About Jock Elliott
Located in upstate New York, I never met a projectile launcher I didn't like. Besides fooling around with airguns, bows, and blowguns, I pick banjo and guitar. I share my life with my wife, son, and a variety of furry creatures.
Posts by Jock Elliott
The excellent experience I had at the Northeast Regional Field Target Championship (NERFTC) rekindled my interest in field target competition. Field target is, in my view, one of the toughest, most challenging, and most fun shooting disciplines available anywhere.
Air rifle field target involves shooting at metallic silhouettes of birds and animals. Each silhouette has a hole – a kill zone – somewhere on its face. Behind the hole is a paddle. Put a pellet cleanly through the hole, hit the paddle, the target falls down, and the shooter gets a point. If the target doesn’t fall, no point is given to the shooter. The ranges to the targets can be anywhere, from ten to 55 yards; and the size of the kill zone can vary from 3/8 inch to 1 7/8 inches. Further, any size kill zone may be placed at any range.
To be successful, the field target shooter must figure out the range to the target, compensate for pellet drop and wind at that range, and then shoot with sufficient precision to drop the target.
At NERFTC, Hector Medina won the Hunter Piston class by dropping 83 targets, beating the second place finisher by 19 points. Recently, I interviewed Medina by telephone to see if I could discover what made him so successful.
JE: How did you get started in field target competition?
HM: About 11 years ago, I was living in Mexico and started the Mexican Pneumatic Shooting Club. Nothing was organized for airgun shooting at that time, and we became the first club for airgun shooting that was recognized by the Mexican authorities. We interfaced with the Commerce Department to relax import restrictions, the Mexican military because they have authority over firearms and we needed to educate them, and Environmental Protection because we were able to help with some serious pest control problems involving feral dogs, goats, and even burros. We became the interface between airgunners and the government, now there are roughly 25 airgun clubs in Mexico.
The Mexicans are very keen on silhouette because Pancho Villa and his men invented it, but silhouette allows a target to drop if you hit anywhere on the face of the silhouette. So we started promoting field target as a discipline that is a more precise form of silhouette – you have to put the pellet through the kill zone – and closely related to hunting. People in Mexico took to it very naturally and began holding matches. About six months ago, the Mexican Field Target Association was born. That’s a long way of saying I’ve been involved with field target for over a decade.
JE: What rig do you use for FT competition?
HM: I shoot a World Field Target Federation Diana 54. It generates 12 foot-pounds on a short stroke, using a full power spring on double guides. It is equipped with a piston of my own design, and launches JSB 7.9 grain .177 pellets at 810 fps, plus or minus 2 fps. For scope, I use a Horus Vision 4-16 x 50 that has quarter miliradian marks for elevation and windage. While the reticle looks really complicated, it helps me to deal with elevation and wind, and that’s particularly important at the lower WFTF power level. I wanted a gun that was heavier at the nose, so I added a Diana 56 muzzle weight. WFTF is a challenging division because of the low power, and because you don’t use shooting sticks or harnesses.
JE: What advice would you give to shooters who are interested in field target?
HM: The first thing is to decide whether you want to take up field target as a casual recreational hobby or as a serious shooting discipline to which you will dedicate yourself and try to excel. If you regard it as a hobby, you’ll take one path; if you see it as a sport, you’ll take another.
JE: Okay, what if you’re going to do it as a hobby?
HM: People who want to shoot field target as a hobby would be better served by shooting in the Open or Hunter divisions. Those classes have higher power, which makes the shooting easier, and allow the use of shooting sticks or shooting harnesses, which also make shooting easier. To get ready for shooting FT as a hobby, you need to shoot a lot, and that is basically the only requirement. You need to learn the equipment, the trajectory, and become comfortable. You need to shoot under the conditions that you are likely to find in a match. Most spring-piston air rifles do not shoot the same uphill, downhill, or level. If you are going to shoot a course where there are a lot of uphill shoots, you should practice those. But for the hobbyist, if you shoot a lot, eventually you are likely to find yourself doing reasonably well.
Next time, Hector talks about the preparations of a serious sport shooter.
Till then, aim true and shoot straight.
