Afield on Airguns | The challenge and joy of hunting with an airgun!

Raccoon in the Morning

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Jim Chapman

It started as a squirrel hunt on a very early fall morning a few years back. I was hunting my friends place in central Indiana, but when I rolled up the drive, my friend came out to meet me. This was unusual, I hunted the property often but almost never saw anybody when I arrived before daylight, this was a hobby farm after all….. no early rising farmers here. Any said, hey Jim do me a favor, if you can take out some raccoons we’d appreciate. They got into the chickens last night and killed a bunch before we got out to see what was going on.

Shifting gears was not a problem, I had a baby squirrel distress call that didn’t work all that often, but when it did to could be impressive. Normally I would use my Fox Pro with some raccoon fight sequences, but didn’t have that packed in my gear bag for this trip. Shouldering my Benjamin Marauder .25, I hiked back into a woodlot in a somewhat saturated area and got ready to call. This was not a pure guess, I’d found a tree with a lot of coon droppings around it on an earlier trip, and always suspected it to be den tree and had intended to call it. I figured that I’d start for raccoon, but if I saw one of the big bushytail fox squirrels I’d revert to plan A for at least long enough to put one in the bag.

Tucked away in the early morning hours as the sun starts to filter in through the forest canopy. I love being in the woods in camo, feeling like I blend into the background, watching deer walk by within feet and birds landing almost on top of me.

I sat for a few minutes looking around then pulled my distress call out. It was nothing much, the bellows style Knight and Hall call. It can also be flipped over and blown into, emitting a high pitch baby squirrel squeal. I blew it for a few minutes with no luck, then took a break. I watched a young doe pass by, then started up again.

This time I did see something, and all of the sudden the action cranked up fast. A coon was charging right towards me, the only problem I started with the call before I got myself into position and had the rifle laying on my lap. If I moved I was busted. Then he stepped behind a tree, and I raised the rifle, but nothing. I figured maybe he busted me, but gave the call another try letting loose a sorrowful squeal. Next thing I knew he stepped out from behind a tree a few yards from where I thought he was and looked right at me.

The gun was up and ready this time, and I was watching through the scope with the crosshairs right between the eyes. I squeezed the trigger and the pellet impacted with a “thwack” right where it had been intended to go, producing a clean headshot. The coon rolled over and was DOA. I tried a few more sets but didn’t have any further luck, still my buddy and (more importantly) his wife felt that I had avenged their chicken and gotten rid of one pest that was living close to their poultry.

The .25 is a solid raccoon caliber, out of a medium to high power PCP it will do the job with either a headshot or a body shot, though head is better on these tenacious animals. I’ve taken scores of the masked bandit with the .25, and find a heavy round nose pellet is a consistent performer. That’s one of the things I really like about the caliber, great for small stuff but is ready for bigger quarry when needed.

Clean kill, one shot to the head and he flipped out of the tree, flopped and dropped inside of a half minute. Raccoons are sometimes varmint/pest, sometimes fur bearer, and sometime predator depending on where you are hunting and sometimes season or context.

Clean kill, one shot to the head and he flopped over and went till inside of a minute. Raccoons are sometimes varmint/pest, sometimes fur bearer, and sometime predator depending on where you are hunting and this was a pest control outing.

I want to wish you all a very happy Easter, a time for family and reflection, and hope you and yours have a great day. I am off on Monday morning for South Dakota for a couple days, and hoping for an early start to my P-dog hunts. It is kind of iffy though, I’ve been struggling with weather my last few outings. I am dying to get the Daystate Pulsar out for some long range field work, and hopefully will have a video coming your way soon.

Jim

Categories: distress call, electronic calls, mouth calls, Pest Control, Predator hunting, raccoon, Squirrels, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Long Range Pest Shooting

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Jim Chapman

I get a lot of questions about using standard caliber (.22 and .25) Airguns for long range pest control. In this context, long range means 75 to 125 yards, and the viability is dependent on three primary variables: environmental conditions, the gun, and the ammunition. If everything lines up, you can get impressive results on prairie dogs, ground squirrels, Eurasian doves, and other smaller species that are out there a ways.

