Pfftt... Its clearly not 100 yards!

So tonight Im in a good mood. The past week or so my father and I have been testing out our small armada of air rifles (all piston guns) to see just how much you get for you money. I guess the better way to explain is like this. I have always "treated my hobbies well" is how my brother puts it; my father on the other hand hasn't had a hobby (other than his working?) that Im aware of... well... ever? So the money I spend on air rifles is QUITE a bit more than what he spends. I have mentioned previously that I own an RWS 48. To date this is my most expensive rifle at 375 to 425 depending on where you buy it, it ain't cheap, especially when you consider that it doesn't come with a scope, rings, pellets, a sling... anything! Take that model 48 and toss on a Hawke 2.5 to 10 power scope and a BKL 1 piece mount and your looking at 600+ quick fast and in a hurry.

Back to my point, so my dad thinks I'm pretty crazy for spending that much on an air rifle. "Why spend 600 on an air gun when you can buy a 22lr for half that!" has always been the argument and up until recently its a true and very valid one. I don't know about any of you but the last 500 count box of Remington I actually held in my hand had a sticker for 89.90 on it... I buy 500 count tins of 22 pellets for about 7 bucks. It doesn't take long for this whole pellet gun thing to start making some damn good sense when your actually comparing apples to apples. So why an RWS 48? I have a history with RWS, I shot and loved an RWS 75 in high school when I was on our MCJROTC rifle team. I will own one of them one day but they are scarce and expensive so I settled for a 48. The mechanism is nearly identical, the weight is quite similar and it just made me smile to be reminded of the old girl I used to shoot so many years ago. So yeah, nostalgia, get over it... the 48 is also a renown hunting rifle, and as mentioned, I do very much enjoy squirrel hunting with an air rifle.

Thats enough dreaming back on days long past, back to the point (man add is a bitch!), I shoot a 600 dollar air rifle, my dad shoots a 180 dollar air rifle that I bought him for father's day last year. Its a Stoger and a mighty fine rifle for the money, but it will get its own post later on down the road. We put the RWS head to head with my (newly tuned) Benji for accuracy and penetration (phonebook) and guess who won? The RWS, no big surprise Im sure, (it made it through the whole phone book btw...) but I told you all of that to tell you this. The accuracy of the rifle makes it almost boring. I was shooting pellets with pellets (yes thats right, Robin Hooding that shit) with it at 20 yards and I was getting a little disinterested. (Ok to those of you who aren't familiar the regularly accepted max range on a spring powered air rifle is 50 yards so pellet on pellet at 20 is usually considered pretty damn good) So I decided to spice things up tonight. I have a mil dot scope, might at well use it! I took our spinner targets (a 4 inch disk and a 2 inch disk) and put them out at what I estimated was around 100 yards. I walked back, ranged with my mil dots and it was well within 5 yards of 100.

So I grabbed my chair and set to figuring out my hold over, it ended up being 4 mil dots, at 100 yards each mil dot is 3.6 inches to the next. This means my pellet drop was about 14.4 inches. I am zero'd at 20 yards and 55 so this is a pretty significant drop for 45 yards. Anyways, I spent the next several rounds figuring out my "windage" as it were on my scope. Then when I was finally ready I moved to the two inch circle. At 100 yards I was about 1/8 inch off dead center. I decided this was one of those "quit while your ahead" times and set my rifle down. I sent my dad a text with the picture of the bullseye in it with a caption that read something to the extent of "I guess you really do get what you pay for." He arrived home a few minutes later (I shoot at his house since its out in the country) and asked me "holy crap! whats the range on that thing anyway!?!" ... its clearly not 100 yards!

So I guess the "50 yard rule" for spring guns I've read about on other forums doesn't really apply as much when you start going up the ladder of quality.

My goal is to one day make it into the 200 club with a spring powered air rifle... We shall see

As always, stay safe and keep it classy!