Based on the RTI Priest, expectations were high for their next product release. I get a first view setting up the new Prophet for hunting season!
Jim’s initial experience with the RTI Prophet
A gun I’ve been shooting and hunting with since EBR, is the RTI Prophet, which is an evolutionary step from the companies Priest model of PCP Airgun. I saw this gun being shot at EBR, and was immediately drawn to the streamline design. A lot of readers know that I’ve always gravitated toward tradition sporter/carbine styling in my hunting guns, but of the last few years have been shooting more of the bullpup and “tactical” designs, and have also said there is a reason these guns are popular. Ergonomics, adjustability, easily changed barrels, all inherently easier to achieve with these type of designs.
RTI Arms is based in Slovenia, this company has been building a distribution network globally and their first offering, the Priest, has been gaining a following. After shooting and hunting with this compact and lightweight tactical bullpup, I can understand why.
At one of the premier airgunning event in North America, the Airgun of Arizona Extreme Benchrest simply called EBR, the RTI factory team was shooting the Prophet, which is based on the Priest design, however where the Priest uses a straight pullback bolt action, the Prophet implements a sidelever action with the handle just forward of the trigger guard on the left side of the gun.
The trigger is set light and crisp, at about 18 oz, and breaks like the proverbial glass rod. The straight trigger blade provides an excellent tactile response, and allows the intrinsic accuracy of the gun to be realized in the field. To me the change from a bolt to a sidelever and the positioning on the left side and just forward of the trigger guard is a game changer in the way a gun handles, allowing the shooter to cycle the gun without coming off target is a very nice capability!
The 12 round multi-shot rotary magazine cassette is auto indexed by the sidelever, and performed without a hitch in my experience so far. I also think they have come up with a very neat setup on the regulator, which is screwed into the gun and the bottle, and can be retrofitted to the Priest. As a matter of fact, and gun that uses a M18x1.5 / G 1/2 -14 thread to mount a bottle can use this system.
The bottle used on the gun is 320 cc carbon fiber with a 300 BAR fill pressure. The pre-production Prophet that I am shooting does not have the regulator pressure gauge installed, but my under standing is that it was set at 130 BAR at the factory for use in the Extreme Benchrest event.
I will be releasing a series of blog posts , magazine articles, and videos on this gun and my experience hunting with it as the season rolls along, but I just wanted to share some of my enthusiasm for what I’ve seen so far. The gun is generating about 34 fpe with a Exact JSB Heavy moving at 920 fps, and I can easily keep the shots in the kill zone of a jackrabbit at 75 yards off sticks. As a matter of fact my only real complaint so far, is not directly attributable to the gun. The MTC scope that was mounted on it used low profile mounts which I found very awkward to shoot, I just could not get a comfortable cheekweld. But changing to a set of high profile mounts went far to correct this.
I’ll bring you more on this very cool little bullpup later, keep an eye out, this is a product to watch.