Conditions includes things such as wind, rain, shooting up or down hill, intensity and direction of sun, shooting position and rest (shooting off a portable bench, sticks, sitting, prone). A a rule, if you have anything more than a wind of a couple mile per hour, you’ll need to pull it in. The other thing you need to understand, is that the wind where you are is not necessarily the same as the wind where your game is. So besides looking at indicators at the muzzle, you need to look for those along the path and at the termination point.

Shooting off a bench is about as solid as you’re going to get it, but not practical for most hunting applications.

You need to make sure that you have a stable rest and shooting position, the gun has to be rock solid and so do you. In my experience the most stable position is shooting prone with the gun rested on an attached bipod or resented on a bag. However, this position is often not possible, because you need to shoot over grass, brush, or rocks. The next best is off a portable Benchrest, but again this is not always practical, especially when you need to move a lot. The way I often end up shooting is sitting with the gun on a bipod or tripod, and to fortify my position I’ll try to find a backrest I can lean against.

You can get a stable rest off bipods, and these provide lots of mobility in the field.

The gun of course needs to be capable of shooting tight groups, and higher velocities with a heavy projectile is preferable. I have found guns in the 35 to 70 fpe range tend to work well for reaching out. I don’t mind a single shot rifle for this application as you tend to have time to reload and you are most frequently shooting in warmer climes. A heavier gun is easier to stabilize, but I haven’t necessarily found that the rifle needs to have a long barrel.

Pellets that I tend to use for longer range shooting are round nose and heavy. These are generally more accurate, they retain energy better, and produce a good terminal effect on quarry. Heavier pellets are a bit less susceptivity to wind, but still if the winds start blowing, dial it in.

Round nose pellets are my preferred projectile when it comes to Diabolo pellets, especially for long range shooting.

Some of the guns I have had good results with are the FX Royale, the FX Verminator, the Daystate Air Ranger, and on the less expensive end I have even had good results with the Benjamin Marauder out of the box. The thing is you need to put the gun, scope, pellet, and shooting technique into practice on a regular basis, and understand how and where it shoots at increments across the range you’ll be shooting. Fill out a card that maps the POI at 10 yard increments, because this can have a major impact on your success as a long range varmint sniper.

The last thing I’d recommend is advice I am unable to follow myself, pick one gun and use that one gun. As your familiarity with your rig increases, so does your effectiveness. If you use this advice, you’ll be able to shoot varmint out to 100 yards ethically and efficiently!

Categories: Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Compatto goes to Texas

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Jim Chapman

I would have liked this gun if even a modest performance due to its dimensions. But add in great performance and this rifle had me at hello!

The Compatto is a semi-bullpup rifle from the merged design team of Brococks and Daystate, that is loaded with new technology. If you’ve read this blog for long, you know I have a marked preference for compact hunting guns, and the Compatto is certainly compact. But performance-wise it can stand with the best full sized hunting rifles on the market. The rifles great trigger, a very smooth bolt action, three step adjustable power, an effective shroud, are all very impressive. However it is the semi-bullpup configuration with the trigger moved well forward of the receiver, that is the secret sauce in this rifle. The design allows a full length barrel on a rifle with a reduced LOA.

The ten shot rotary magazine worked flawlessly through multiple tins of pellets, and its fast and easy to load.

And all this in an airgun that really deserves the name “tack hammer”; on the bench the gun could punch five shot sub ½” groups at 50 yards all day long. It liked the JSB Exacts the best, though I did find the rifle to be fairly pellet tolerant. These days when I find a pellet that performs well it tends to be all I’ll shoot out of that gun when hunting. I find myself using several rifles at any given point in time, and it makes sense to remove variables whenever possible.

A couple buddies and I were hunting a ranch down in South Texas, about fifteen miles from the border with Mexico, holding great populations of coyote, fox, and bobcat. Our base was an old bunk house used for short naps during our otherwise round the clock hunting activities. Toward dusk one afternoon, I decided to grab a small bore rifle and go bag a few jackrabbits. Our primary predator hunting tactic is to call for coyote and cats, but I thought I’d try to lay out a bait pile as well. The primary livestock on this property is sheep, and while they don’t want to eradicate these big desert hares, there is a desire to manage the numbers. Three jackrabbits consume as much of the sparse vegetation as a sheep.