– Jock Elliott
There is a part of me that never got over being ten years old, roaming the summertime woods and fields of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont with my BB gun and the neighbor kid and his BB gun. Those were golden times. It was Big Time, Big Deal to walk over to the general store in Evansville (it was, in fact, the only store in Evansville) with a coin in our pockets to buy a fresh tube of BBs and maybe a Popsicle.
Those were golden times. I’ll never forget them, and they left me with a distinct soft spot in my heart for BB guns. Recently, the folks at UmarexUSA sent me one of the most unusual airguns that I’ve seen in my career as an airgun writer – the Morph.
The Morph in pistol configuration.
What’s a Morph? It’s a CO2-powered repeater BB pistol that morphs – changes – into a rifle and while it does that, it gain some speed and power and gets quieter. Neat trick, no?
The Morph is quite a stylish piece of goods. The heart of it – the pistol, fashioned to look like a semi-automatic – has a kind modern, semi-futuristic look to it that reminds me of a firearm I saw once, but I can’t recall the name. The entire Morph pistol is just 11.5 inches from end to end and appears to be constructed mostly of a matte black engineering polymer.
The piercing screw at the bottom of the pistol grip.
At the top back end of the receiver is a notch type rear sight with a green fiber optic dot on either side. Below that, on the back of the “slide” is a soft rubber flap that can be opened to access a velocity adjustment screw. The pistol grip is nicely tucked under the rear of the receiver and slanted. The rear of the pistol grip – the backstrap – can be removed to insert a 12-gram CO2 cartridge and the front of the ambidextrous pistol grip has finger indentations. On the bottom of the pistol grip is a piercing screw. More about this later.
On the left side of the receiver is a slot for loading BBs. Forward of the pistol grip, a black polymer trigger guard surrounds a non-adjustable black trigger. Forward of the trigger guard, the bottom of the receiver is fitted with a Picatinny rail for mounting accessories such as a laser or flashlight.
The front sight.
At the front of the pistol you’ll find the muzzle and above that, a red fiber optic front sight that is mounted on a dovetail on the top of the receiver. Behind the front sight is a long Picatinny rail that can be used for mounting a red dot, scope, or whathaveyou. Finally, on right side of the Morph pistol, just above the trigger guard, you’ll find a switch type safety.
You remove the backstrap on the pistol grip to gain access to the chamber for the 12-gram CO2 cartridge.
To get the Morph pistol ready for shooting, remove the backstrap by pressing the backstrap release button and sliding the backstrap down. Slide a 12-gram CO2 cartridge into the slot and tighten the piercing screw until you hear a hiss. Squeeze the trigger once and you should be rewarded with a loud POP. If you don’t hear a pop, try tightening the piercing screw to make sure the cartridge has been pierced and is releasing CO2.
You can see the BB loading slot on the left side of the receiver just below the top rail.
Next, put the Morph on SAFE and slide the BB follower (in the BB loading slot on the left side of the receiver) all the way toward the muzzle until you can push it down and lock it in the retention slot. Pour up to 30 BBs into the loading hole and gently release the BB follower when you are done.
Take aim at your target, flick off the safety, and squeeze the trigger. At about 7 lbs of effort on the trigger, the shot goes down range with a pop, launching BBs at around 418 fps average. That’s enough speed to punch through the side of a soup can at 7 yards and split the other side. Keep squeezing the trigger and the Morph pistol will keep sending BB down range until the magazine is empty. I estimate that you’ll get about 40-45 shots per cartridge.
As a repeater BB pistol in and of itself, the Morph acquits itself well. It’s a lot of fun to shoot for bouncing cans or whiffle practice golf ball around the yard.
But the Morph isn’t done. As they say in the informercials: “But wait, there’s more!”
The Morph also converts into a long-barrel pistol or a rifle.
The Morph with the forearm in place.
There are actually two ways to convert the Morph into a long-barrel pistol. The “Official” way is to slide the red fiber optic front sight out of its dovetail on the pistol, slide the forearm over the front the Morph pistol (the forearm has its own fiber optic front sight), and then slide the long barrel down the hole in the forearm and screw it into place.
The Morph with forearm and long barrel mounted.
The unofficial Uncle Jock way of creating the long barrel pistol is to skip removing the front sight and mounting the forearm and simply screw the long barrel into the muzzle of the Morph pistol. The result looks like some sort of assassin’s pistol with the world’s baddest silencer. (A little voice in my head kept saying, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”)
The Uncle Jock version of the Morph long barrel pistol.
