50y BR with Thomas HPX

[michaelthomas]

I do understand this is a rimfire forum, but I just wanted to share a little about what’s been going on in Air BR and see what you guys think.

Let me be the first to say that air isn’t going to surpass rimfire anytime soon, but we are putting together some, I believe, respectable performances. This rifle is shooting a 25.4 gr slug at 960 FPS. Typical velocity spreads for 25 shots is about 6-7 FPS. I can tighten that up more, but the rifle will consume more air. As is,you get 45 good shots on a 250 bar fill. The BC on this slug is about .085...so you can see that it’s gonna drift more than a 40gr bullet. At 25y indoors, it will group .050”-.080” ctc for 25 shots. It’s very accurate and repeatable, but managing the wind is the key to decent scores.

Here is 3 cards on the WRABF world card at 50y. This is inward scoring with 1/4” 10, 1/2” 9, etc using a .224” plug. These are not my best or worst. Fairly middle of the road for 4-8 mph fluttery conditions.

246 15x
245 8x
246 17x
————
737 40x

I’m just curious what you guys think of this.

Mike

 

[tim]

Wow, this is rather impressive.
Is this a 20 ?
Back when it was the ticket I got an Anschutz/Zazadny FT rig but to see what guys like you have done in the precision air world has bee something to behold.......thanks for posting.

 

[tonykharper]

I do understand this is a rimfire forum, but I just wanted to share a little about what’s been going on in Air BR and see what you guys think.

Let me be the first to say that air isn’t going to surpass rimfire anytime soon, but we are putting together some, I believe, respectable performances. This rifle is shooting a 25.4 gr slug at 960 FPS. Typical velocity spreads for 25 shots is about 6-7 FPS. I can tighten that up more, but the rifle will consume more air. As is,you get 45 good shots on a 250 bar fill. The BC on this slug is about .085...so you can see that it’s gonna drift more than a 40gr bullet. At 25y indoors, it will group .050”-.080” ctc for 25 shots. It’s very accurate and repeatable, but managing the wind is the key to decent scores.

Here is 3 cards on the WRABF world card at 50y. This is inward scoring with 1/4” 10, 1/2” 9, etc using a .224” plug. These are not my best or worst. Fairly middle of the road for 4-8 mph fluttery conditions.

246 15x
245 8x
246 17x
————
737 40x

I’m just curious what you guys think of this.

Mike

Mike,

Air rifles are very accurate and fun to shoot.

Years ago we had a shooting game called BR 50. The guy that started this game lived in California.

He became interested in air rifles so he devised a system to allow Rimfire’s to shoot against air rifles. Air rifles shot the same target as the Rimfire’s but the Rimfire’s shot at 50 yards and the air rifles shot at 35 yards. Not many liked it and the whole thing died.

I guess the point is one can like both but they are different disciplines.

That pretty good shooting. You are certainly welcome over on the rimfire dark side!

TKH

 

[michaelthomas]

Thanks....This is 22 caliber.

I had never heard of BR50....thats interesting. I can see how that wouldn’t really take off.

Mike

 

[tonykharper]

Thanks....This is 22 caliber.

I had never heard of BR50....thats interesting. I can see how that wouldn’t really take off.

Mike

It took off just fine. It was the forerunner to ARA. I assume you have heard of ARA. It wasn’t until the air rifles were bought in it died.
I think most of the air rifles that they shot were also . 22 cal.

TKH

 

[michaelthomas]

We are saying the same thing....I meant that trying to shoot air and Rimfire together with different distances to the same target was not going to go.

Mike

 

[GeneT]

That's impressive. I love airguns and have been paying attention to yours since some excellent explanatory material that you posted here. You should add some of that to your website, which is a little light on details. Nice work, nice shooting!

GsT

 

[tim]

It took off just fine. It was the forerunner to ARA. I assume you have heard of ARA. It wasn’t until the air rifles were bought in it died.
I think most of the air rifles that they shot were also . 22 cal.