This rifle shoots very well offhand for me.

The gun I had along for small game duty was the Brocock Compatto, which I’d been shooting regularly for a couple of months and had built up a lot of confidence with. I thought this hunt would be a perfect application for Brococks compact hunting rig. The landscape here is rugged and covered with thick scrub-brush such as ocotillo and creosote that I’d have to crawl and push though in daytime. However going out at night I could keep to the roadsides where it was a little less dense, but still not a place for a long barrel or bulky gun. Our technique for this shoot would be to drive the truck slowly down the road working red filtered lights and I’d walk along in front of it. The rabbits would take off through the brush and away from the lights, occasionally stopping to look around and this is when you take the shot.

As we drove down the road, we started seeing jackrabbits almost immediately. They were uncharacteristically shy and took off as soon as they noticed us. At this point there was still enough daylight that the lamp wasn’t required. Coming around a turn in the road, I saw one run up a hillside and take cover in the thick brush. I had an open shooting lane as the rabbit hunched down 35 yards away from me. Shooting offhand I lined up the shot and let it fly. The pellet hit dead on target and the rabbit sprang up in the air, coming to rest feet up. I walked out and collected him, throwing the carcass up on the shooting platform before moving on.

Even with out a sling mounted, the Compatto was easy to move around with.

Working our way along the road it started to get very dark, as there was no moon and overcast in any event. Using lights. I bagged another four rabbits at ranges from 25 to 60 yards, that offered pretty much a replay of the first rabbit taken in terms of terminal performance. The next rabbit took flight when we kicked him up, and ran out to the middle of a little airstrip used by bush pilots coming in with clients for mule deer hunts. Using my range finder I saw that he was 85 yards out, and from my workup of the gun and scope before the hunt, estimated the appropriate holdover would be the second mildot below the crosshairs. The illuminated reticle made it much easier to position the mildot on the rabbits silhouette, and when I squeezed off the shot he took a half dozen steps and rolled over. With this fifth bunny in the bag we called it a night. Check out the video at:

I am liking this rifle more with each passing day, going to take it for some long range prarie dogs in a couple weeks, and am expecting it to do very well on the wide open grasslands of South Dakota.

Categories: Airguns of Arizona, Brocock, bullpup, Daystate, Hunting Guns, Jackrabbits, offhand shooting, Pest Control, Prairie dogs, Rabbits, Rifle stocks, shrouded barrel, Small Game Hunting, stocks, Uncategorized | Tags: Compact rifles, Compatto | 5 Comments

Prepping the Compatto!

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Jim Chapman

I’ll be leaving at the end of the week for a few hunts spread over a dozen days all around the great state of Texas. I’ll be doing hunts for a black buck, hogs, predators, and rabbits using several new rifles. The gun I’ve selected for my small game hunt is the Brocock Compatto, a compact little hunting rig that had me hooked from the first time I saw it a few months back when visiting Daystate over in the UK. Anybody that knows me, knows that I have a fondness for carbines and short barreled rifles, at the same time I am not willing to compromise on performance to get the reduced dimensions. My shooting experience with this rifle indicates I’m on the trail of a great small game hunting rig.

This little rifle has it all going for it; accuracy, 30 fpe energy (adjustable power), a great trigger, a smooth bolt action cocking mechanism. The semi bullpup configuration allows a longer barrel while reducing the LOA.

I find the stock on the rifle ergonomic and compact, the rifle weighs 5.9 lbs and has an overall length of 34″ including the Lothar Walther barrel replete with the Hugget moderator. I found that the rifle facilitated a good cheek-weld and sight alignment, comfortable positioning of the trigger finger, it’s easy to get at the safety, and I can easily cock the rifle while staying on target. I guess if I had to be picky, the only aspect I’m not completely sold on is the positioning of the Picatinny mount accessory rail, as it happens to sit right where I like to position my hand on the forestock. Having said this, it doesn’t really bother me and it’s a minor complaint.