Whichever method of creating the long barrel pistol you chose, the effects are the same: the loudness of the report goes down, and the velocity goes up, to around 584 fps average. As you might imagine, with the rise in velocity also comes a rise in penetration. The Morph now easily blows through both side of a soup can at 7 yards.
The Morph fully morphed into a rifle.
Finally, you can remove the backstrap on the pistol grip and attach a shoulder stock, fully converting the Morph from a pistol into a rifle.
The bottom line: I think the Morph is a whole lot of fun. I believe the Uncle Jock version of the long barrel pistol is the cat’s meow for hunting hornets in the back yard. The Morph combo would be a fun gun to use to teach a youngster to shoot. Just make sure that everyone is properly supervised (you have to be close enough to re-direct the muzzle if necessary) and that everyone wears eye protection (because BBs tend to ricochet more than pellets).
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
– Jock Elliott
The Browning Buck Mark URX.
Every once in a while, I stumble on to an air rifle or air pistol that simply surprises me, and recently the good folks at UmarexUSA sent me an air pistol that does indeed astonish me: the Browning Buck Mark URX.
The Buck Mark URX is a break-barrel, spring-piston, .177 caliber air pistol that looks like the powder burning Buck Mark URX offered by Browning. The Buck Mark air pistol stretches just one foot from end to end and weighs 1 lb. 12 oz.
The Buck Mark URX is made of plastic and metal and nicely finished in matte black. At the aft you’ll find a false “slide” is made of metal, while the pistol grip below it is a very comfortable ambidextrous black polymer with molded-in finger indentations. At the juncture of the pistol grip and the trigger guard there is an inoperable button safety, molded in to look like the firearm. A black trigger guard surrounds a black non-adjustable trigger.
Forward of the trigger guard is the barrel which is black polymer molded around an inner metal barrel. The cocking linkage is just barely visible below the barrel. At the end of the barrel is a black blade type front sight. Moving back along the barrel, the top of the receiver has a Picatinny rail suitable for mounting a red dot. At the aft end of the Picatinny rail is a notch type rear sight that is adjustable for windage and elevation. The only other feature of consequence is a lever-type safety on the left side of the receiver just above the pistol grip.
The Buck Mark URX cocked and ready for loading.
To ready the Buck Mark URX for shooting, grasp the end of the barrel and pull it down and back until it latches. This requires just under 20 lbs. of effort, breaks open the breech for loading, and activates the automatic safety. Insert a .177 pellet into the breech and return the barrel to its original position. Take aim, flick off the safety, and squeeze the trigger.
There appears to be just one stage to the trigger and at about 6 lbs of pressure, the shot goes off. Frankly, I was surprised at the reading on my Lyman digital trigger gauge, because the trigger pull doesn’t feel that hard to me. It feels more like 4 lbs., and I had no problem shooting with it.
Now, here’s the surprising part: the Buck Mark URX is, hands-down, the wimpiest spring pistol air pistol I have ever shot. It launched 7 grain RWS Hobby pellets through my Oehler chronograph at an average of 333 fps. That works out to 1.72 foot-pounds of energy. Put another way, it’s not powerful enough to punch a hole in a soup can at 7 yards. This is not an air pistol that you would want to hunt anything with, except possible hornets or other insects.
Having said that, shooting the Buck Mark URX is a blast. At ten yards, I put five pellets into a group that measured 1.25 inches from edge to edge. This is the perfect air pistol for plinking, for knocking soda cans off a fence rail, for blasting a dollar store bag of plastic dinosaurs in front of cardboard box, or for assassinating animal crackers. It’s easy to cock, the recoil is manageable, and report is surprisingly quiet.
If you’re looking for a fun, easy-to-shoot pistol for pure plinking fun, I can highly recommend the Buck Mark URX.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
– Jock Elliott
On July 6, 7, and 8, I spent three days in Bloomfield, NY, at the Crosman facilities attending the Northeast Regional Field Target Championship, and I thought I share some of my thoughts, photos, and impressions of the experience. (If you simply want to see the results, you can check them out here: http://www.crosman.com/croswords/?p=2704 )
The shooter’s meeting under the large tent.
