Gun Porn

Y'all might like this.
As often stated,... I'm an air gunner. This means long distance, to me, is a 200' shot. And, as I've related in this thread, I've had a few issues with getting the Beeman Chief sighted. I've largely rectified the problem, but, am still working on sighting for both the Beeman and the Crosman.
To keep my yard from becoming a lead toxic hot spot, I've built a pellet catch. It is funky as all can be, but, it works really well at catching pellets.
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I went to the local recycler/scrapper, and, rooted around in his steel pile, and found this steel plate. I mounted it inside of a wood frame. I have a bunch of carpet rems inside the bucket, and they do a great job of stopping the pellets. I also drape another piece of carpet rem across the opening.
This is an early picture of it. I've since applied some 90º angle stock on the top and bottom edges, so that I can slide cardboard face plates in front of the opening, to hold various target appliqués.
When we get some wet weather (read: lowered fire danger), I might even take some shots at it with my long idle .22lr rim-fire
 
OK,... I've realized an intersting phenomenon,.. that of seeing the pellet in flight, just before it hits target.
.22ca air rifle at 850fps (official published specs, not by my measurement)

My targets are ground dwelling rodents. I took aim at one, just now, that was sitting upright, aiming across the shoulders for a double lung/heart shot. I watched the pellet hit it at 200', as it hit POA.
Its just the quickest of silver flashes, but, I've seen it hundreds of times now.
Anyone else see the projectile in flight?
 
Thats the way my old Crosman was before I added the new air components (new air pressure vessel/valve), Pump Cup (pumping action seal) and new Exhaust Seal between the valve and barrel. Now it is quite stiff at full pump (10 pumps max), and has its old crack back when fired.
Itsa a great close range squirrel getter. Unfortunately, I cleared out that near the house area of g. squirrels, many months back. So, its just going to sit here until the squirrels have babies, and then send them out looking for their own turf.
 
I have an old Crossman 177 break barrel I have to put a new seal in but that's an easy job you don't need a spring compressor for it. When I blew the seal on the 22 RWS I had to build a spring compressor for it. It has considerable tension and you could easily lose a digit without a compressor. I prefer the 22 because when it hits it doesn't exit the other side and gets the job done with authority. When the Crossman is at 100% it will easily pass through a grackle but it does get the job done.
 
mfrench said:
OK,... I've realized an intersting phenomenon,.. that of seeing the pellet in flight, just before it hits target.
.22ca air rifle at 850fps (official published specs, not by my measurement)

My targets are ground dwelling rodents. I took aim at one, just now, that was sitting upright, aiming across the shoulders for a double lung/heart shot. I watched the pellet hit it at 200', as it hit POA.
Its just the quickest of silver flashes, but, I've seen it hundreds of times now.
Anyone else see the projectile in flight?
Click to expand...
Back in the day, I had a .22 rimfire revolver.

It was a 6 shot, with one of the bores in the cylinder defective.

It would tumble that round, we could see it in flight every time.
 
I was a 81mm mortar man in the Army We also had training on the what was called the 4 deuce mortar. If you stood behind it you could watch the round till it got close to it's apex. If you were ever at Fort Hood Texas you probably know that much of it was covered by an inland sea and that is some hard ass compacted dirt. The 4.2 had a 4 or 5 foot diameter base plate. By the end of the day it had pounded that base plate 2" below the surface level of the surrounding dirt. That was some recoil.
 
I've found that I've seen the pellet in instances, mostly when sighting in. When I do that I usually use two "galleries" for this; one is a long reach out to my rear of property (135'). The other is across the rear of the house, across the patio (65'). Both of these are in broken lighting, and both share shade early in the trajectory, and a bright sunny ending at the target. It seems most prevalent when the pellet comes out of shade, which both target areas offer. It seems that the sudden brightness of the sunlight highlights the pellet.
 
