modification a guy made and claims to have 800-900 shots without a scope failure so I’ll have to try that. Where’s the best place to buy pellets?

The best part? Sportsman’s Guide had an internet promotion for Father’s Day. Nominate your Dad for a random drawing for a $100 gift card. So Sharon nominated me, and I won! End result was I got a heck of a deal on this one.

SR

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Look out, bunnies.

Awesome! Glad to hear you were able to spend your gift card on something fun, Dad! I can’t wait to see it and shoot a couple of rounds with you.

Congrats. In my experience, pellet rifle scopes need to be robust, which is opposite of what most would believe. The jarring of the spring in the action is much greater than any rimfire rifle. I ended up trashing the scope on my Gamo and buying a Simmons, which only lasted about 2 years. Now I have a Nikon Prostaff on it, seems to work great.

I buy my pellets at FF, they usually have a good selection. You will notice that the gun will shoot a specific pellet best, whether it be the spendy stuff or cheap stuff. Mine shoots standard stuff alright, but it really likes the Gamo Red tipped stuff. I think I pay $8 or $10 a tin for them.

Well, I just pulled the trigger too on a Benjamin .22 1100fps with a synthetic stock and scope at Ganders. They are marked 60% off and rang up at $108.

I hate having to buy a bunch of pellets that I’ll only shoot less than a dozen of trying to find the right one for the rifle.

Maybe we should co-ordinate everyone buying 2 tins of different pellets and share them with each other so we can all test a bunch of pellets.

How do you know when your scope is trashed on a pellet gun? Or any gun? Had a Gamo for about a month, close to getting it where I want it at 10 yards

It might be something as obvious as the cross hairs breaking, or something more subtle as the zero moving around.

Thanks

Let me know how you like it. I’m in the market…

jighead-two wrote:

How do you know when your scope is trashed on a pellet gun? Or any gun? Had a Gamo for about a month, close to getting it where I want it at 10 yards

Consistently moving zero is when I deem a scope “trash”. I have also experienced a scope no longer moving when being adjusted.

Pat McSharry wrote:

Let me know how you like it. I’m in the market…

Pat I’ll be visiting my older daughter on Saturday, and she has a farm. Plenty of shootin’ room. I’ll let you know what I figure out.

SR

I’m always tempted by a modern air rifle, but I can get away with my CZ bolt .22 in the country and that’s my pest getter of choice.

Found a way to test a bunch of different pellets.
http://www.straightshooters.com/straight-shooters-full-pellet-sampler-.22.html

Well I put about 100 rounds through the new gun today. A few caveats:

It’s a new gun that isn’t broken in yet.
My eyes aren’t very good any more.
The pellets I used were ancient, bent, and not state-of-the-art.
I quit deer hunting about 10 years ago, so I’m rusty with a rifle.

OK now that I have all the excuses out there I can think of, I have to say I’m impressed by this gun. It’s a little muzzle heavy but not bad and easily settled into an “artillery hold”. I plinked at a few tin cans without much success and decided I need to shoot at paper to see what was really happening. It was shooting high and several inches to the right. I played with the rear sight until I had it zeroed in. It became much easier to cock after a while, and it became quieter too. At 30 yards I was hitting every pop can I aimed at, as long as I controlled my breathing and squeezed the trigger. I had a lot of pilot error to overcome as I haven’t done much shooting in recent history. Oh, the trigger pull is a little high, I’m guessing between 4 and 5 pounds but it was reasonably crisp with no take up or creep. Once I got used to it, it wasn’t an issue. We had the paper target stapled to a piece of 1/4 inch plywood. At every shot, you could see pieces of wood flying off the back as the pellets smashed through. This gun hits hard.

Now I need to come up with better pellets, get the scope mounted, and practice more!

SR

I really like these Crosman Ultra Magnums in my gun. You give up a little velocity with the heavier pellet, but they hit hard.

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Walked into Woodbury Cabela’s tonight and found Crossman Premier hollow points in .22 cal on sale for $7.99 !

That ought to hold me for a while.

SR