To start, the match was incredibly well run and organized. It was as if Crosman were conducting a clinic on how to host a field target match. Red shirts, worn by Crosman folks, were in evidence everywhere, helping out, making sure things went well. And they did. The Regional Field Target Match was scheduled to start at 9 am Saturday morning, and by 8:50 am, everything was in place and ready to go.
By the time I arrived shortly after noon on Friday, a number of shooters were already on the sight-in range. It was very warm and humid, and the Crosman folks had large coolers filled with ice and bottled water available next to the sight-in range and also under a large tent where shooters could escape from the sun. By the end of the day on Friday, there was a 55-gallon drum filled with empty water bottles.
The two field target courses were about 1/3 of a mile apart. Many shooters drove from one to another, but Crosman also had an ATV and trailer for transportation between the two courses.
Almost every type of field target rig imaginable was in evidence, from Remington Nitro-Piston break barrel rifles being shot off shooting sticks to multi-kilobuck full race match rifles.
Hans Apelles’ rig featured a very tall scope mount.
Hans Apelles was shooting in Hunter Division with a very tall scope mount. When I asked about it, he pointed to his son, Ray. Ray explained, “Dad’s shooting in Hunter. Scopes are limited to 12x. That makes it hard to range-find beyond 35 yards. With this setup, everything from 33 to 55 yards is basically the same mil-dot.”
Here’s what Hans’ mil-dot chart looked like.
When I spoke to Kevin Yee, who had flown in from California to shoot in the Open Division, Piston Class, he complained that he wasn’t doing so well, but he posted a 50 out of a possible 60 on both days and beat the highest score in Open PCP.
Kevin Yee has, easily, the world’s funkiest sidewheel scope knob. It’s built that was so he can adjust it with his trigger hand while shooting offhand.
Larry Bowne shot the entire match offhand.
The match on Saturday was interrupted by a spectacular but short-lived storm.
Dan Finney shot prone most of the time in Hunter PCP.
Ray Apelles designed the championship courses with 1.5 inch killzones throughout, but no one cleaned the course.
In the middle of the WFTF shoot-off for first place, Greg Sauve grins for the camera while Ray Apelles focuses on a shot.
The pistol match featured almost every imaginable style of pistol shooter.
The B course (lanes 16-30) was cooler under the trees, but all shooters agreed that it was harder to dope the wind there.
Hector Medina (white hat with neck cloth) won Hunter Piston by nearly 20 points. That’s Art Deuel shooting an HW98 in the foreground.
Richard Bassett (tan hat) is congratulated by Hans Apelles for winning the Quigley Bucket Challenge. Over 40 shooters took a crack at the 1.75 inch bucket at 55 yards with non-glass sights.
Dan Brown not only took third in WFTF and won Hunter Pistol, but gets the “Nice Guy of the Year” award for providing much needed navigational help to Your Humble Blogger.
In all it was a wonderful match!
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
– Jock Elliott
The AoA Tactical Case, an excellent choice for protecting your precious.
I am a huge Lord of the Rings (LOTR) fan. I read the books years ago, and I have the extended Collectors Edition of each movie. LOTR is a story and a mythical world that really appeals to me. My wife thinks that I would prefer to live in Middle Earth, and there are many times that I think she is right.
One of the characters that I can relate to is Gollum, the little creature who had the Ring of Power, lost it to Bilbo Baggins, and has been on a quest to get it back ever since. He refers to the Ring has “my precious.”
While I don’t find Gollum a very admirable character, I will admit that when I get a new airgun, I become just a little tiny bit like Gollum: my latest acquisition become “precious” to me. I don’t want to see my newest pride in joy get banged up, scraped, knocked around, or otherwise molested in any way. Bottom line: I like to take good care of my gear. I realize that some wear and tear in bound to occur if you actually use and enjoy airguns, but I like to protect them for as long as I can.
As a result, I have become a bit of a connoisseur of gun cases. My very first was a very inexpensive cloth case from a well-known discount chain. The padding was thin, and the case tapered rather sharply. Even though it was allegedly a case for a “rifle and scope,” there were a lot of rifle and scope combinations that simply wouldn’t fit with the case fully closed.