TKH

I suspect you'd likely recall/agree, Larry was a bit of a wild man and toward the end Of .22 he was going nuts, railing against a lot of ammunition issues.....consistency was marginal at best, among other issues.
A big reason for the change, Larry simply threw in the towel and went to airguns as a way to sidestep the whole issue but by then, he'd aggregated so many It became the dawn of IR 50/50 under Milt & Helen Cook and ARA.
Remember when Tony, she ran the thing with an iron fist, even Milt was a little scared.

We were just starting to shoot a little BR 50 when the whole deal turned upside down.
Remember, this was all pre internet so part of the deal was praying you could source something like ELEY from a local shop, and then you had to break out your rim gauge and sort it all ......such fun.
Also compressed air rifles just barely began to show and lots of guys were shooting springers still.

 

[FBecigneul]

I’ve only just begun air rifle and so what is new to air rifle is the new norm for. One would be surprised at the pressures and the velocities one can attain with an air rifle. But I still like rimfire. Better? Maybe not. Depends on the next match a shoot. Those little pellets really move around on a breeze and can frustrate you. I really should decide on a discipline to shoot. Centerfire, rimfire, and now air are taking my youth from me.

 

[tim]

Thanks....This is 22 caliber.

I had never heard of BR50....thats interesting. I can see how that wouldn’t really take off.

Mike

Mike,
Took a while to circle back, but a couple questions.
Understand the whole 22 pellets vs wind, etc. but these days have 22's surpassed 177's in pure accuracy?
Sounds like the whole world of rimfire match barrels is open to you. What's the hot ticket on barrels you're fitting ?

Thanks again.
Tim

 

[michaelthomas]

Yes...the high power 22s can hang with the best 177 in accuracy. The 25.4 gr pellets are something special. Get them up to 900 or so and they shine. The current slugs are a bit of a mystery to me at the moment. Despite having a BC nearly double that of a pellet...they don’t actually exhibit that advantage in the wind. They are plenty accurate, but have a LOT of vertical. If it’s one of those days where the wind is cycling back and forth from 11:00 to 1:00....they are an absolute handful compared to pellets. At 50y, you can see 5/8” vertical difference when it crosses over. Even full value cross winds push the things at near 30-40 degree slant. They are nice in certain conditions...but right now I would still use a pellet.

Mike

 

[michaelthomas]

It’s been 3 months or so since I last posted about this. Been working very hard in the off hours to get a solid shooting slug setup. I finally set about making my own Bullets/slugs. After many designs I have a 40gr boattail that is very accurate and predictable in any kind of wind from a Muller 4 MI barrel. Shot my first 3 ARA cards yesterday in mostly a 6 mph tail wind jigging from 5-7. Didn’t break any records but I’m relatively pleased with my 2150 average. I made a lot of mistakes... mostly due to a lack of patience, but felt like the gun was acting appropriately. I’m confident a good Rimfire shooter could easily add a few hundred points. I had nothing wild.

Now that I have a good slug...swaging my own is 2.5c per shot and I no longer have to depend on the quality control of a large manufacturer. I’m excited to continue the improvements.

Mike

 

[tonykharper]

It’s been 3 months or so since I last posted about this. Been working very hard in the off hours to get a solid shooting slug setup. I finally set about making my own Bullets/slugs. After many designs I have a 40gr boattail that is very accurate and predictable in any kind of wind from a Muller 4 MI barrel. Shot my first 3 ARA cards yesterday in mostly a 6 mph tail wind jigging from 5-7. Didn’t break any records but I’m relatively pleased with my 2150 average. I made a lot of mistakes... mostly due to a lack of patience, but felt like the gun was acting appropriately. I’m confident a good Rimfire shooter could easily add a few hundred points. I had nothing wild.

Now that I have a good slug...swaging my own is 2.5c per shot and I no longer have to depend on the quality control of a large manufacturer. I’m excited to continue the improvements.

Mike

Very impressive.

Can you explain the process of making your own pellets.

TKH

 

[michaelthomas]

Thanks...these are basically bullets...although they seem to be called slugs in the airgun world. It’s just a swage die that I made on my turning center. You precut pieces of .187” lead wire with a chopping tool that has a stop on it. The lead wire is placed into the nose die and pressed with the boattail tail punch. There is a small bleed hole and a fixed stop on the die so the excess squirts out and leaves you with a slug that is within less than 1/10 gr in weight each time.