OK,...
After a few frustrating months of trying to figure this Beeman shooter out, and tweaking, sighting, and tweaking a bit more, I've turned it into a fairly fine tuned long distance shooter; for a .22 air rifle, that is.
I've been observing a very active squirrel den way out in the distance; by my guess, pushing three times the practical limit for air rifle. So I've just been watching it. It is another colony that feeds off of the abandoned Macadamia Nut farm.
Up 'til this point, I went with the commonly held notion that an air rifle is good for a 150' or so. It is a commonly referenced distance. I'm a newb.
I felt very good a few days back when I popped one out at what I estimate to be about 200' I've also been using a pine cone at the entrance to a squirrel den at this same depth as fine tuning for long shots, bouncing it around. So I started to feel pretty decent about a long shot.
I went out this morning, and, looked up at the super long distance den. It turns out that squirrels like to sleep in. I went out a bit later, and there they were, just emerging for the morning.
OK,... Ground Squirrels are very similar to Prairie Dogs. They dig burrows, and have the dirt aprons around the burrows. They'll sit at the apron, and, start to spread out from there as the day warms.
In observing them, I was also figuring an angle.
My angle is right up through the trees. That gap in the trees is an easement for the towns water supply pipeline. The yellow hydrant at the bottom of the hill marks the pipe, and is the bottom of the valley that I live in; I'm on the east rising slope, and the image is the west rising slope of the drainage creek for the area.
The squirrel den is a bit over halfway up the hill on that far slope. One of the points of the Yucca plant is essentially pointing at it.
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In this image, the mid-most of the three outer yucca tips is pointing directly at it:
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And my cameras sucking attempt at telephoto:
DSCN5446.jpg

According to a Google Maps satellite image of the area, and, with its size scale set at 20m per assigned scale length, I used another accurate scale, and, measured and calcualted the distance to be 140m, 150yd, 459'

So, I more than doubled my record shot this morning, and with a clean kill.
It took a few shots to finally get ranged, and figure trajectory. My hold-over had the squirrel at the lowest possible center point of the scope, and still have it be visible in the scope.
First shot - aimed directly - hit low, but viewable in scope.
Second shot halfway held over - getting closer, gap half closed.
Third shot, total hold-over - better check that tail mr. squirrel! Really close miss.
Fourth shot - never mind checking that tail.

H&N Sport Barracuda Match 21.3grain .22cal pellet.
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mfrench said:
OK,... I've realized an intersting phenomenon,.. that of seeing the pellet in flight, just before it hits target.
.
Its just the quickest of silver flashes, but, I've seen it hundreds of times now.

Anyone else see the projectile in flight?
Click to expand...

If you`ve ever watched any of Hickock .45`s videos on YouTube, you`ll notice that he has a large gong hung back at around 200 yards distant. When he shoots at the gong with something like a .45 ACP (also around 850 fps or so), you can often see the bullet in flight, with the drop in trajectory being quite evident.
 
Thanks! Good eyes there, yes especially I like the German designs from WWI and before.
I am a hobbyist gunsmith as well, Just finished a "Baby Luger" if you can make it out.
For me the best part of my collection is that everything I own is 100% functional and reliable, another Luger of mine from 1917 fired 1000 rounds last year.
 
Milesc2 said:
Thanks! Good eyes there, yes especially I like the German designs from WWI and before.
I am a hobbyist gunsmith as well, Just finished a "Baby Luger" if you can make it out.
For me the best part of my collection is that everything I own is 100% functional and reliable, another Luger of mine from 1917 fired 1000 rounds last year.
Click to expand...

ALL of your gear appears to be top-notch, including your safe, from the looks of it, I would think that the body is around 3/8" solid steel, not the glorified gym lockers as are so many of the more modern units on the market today. Good stuff ! :)
 
MaxxVolume said:
ALL of your gear appears to be top-notch, including your safe, from the looks of it, I would think that the body is around 3/8" solid steel, not the glorified gym lockers as are so many of the more modern units on the market today. Good stuff ! :)
Click to expand...

Thanks!
It has been hard to build a good quality collection as I am only 26 and buying my own home was my first priority.
If I am considering any firearm I ensure that it is top quality and never been messed with. Also, I only buy things that I can get a great deal on.
I have seen so many beginners like myself purchase a ton of low quality or restored items only to be burned later on down the road.
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right!

The safe is made by Liberty, I highly recommend their products.
I have only owned it for a couple years but it's been great thus far.
 
These are really not "modern" guns, but I thought you'd get a kick out of them.
Rifle: .30cal Winchester manufactured in 1896
Revolver: 45cal Jager manufactured in 1872 and with a 12" (really, 12 inches long ) barrel. DSC00217.JPG
 
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