After the first cloth case, I experimented with three different models of hard shell plastic cases with foam lining. These cases work reasonably well but there are some limitations. The first is that not all guns will fit all cases. Some of the hard shell plastic cases are molded in such a way – with intrusions and the placement of the handle – that you can’t always get a gun with a scope to slide comfortably into position.
The second issue with hard shell cases is that, well, that they are “hard” shell cases. They don’t bend or conform to space constrictions. I had this demonstrated to me big time when my brother-in-law, his son, and I were headed to a field target match. We were taking my brother-in-law’s Honda Civic and had half the back seat folded down so that we could fit the gun cases. The problem was that when he showed up at my house, and we tried to slide my hard shell case into the car, it wouldn’t fit. There just wasn’t enough room for three hard shell cases in the space that was available. I put the gun in a soft cloth case, and then it fit.
So . . . all of the above was really just a long-winded introduction for what comes next. Recently, the good folks at www.airgunsofarizona.com sent me one of the nicest gun cases I’ve seen in a long, long time.
The Airguns of Arizona Tactical Case is a cloth case that is rectangular in shape, roughly 47.5 inches long by 13 inches high. That means that this case will accommodate some really large airgun and scope combinations. For example, I was able to place a Benjamin Rogue air rifle, which is one of the largest airguns I’ve seen in quite a while, with scope, inside the AoA case and zip it up completely.
The case can be completed unzipped and folded flat.
The outside is covered in what appears to be black ballistic nylon, and the inside is lined with the same material. Between the two is an impressively deep layer of foam that, it seems to me, ought to provide pretty good protection for your “precious.” A long zipper runs around three sides of the case, so that it can be unzipped completely and laid out flat, providing a convenient surface if you need to do some work on your air rifle.
The zipper has two pulls, so you can rapidly unzip one end or the other. At one end of the case, you’ll find a cloth tab with a metal ring which can be used for hanging up the case. You can also run both zipper pulls to the end of the case and run a lock through the holes on both zipper pulls as well as the metal ring. While this won’t provide ultimate security for your gun (after all someone could cut the fabric to access it), it will prevent the casually curious from getting at it.
Under the velcro flap are two large pockets.
On one side of the case, there is a large Velcro flap. Lift the flap and you’ll find two generous pockets suitable for holding a box of pellets, extra magazines, Allen wrenches, or whathaveyou. Along the long edge of the case are two cloth carry handles, and on the opposite side of the case is a long padded shoulder strap that can be unclipped if you don’t want to use it.
On the back side is a carrying strap.
In all the AoA Tactical Case is an impressive piece of gear. It’s roomy enough to accommodate most air rifles and the extras you might need, padded well enough to provide a serious level of protection, yet flexible enough to conform to odd-shaped spaces when needed.
The logo adds a touch of color to an all-black case.
If you are in the market for a soft case for your “precious,” the AoA offering deserves to be at the top of your list for consideration.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight,
– Jock Elliott
I tested the HW98 with the Nikon EFR scope on board. It was an excellent combination.
I tested the HW98 with the Nikon Prostaff 3-9 x 40 on board. The official name, apparently, is PROSTAFF Target EFR (Extended Focus Range) 3-9×40, and I had a “Fool’s Gold” moment when testing it.
Fool’s Gold is one of my favorite movies. It opens with two divers working dredges on the bottom near a Caribbean island. They are sucking up huge quantities of sand in the hopes of finding sunken Spanish treasure. The compressor that powers their dredges is on their dive boat. The compressor is old and rickety. It catches fire, and in short order results in the sinking of the dive boat behind the divers. When the dredges stop working, the divers surface to see why. The boat, of course, is nowhere to be seen. The one diver figures it out immediately. The other is frantically looking around. “Where’s the boat?” he asks. “It will come to you,” the other diver says. That’s what I call a “Fool’s Gold Moment.”
So, having set the scene, here’s what happened to me. Brown Santa (aka the UPS guy) shows up with a long package from www.airgunsofarizona.com. In it, are the HW98, the PROSTAFF Target EFR (Extended Focus Range) 3-9×40, and a set of low one-inch Sportsmatch scope mounts.
The next day is absolutely splendid, a gorgeous day for airgun testing. I whistle up my son to help me dump all the packing peanuts into a big plastic garbage bag, so that I can get at the goodies. I pull out the HW98 and say, “Whoa, nice gun!” I pull out the Nikon EFR scope and say, “Whoa, nice scope!” Before you can whistle Dixie, I have pulled out the Sportsmatch rings and am happily twirling Allen wrenches, mounting the Nikon scope to the HW98.
