Useful stuff for airgunners – Part II

For me, the Bushnell Yardage Pro is an essential piece of gear.

The key to shooting accurately at various ranges with an air rifle or air pistol is knowing the distance to the target. If you always shoot at the same distance – like the 10 meter air rifle and air pistol competitions in the Olympics – you can simply sight in for the correct distance and forget it. But if you shoot at varying distances, you will need to compensate accordingly. If you sight in your airgun for, say, 20 yards, and then you shoot at any other range, the pellet will then strike the target higher or lower than the point of aim, depending on the distance.

For example, when I competed in the New York State Field Target Championships in 2004, I had chronographed my R1 rifle, and I knew that the pellet would drop 3.5 inches from my point of aim at 55 yards. So when I was confronted with a 55 yard shot, I compensated by raising my point of aim by 3.5 inches, and I made the shot.

Whether you choose to chronograph and ballistically chart your airgun or not, one piece of gear that I have found is incredibly useful is a laser range finder.

For years, I have been using the Bushnell Yardage Pro Scout laser range finder. At first glance, the Yardage Pro Scout looks deceptively simple, like some sort of funky monocular. Weighing just 6.8 ounces and measuring 1.5” x 4” x 2.75 inches, the Yardage Pro Scout has two lenses in front, an eyepiece in back, a button on top, and one on the side. That’s it.

Ah, but what it does is darn near magic. Pick up the Yardage Pro, sight through the eyepiece, and press the top button. A crosshairs appears in the field of view. Press and hold the top button again, and the distance to the target in yards appears in the field of view. (The Yardage Pro also can be made to measure in meters, to ignore targets closer than 150 yards, and to continuously update range readings, by pressing the appropriate buttons.)

The Yardage Pro Scout does two key things for me. The first is that it makes it easy to set up shooting at a known distance. In my side yard, I can shoot out to 45 yards, but it is a pain in the cheeks to measure the exact distance with a steel tape. Further, I found that whatever markers I use to designate measured distances, they eventually go missing, forcing me to make the measurement all over again. The accuracy of the Yardage Pro is supposed to be plus or minus one yard, but I’ve found it to be spot on when checked against measurements made with a steel tape. So now, I simply measure the distance to the pellet trap with the laser range finder (30 yards, for example), set my gear down, and get to work.

The other place where the Yardage Pro shines is in the field. Estimating the distance to a target can sometimes be very difficult, and with any air gun, once you extend the distance far enough, the pellet begins to drop like a stone. The difference between, say, 40 and 43 yards can mean the difference between a solid hit and a clean miss. The Yardage Pro takes the guesswork out of determining the distance to the target, and therefore how much elevation adjustment is required. As a result, I wouldn’t want to be without one.

Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.

-    Jock Elliott

Useful stuff for airgunners – Part I

I have had a mad, passionate love affair with adult precision airguns for over a decade. Airguns have a lot going for them. They can be shot where firearms are forbidden. They are often accurate, relatively quiet, and fun. On a cost-per-round-basis, they are extraordinarily thrifty. There is a great deal about airguns to like. [...]