I do like the fit and ergonomics of this semi-bullpup design. I could see this becoming my favorite squirrel rifle this season!

I’ll post an in depth review on my website and a video on the American Airgun Hunter YouTube channel after my upcoming hunt, and will include detailed results shooting over the chronograph for velocity and shot count. For now I will say that the shot to shot consistency with this rifle is very good, it generates about 29 fpe, and gets 30-35 usable shots. Another nice feature is that the gun has an adjustable power setting in three steps, allowing the hunter to prioritize power or shot count.

The accuracy at 25 and 50 yards is very good, and I frequently shot ragged one hole 5 shot groups at 25 yards, and groups easily covered by a dime at 50 yards. The 10 shot rotary magazine worked flawlessly, and I think this is an exceptionally smooth functioning gun!

From a qualitative perspective, I’ve spent a lot of time shooting steel spinners at varying distances offhand, sometimes off sticks, standing sitting, kneeling, and prone. The gun is one of the most shootable rifles I’ve ever gotten my hands on. I cannot wait to get it out hunting!

I wanted to share this initial experience from my work up of the gun. I’ll be posting some results to share how it worked on cottontails, the big Texas jackrabbits, and maybe we’ll manage to call up a raccoon or fox. Hope you all have a great week, and can make time to get out and do some shooting!

Categories: Airguns of Arizona, Brocock, Daystate, Hunting Guns, offhand shooting, pest birds, Pest Control, Power, Prairie dogs, Rifle stocks, shooting sticks, Small Game Hunting, stocks, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Planning a Traveling Hunt

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Jim Chapman

Sitting on the plane winging my way home from Japan again. I do this trip 6 or 7 times per year, and it just doesn’t get any shorter. However it lets me catch up on movies I probably wouldn’t see otherwise and much needed time to catch up on writing. But these trips also give me time for planning my trips. Next week I’m leaving for 11 days in Texas, on three separate hunts.

I’ve had a lot of readers write to ask me how I go about planning a traveling hunt, so thought I’d use this flight time to tell you how I go about organizing my trips, because there is a need to maximize my time to get everything done. The objectives of the upcoming Texas hunts, besides satisfying my love of hunting, is to fulfill the following deliverables: use 4 different guns to take multiple species (predators, hogs, black buck, jackrabbits), generate 4 articles for various magazines (and a couple blog posts), generate 4 short articles for my website and 4 videos for youtube. This year I have commitments to write over 50 articles, do 25 YouTube videos, and about a dozen segments for American Airgunner. With a full time job outside the hunting world the only way I make this work is by planning

The first thing to do is decide what and where I’ll hunt, which of the guns I have in for testing are suited for the intended game and hunting methods. The next step is to build a schedule, for instance two days I’ll use gun X to hunt quarry X. The next two days, etc etc. Then for those hunts I storyboard the articles and video so that I know what video or photos I’ll need. I also figure out if I can use some ancillary gear (scopes, pellets, shooting sticks, range finders etc) for some additional articles or videos.

The camera gear I’m using these days are: a Cannon Rebel T6i DSLR, a Vixia HD Videocam, a couple of GoPro’s, a compact Sony Videocam, a couple tripods, selfie stick and a scope mount for through-scope shots. I bring extra batteries, SD cards, and my laptop so I can write and edit during my down time. This puts on a lot of pressure to get results, and hunting is hunting so there are no guarantees. I typically build in some extra days in case things don’t go as planned.

I book my flights well in advance to keep costs down, but you have to watch out for hidden costs. I can get a flight on a budget carrier to Texas for $200.00, but then they charge me $200-300 for checking my guns, though shipping the guns in advance is an option. I frequently fly on business and have pretty high flight status on Delta, so if I can get my flights on this airline can check my guns for free. Even if the base ticket price is higher, with no baggage fees the actual cost is lower (and Delta is my go-to airline).