As soon as that is complete, I trundle outside with the gun/scope combination and pull out the WorkMate, camp stool, boat cushions, and pellet trap to begin the testing process. When I sight in a new gun/scope combo, I use a trick that Tom Gaylord taught me: I shoot first a couple of shots at 10 feet. No, that’s not a typo – 10 feet. I set the scope on the lowest power and the focusing ring on the shortest distance, bang off a couple of shots, and look at the results. If the shots are pretty well centered from side to side and 1-2 inches below the spot I was aiming at, I know that when I back up to 10 yards, I’ll still be on target and not shooting somewhere off in the weeds.
The sample that I tested would focus much closer than 10 yards.
Now here’s a surpise: the Nikon EFR scope is supposed to have a minimum focusing distance of 10 yards, but the sample I tested, set at 3X, showed the target pretty crisply in focus at 10 feet. This scope has what I would call a modified duplex reticle. When you look through it, the crosshairs are thin at the middle and then thicken at the ends. Everything is symmetrical, and there is a small dot at the juncture where the crosshairs meet.
I backed up to ten yards, put the boat cushions on the WorkMate, sat on the camp stool, and began putting pellets down range. I was impressed with how crisp, clear, and bright the image was in the Nikon EFR scope. Most scopes are crisp when properly focused and generally clear, but few have the brightness of this Nikon scope. Looking through it really was a pleasure, and all the mechanical bits – the focusing and the power adjustment – working smoothly as well.
All the mechanical bits, including the turret knobs, worked smoothly and easily.
There were a couple of other things that I like about this scope. It is relatively small, just 12.5 inches, and light, just a tiny bit under a pound. Mounted on the low Sportsmatch rings, it hugs the receiver of the HW98. Now why is that important?
I have written about this elsewhere: http://198.154.244.69/blog/2010/11/uncle-jock%e2%80%99s-screwy-theory-of-reducing-springer-hold-sensitivity.html but here’s the gist of the argument – “to reduce apparent hold sensitivity in a springer, mount the lightest scope you can, and mount it as low as you can. This should raise the center of gravity as little as possible, resulting in more consistent shooting.”
I began to suspect that something was just a tiny bit off when I noticed that this green sticker was not where you see it now but on the lefthand side of the scope. That should have been a clue!
Now here’s my Fool’s Gold Moment: after I completed all the testing, I was looking at the gun/scope combo on my bench and something looked screwy to me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then, in the back of my head, I heard that diver’s voice from the movie: “It will come to you.” I kept looking and finally I realized the problem. I had mounted the scope rotated 90 degrees – the elevation knob was on the left hand side of the scope tube and the windage knob was on the top where the elevation knob should be. Because the reticle is symmetrical and looks the same in all directions, I never noticed the problem while looking through scope, and I didn’t even figure it out when I was adjusting the knobs. Duh!
Nevertheless, if you are looking for a bright, crisp scope for your favorite springer (or for any of your airguns) for general purpose shooting, don’t let my Fool’s Gold moment deter you – I can highly recommend the Nikon 3-9 EFR.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
– Jock Elliott
I liked the HW98 a whole lot.
I tested the HW98 with a Nikon 3-9 EFR (that’s stands for Extended Focal Range) scope, and I’ll be doing a separate blog on that.
To ready the HW98 for shooting, grab the end of the barrel and pull it down and back until it latches. This requires around 32 or 33 pounds of effort and automatically actuates the safety on the HW98. I don’t know if this is true of all HW98s, but on the sample that I tested, I noticed that the cocking stroke was incredibly smooth and quiet. There wasn’t any spring noise or creaking, just a smooth sliding sound until the mechanism latched.
Slide a pellet into the aft end of the barrel and return the barrel to its original position. Take aim, push the safety OFF, and squeeze the trigger. At XX.X, the first stage comes out of the trigger. At XX.X, the shot goes down range. The Rekord trigger is predictable and crisp. The shot goes off with a tiny bit of twang, but this is a twang that is more heard than felt and is not – to me, at least – in any way annoying. In fact, while I was testing the HW98, my wife stuck her head out the door and said, “You must really like this gun.”