I can’t seem to post a video of the process.

Here is a pic. Despite the sleek appearance, the 49y BC is .142.

Mike

 

[tonykharper]

Thanks...these are basically bullets...although they seem to be called slugs in the airgun world. It’s just a swage die that I made on my turning center. You precut pieces of .187” lead wire with a chopping tool that has a stop on it. The lead wire is placed into the nose die and pressed with the boattail tail punch. There is a small bleed hole and a fixed stop on the die so the excess squirts out and leaves you with a slug that is within less than 1/10 gr in weight each time.

I can’t seem to post a video of the process.

Here is a pic. Despite the sleek appearance, the 49y BC is .142.

Mike[/QUOTE

Mike,
That is cool. Do you plan to sell these dyes/tools to others so they can do the same.
If so, I’m interested.
TKH

 

[michaelthomas]

I’m going to make them for the guys that are buying the rifle as a package for now. I’m not planning to sell the dies individually at this point.

Mike

 

[HuskerP7M8]

Hi Mike,

Using your 1st target I plotted the shots and did a quick analysis with OnTarget TDS.

Because I didn't know how you orientated the target as you shot it, I just kept the orientation as it was in the image. The results are below and it has a lot of either horizontal dispersion or vertical dispersion, but I'm very impressed with how well you kept the mathematical center of the 25-shot distribution centered on the dot. The offset is about as good as it gets and beats the benchmark I've set of 0.020" for maximizing scores on target in ARA.

I also thought the 2150 score was damn good with that stringing, and I've won and I've seen, a lot of matches in tricky conditions by agging in that range.

I'm curious to know if the stringing is horizontal or vertical, and what the conditions were like.

Amazing work as always by you and I've followed your exploits for many years,
Landy

 

[michaelthomas]

Hi Landy...thanks.

The targets were shot horizontally. It’s a lot of vertical.

The wind was averaging 6mph and bouncing between 5 and 7 o’clock.

I’m not able to hold a good velocity spread with this barrel no matter how I valve tune the gun. If I replace the barrel with a Shilen ratchet, the velocity spreads go from over 20fps to less than 10 for 25 shots. I also gain about 40fps on average. If I could get the velocity spread under 10 with the Muller I believe I could improve my scores significantly. The Muller is more precise and predictable in the Horizontal plane.

I thought I might be able to use a barrel tuner to help with the vertical.... but the muzzle blast and the overhanging bloop tube make about 2” groups at 50. I’m considering edm cutting some ports about an inch back from the muzzle to vent the muzzle pressure before the bullet leaves the barrel. Doing so might allow me to use a standard barrel tuner. The other option is to make a tuner that doesn’t extend past the muzzle.

The TDS target comparisons are dubious. The 2150 would have plugged a 249 on the WRABF target...with a lot more xs. Over the last 21 WRABF cards I have shot I have averaged 247.5 in winds up to 15 mph and as low as 2-3.

Mike

 

[PedroS]

Interesting post.

In fact, WRABF start thinking of a 50m air rifle benchrest competition.
Everything went slower due to this pandemic weird times, but several shooters are testing different rigs.
This post is also a proof of it.
Unfortunately WRABF drawn a draft rules, maybe to be voted on next congress, about air 50m, where slugs are to be excluded, as well as calibers bigger than .22
These put the bar on a more complex state... because pellets and slugs have, as you know, different ballistics, being pellets harder to shot longer.

 

[michaelthomas]

Hi Pedro.... hope all is well with you. I had heard about the addition of 50m air rifle. I agree that they won’t allow the use of slugs...will be too much to swallow right off.

My hope is to get some participation here in the US for 50y BR with slugs. If they can be made competitive with the unlimited rimfire guns...I think that could spark some interest since the long term cost will be much lower and the problem of finding good ammo would go away. Not going to likely save any money on
the initial investment.

After getting a good setup with slugs...it’s hard to muster much desire to shoot at 50y with pellets.?

Mike