For air, if I don’t ship tanks in advance I’ll find a dive shop online and rent full tanks and have them waiting for pickup on my arrival. Some times there is a local source that can loan me tanks in the area, AoA when flying into Phoenix, AoT when flying into Dallas, or friends in the area that I hunt with that always have full tanks on hand.

I hunt on my own, with other airgun hunters, and various outfitters. When hunting new areas alone, I’ll use google maps and do as much online research as possible, plus talk with people that know the area. However when hunting in new areas it is generally more productive to go out with a local, so this is an approach I’ve been using more. In an upcoming post I’ll do a behind the scenes write up of my Texas trip to tell you how my plans went and if I got everything done that was required!

Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Choice of Caliber

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Jim Chapman

After all these years of hunting, shooting with, and writing about Airguns, the most frequent question I get is “what caliber is best”? The answer I give is probably not the crisp and clear response that is hoped for, because there are many variables that come into play. Personal preference aside; it depends on the type of gun, the power levels being used, what the gun is being used for, what’s available in the gun model the buyer wants. I’ll tell you about my personal preferences and why, then take a bit broader look at the question.

The right caliber depends on the job you need done. Right now you can get diabolo pellets ranging from .177 to .357!

My preference in PCP calibers for small game has generally been a .22. That is not to say there is anything wrong with a .177 or .20, however the .22 has a breadth of application that is hard to beat. Most PCP designs generate the optimal power for the larger pellet, the .22 is accurate (as a rule), and it carries well for longer range shots (compared to the smaller pellets). A round nose or a hollowpoint has good terminal performance on small pest species, but a heavy pellet in a more powerful gun will also let you step it up on larger game such as a groundhog or raccoon.

On the other hand I don’t have such a strong preference for the .22 in springers and will often shoot .177. In springers, guns set up for .177 may have a lighter cocking effort than a larger caliber, I think they recoil less, and from a practical point of view, this is the most common caliber for these guns. I also tend to limit my shots to closer range out of a springer, because I don’t shoot them as well as PCP’s, so I’m not as concerned about long range capability. One of my all-time favorite rifles, which I’ve frequently spoken of, is the little Beeman C1 carbine. I have taken more game, ranging from ground squirrels to very large jackrabbits with this 14 fpe .177 than any spring piston gun I’ve ever owned. The .22 caliber version of this particular rifle, did not appeal to me, I didn’t like the shooting characteristics, the accuracy was only OK, and the trajectory was loopy. But in other springers I found the exact opposite, with better accuracy in the .22 over the .177……. So sorry to those wanting a black and white answer …. It depends.

I’m using the .25 a lot these days for my small game guns. But if you like the .22, no problem there either. I save the .177 for the smaller stuff, but that’s just me. Lots of small game falls to the .177, but I hunt in some thick brush and want a decisive hit that anchors my quarry.

The reason I’m not a bigger fan of the .20 is simply a question of logistics; pellets are harder to find, there is a more limited selection of designs, and fewer guns chambered for it. And when you do find one, you may have to pay more for it. But that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with the caliber, and many ways it is a good compromise getting higher velocities than the .22, longer carrying range than a .177 with a flatter trajectory than a .22, and larger wound channel than the .177. If you can find it in the gun you like, and have a supply of the pellet it performs best with, this can be a great option for a springer especially.

There is of course the .25 which has been the biggest of the Diabolo pellets. But recently we’ve been presented with more choices; the .30 and .35. I love these calibers in the right gun (generally a PCP) for the right game. Before Talking about where these are favored calibers, let me say something about big calibers in springers. There are a few .25 caliber springers on the market, and recently I’ve been using a newly released .30 caliber springer. These guns would not be my recommendation if it was to be your only rifle, or if the intended use was anything other than hunting. They are hard to cock, kick like a mule, and take a lot of practice to be accurate with. They are specialty guns for a niche market. And again while the bigger calibers in spring piston guns would not be my usual recommendation, if you have a hunting application requiring a moderate amount of power and the generation of a big hole, there is nothing wrong with the option. They are actually fun to shoot …. In moderation!