“Why’s that?” I said.
Came the reply: “Because you’re really taking your time with it.” And it was true – I was really enjoying my time with the HW98.
I thing the fit and finish of the HW98 are excellent and so are the firing characteristics.
The HW98 launches JSB 7.97 grain .177 pellets at an average of 849 fps. That works out to 12.59 footpounds of energy at the muzzle. I got excellent accuracy with the JSB pellets, shooting a ragged one-hole five-shoot group at 13 yards. At 32 yards, I shot a one-inch edge-to-edge five shoot group off a casual rest. With Crosman Premier 7.9 grain pellets, I shot an even tighter group at 13 yards. At 32 yards, again I put five pellets into a one-inch group, but this time, three of the pellets went through the same hole . . . clearly more testing is in order!
Did I like the HW98? You bet. Is it “ . . . built for the competitor, small game hunter, or backyard shooter . . . with features that everyone will appreciate?”
Here’s a clue: I voted with my wallet and bought the test sample.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
– Jock Elliott
I had been curious about the R11/HW98 for more than a decade . . .
Have you ever been curious about a product for a very long time and finally got to see it and use it?
That’s exactly what happened to me with the HW98. The first time I became aware of this air rifle was when I saw it in the 1999 Beeman Precision Airgun Guide. Beeman sold the HW98 as the R11 back then. The catalog said: “The Beeman R11 air rifle represents a quantum leap forward in design. Built for the competitor, small game hunter, or backyard shooter, the R11 has features that everyone will appreciate.” Interesting, I thought.
But at the same time, I thought that marketing hype can be just so much hyperbole for the sake of selling products. I also noticed that the R11/HW98 didn’t appear to be very popular. I rarely saw it talked about on the online forums, and it was very rare indeed to see one at a field target match. So when the good folks at www.airgunsofarizona.com told me that they were sending an HW98 to test, I was sort of “underwhelmed.” I think in the back of my mind, I had the lurking notion that “if this rifle is so good, how come I don’t see more people shooting it?”
Well, it turns out I was wrong. I still can’t explain why I haven’t seen more people shooting the HW98, but I can tell you for a certainty that it is a very interesting air rifle that impressed the heck out of me. More about that later. First, let’s take a guided tour of the HW98.
The HW98 is a single-shot, breakbarrel, spring piston air rifle that measures 43.5 inches from end to end and weighs 8.6 lbs. before you mount a scope. It’s available in .177 caliber and .22 caliber. I tested the .177 version.
The cheek piece and butt pad offer a wealth of adjustments to suit your shooting style.
At the extreme aft end of the HW98, you’ll find a rubber butt pad that is adjustable. But this isn’t just any old adjustable butt pad; undo a screw and you can not only adjust the butt pad up and down, but you can also twist – or cant – the butt pad from side to side. So you can pretty much tweak the HW98 so that it fits your shoulder and shooting style at the right height and angle.
Move forward just a little bit, and you’ll find a cheek piece that, after loosening a couple of screws can be raised in height up to two inches. So if you’re running a scope with a big bell and need higher scope mounts, you can raise the cheek piece so you get the same comfortable spot weld behind the scope every time. Normally, you only get this kind of adjustability of fit – including both butt pad and cheek piece – in match rifles.
In addition, the stock of the HW98 is completely ambidextrous
Moving forward again, the pistol grip curves to nearly vertical and is stippled for easy gripping. The stippling is finished in black. Forward of that is a black trigger guard which surrounds a silver metal Rekord trigger which is adjustable. Forward of that is the forestock which has a strip of black stippling underneath and has inletted slots on either side. Honestly, I don’t know if these slots have any purpose, but they certainly give the HW98 a distinctive look.
For those who remember or have seen the old Beeman R11, there is a slight difference with the modern HW98. The R11’s forestock stopped just beyond the stippling, leaving a fair chunk of the breech block exposed. By constrast, the HW98’s forestock extends further, fully covering the breech block.
The HW98 features a full-length barrel sleeve.
Beyond that, you’ll find the barrel, which is covered with a full-length barrel sleeve. There is no front sight and no provision for mounting one, so this is an air rifle that requires a scope. Finally, moving back along the barrel, you’ll find the receiver which has dovetails for mounting a scope and three holes where an anti-recoil pin can be fitted. At the extreme aft end of the receiver is the typical Weihrauch push-button non-resettable safety.
