i'm realy interested about this airgun benchrest
back about 2004 kingsnake told me airgun was going places, said they were
really accurate and fun to shoot, well i've been away from benchrest for awhile and looks like he was right..
i'm thinking they should be more accurate because the shooter has more
control of the projectile and the charge behind it.
my mind is overflowing with questions.
are the guns more user friendly than rimfire?
cheaper or more expensive to shoot ?
as accurate at 50yrds as rimfire?
need more or less GUNSMITHING ?
i've found the airgun benchrest website, but it's not answering these questions, might be just my computer but everytime i visit that site
internet explorer needs to close
my gunfund is growing and just about ready to dive back into bench shooting..
Rimfire or airgun...on the fence
Howdy Gambler,
I'm a newcomer to the AGBR game myself, I shot in my first AGBR indoor competition in early February of this year and now I am hooked...
I've been shooting for nearly 60 years, started in the early 1950's as a boy of 9 with my father's single shot Marlin .22 and have been at it ever since. Prior to the February 7th 2009 AGBR indoor match where someone loaned me a Theoben rifle in a benchrest stock and invited me to shoot in the match, I'd never shot a high quality precision airgun target rifle before, my experience has all been rimfire and centerfire...
In the six months since that February match (I came in second out of 8 shooters and had high target score for the day) I've acquired quite an education in precision airgun shooting. I now have collected a few guns, first an Air Arms S400MPR-FT in .177 caliber which I purchased the week following the February match and the MPR-FT with a front rest adapter plate has very nicely has satisfied my needs for a competitive gun right out of the box and I was able to show up at the next month's matches with my own gun and setup ready to compete.
Then as I listened to the fellows at the matches talk about spring and the start up of the outdoor matches for the season, I decided I wanted a heavier caliber gun in a heavier, more stable BR style stock and after looking at a lot of the different guns available which I felt had the best features for building a more formal BR gun, I decided on an Air Arms S400SL-Extra in 22 caliber installed in a custom BR stock. This gun is working out quite well now that its finished and is presently in the final stages of tweaking and tuning... You can read about this gun in the thread below, "Rifle for Airgun Benchrest?"
And now that my S400SL BR gun is competing, I've started another project for a benchrest gun. Its all about the quest for ultimate accuracy and I've just acquired one of the new FX Royale 400 airguns to be my next BR gun project. Its mostly that I don't like having all my eggs in one basket and this new FX Royale seems to be incredibly accurate right out of the box and I love to tinker...
As to your questions:
"are the guns more user friendly than rimfire?"
I'd say about the same, I shoot rimfire benchrest also and find little difference.
"cheaper or more expensive to shoot ?"
As far as ammunition and air, shooting costs are definitely cheaper, pellets run about $10-$15 per tin of 500 for good quality and a tank of air to charge the gun costs me $5.00 to refill and I get about 50 gun fills out of that $5.00 worth of air. I calculate cost at about $0.03 per shot as compared to Eley black box Match ammo I shoot in rimfire at about $0.21 per shot...
"as accurate at 50yrds as rimfire?"
That's a hard one to answer as AGBR is shot at 25 yards at a similar type target but at a different scale. I do not have any good comparison to compare PCP pellet airgun accuracy to rimfire and part of this is that airgun shooting does not have the top end custom rifles that rimfire does ands also airgun pellets are lighter. 10.5gn for .177 caliber and 18gn or 21gn for .22 caliber as compared to 40gn being typical for rimfire so wind effects airgun pellets more than rimfire bullets. However based on what I have read on several airgun manufacturers web sites, I'd say that typically the airgun has the potential to be nearly as accurate as rimfire. Also, you might look for information from some of the West Coast shooters as I believe they use a 50 yard group shooting format as compared to the AGBR 25 yard, 25 shot target format and they might have better information about 50 yard accuracy.
"need more or less GUNSMITHING ?"
Again, a speculative answer, its my opinion that precision airgun shooting requires less top end gunsmithing to have a competitive gun than rimfire competitors guns. I think the answer in this lays with the English and European shooters and airgun manufacturers having been into precision airgun shooting a lot longer than we here in the USA where precision airgun shooting is in its infancy as compared to rimfire. There are a number of very accurate airguns being imported that sell for reasonable prices that shoot very accurately right out of the box. Here in the US we have only a handful of top airgunsmiths capable of improving on air rifle accuracy and you wil see more people successfully competing with stock airguns at matches than you will see stock guns in rimfire BR competitions.
Hope this is a help in what you decide.
Happy Shooting,
Mitch & Shadow...