That’s it. I’d be remiss, though, if I didn’t note that the fit and finish of this air rifle is noteworthy. The bluing on the barrel sleeve is excellent, and the stock is handsome. If you’re into looks and pride of ownership, this air rifle has it in spades.
Next time, we’ll see how the HW98 shoots.
Til then, aim true and shoot straight.
– Jock Elliott
The Webley Value Max, a real work horse of an air rifle.
Anyone who is over 20 years old and who has been paying attention should have learned – or should learn very soon – to regard anything said by a marketer with deep suspicion. Marketers, it seems, are continually in the process of naming things in such a way as to convince us of something or appeal to our emotions or tagging on slogans designed somehow to get us to buy.
With the exception of Bernie Madoff (who made-off with a lot of people’s money), it’s fairly rare for things to be honestly named. You don’t hear of “Mostly Honest John’s Used Cars” or the “(Not Really) Harbor View Estates” housing development.
The Webley Value Max air rifle, however, is an exception to this trend. In my view, this single-shot, break barrel, spring piston air rifle is aptly named because it delivers a high return on the buyer’s hard-earned money. The Value Max is available in three different calibers — .177, .20, and .22 – and three different colors: black, green, and camo. The black and green models cost just a penny shy of $150 while the camo model commands a $20 premium. All of them stretch 43 inches long and weigh 6.4 lbs. I tested the .20 cal. green version.
The ambidextrous synthetic stock is equipped with a ventilated butt pad.
At the aft end of the Value Max is a soft rubber ventilated butt pad that is attached to an ambidextrous synthetic stock. The entire stock, with the exception of the pistol grip and forestock which have molded-in checkering, is done up in a flat slightly roughened finish. I found it easy to grip no matter how sweaty my hands got, and it’s the kind of stock that you won’t worry about treating badly in the field.
The muzzle brake serves as a cocking handle and mount for the fiber optic front sight.
Ahead of the pistol grip is a black synthetic trigger guard which surrounds a black metal trigger which appears to be made of a folded piece of sheet metal. Forward of that, there are checkered panels on either side of the forestock and a long slot underneath the forestock to provide clearance for the cocking mechanism. Ahead of that is the 17.7 inch rifled steel barrel which is fitted with a synthetic cocking handle that also serves as a mount for the red fiber optic front sight.
Here you can see the scope stop and the safety.
Moving back along the barrel, you’ll find the breech block, on top of which sits a micro-adjustable green fiber optic notch rear sight. Further back, the receiver has dovetails for mounting a scope and a removable scope stop. At the extreme aft end of the receiver is a push-pull resettable safety. And that’s it – the Value Max is almost Zen-like in its simplicity.
The green fiber optic rear sight is click-stop adjustable.
To ready the Value Max for shooting, grab the cocking handle and pull the barrel down and back until it latches (I estimate this takes about 35 lbs of effort). Slide a pellet into the breech end of the barrel and return the barrel to its original position. Take aim, slide the safety off, and squeeze the trigger. I measured the first stage at 2 lb. 1.6 oz., and the second stage at 4 lb. 10.8 oz. The second stage has a long pull, but I quickly became accustomed to it. At 32 yards, I was able to put 5 pellets (H&N FTS) into a group that measured 1.25 inches from edge to edge. That works out to just a hair over 1 inch center to center. While that isn’t spectacularly great, it is perfectly adequate for defending the garden at 100 feet.
The Value Max launched .20 cal JSB Exact pellets at 731.5 fps average, generating 16.32 foot-pounds of energy. The report, from the shooter’s position, is a resounding WOK! I am suspicious that the shot sounds louder to the shooter than to a bystander because (again, an unconfirmed suspicion) I think the butt stock may be hollow and may have the effect of amplifying the sound in the shooter’s ear. Perhaps some brave soul will experiment with injecting some sort of sound-deadening foam into the stock to see what effect that has.
Despite the somewhat creepy trigger and apparently louder-than-normal report, I liked the Value Max. I liked its utilitarian appearance and yeoman performance. It delivers solid value at a reasonable price. What’s not to like about that?
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
– Jock Elliott