The .30 is good for smaller predators and small game. A good crossover caliber, and if you get a shot at a yote, take it.

But if we shift the discussion to large calibers in PCP’s the story changes; I mentioned that in the past my PCP preference has been the .22, but for much of my small game hunting I’ve been moving to the .25 over the last few years. In a 45 fpe gun it works great on squirrels and rabbits, but if an opportunity presents for a fox or a raccoon it’s still a decisive round. And in the last couple years the .30 has been impressing me. Like the .25 it bridges the small and medium sized quarry, but skews a bit more towards the larger stuff without being ridiculously over powered for smaller targets. I’ve taken squirrel, rabbits, raccoons, bobcats and coyote with this caliber in a 80 fpe gun.

The .35 is the new kid on the block, and it is impressive …… For the right application. It would not be my choice for bigger game such as deer or hogs. A .35 cast bullet out of a 200 fpe gun is acceptable, but the .35 Diabolo in a 100 fpe gun is not a big game gun. It is however a great predator gun; I’ve taken bobcat, coyote, javalina, and turkey and it’s a great option for this type of quarry. It’s way too much for small game though.

The .35 was my go-to for suburban coyote, gets the job done, and is just about perfect for those inside of 50 yard shots, body or head.

So to distill my message from this rambling post; for a small game springer .177 or .22 work for me. For my small game PCPs I like the decisiveness and flexibility of the .25. If I am going to bridge small game to predators the .30 is a good option, and if I won’t be heading south of predator sized game the .35 works a trick. And note that for every one of these “rules of thumb” there are exceptions. So use what I’ve said as a guide line bout don’t be too rigid, the main thing is that you want a gun you like, that has its sweet spot where you’ll do most of your shooting, but has the flexibility to cover you in those corner cases.

Other stuff

In Japan right now, but when I get home, will rest up for a few days then off to Texas for 11 days of hunting for small game, hogs, predators and black buck! This is the start of a very active hunting period for me, booked for 2-3 traveling hunts per month throughout the rest of the year! Going to South Africa, Mexico, and maybe Patagonia as well! Check in often, I’m back on track with updating the blog, I hope you’re all getting out shooting and enjoying the tail end of winter!

Categories: Airgun Expedition, Big Bore Airguns, Hunting Guns, Jackrabbits, Long Range shooting, pest birds, Rabbits, Small Game Hunting, springers | Tags: .177, .20, .22, .25, .30, .35, caliber | 7 Comments

Mini Expeditions With Your Airgun!

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Jim Chapman

Besides airgun hunting, I like to fish, hike, bike, kayak and camp. To optimize my field time, I’ve been combining these various activities, so I’ll load up my kayak with ultralight camping gear, an air rifle, and take off on an overnighter. This lets me get further into the back country or access areas closed to foot traffic, and let’s me spend the midday when hunting slows down, fishing or lounging in my hammock.

A trip I did this winter, was to combine an ultralight camping trip with a late season squirrel hunt…… On snow shoes! Even though I’ve lived in the colder part of the country for a few years now, I am still a warm weather guy. But this year I bought some snowshoes and have been doing a lot of hiking to get in condition, this spring I am going to hike Mt Fuji as a weekend break during one of my regular trips to Japan. Anyway, I started thinking about doing a winter ultralight camping trip, so naturally the possibility of taking one of my Airguns was right on the heels of this idea.

Snowshoes on my feet, gun and pack on my back, I hit the frozen woods!

On a day off I loaded up my gear: a solo bivy tent, down bag and liner, sleeping pad, solid fuel stove and cook kit, headlamp, food and water went into my pack, and I decided to carry the AA TDR rifle. My plan was to hike through part of a state park and over to a friends farm that borders it on snowshoes, hunt the farms 40 acres of wood, overnight, then hump it back on snowshoes the next morning.

I was smiling a little less after a very cold night, but it was an experience!

I’m writing up the story for a magazine article so won’t go into details other than to say; I hiked further because I was spatially disoriented (lost), shot and ate a squirrel (over Raman noodles), froze my tail off (but survived), and hiked out in time for lunch with my girls. I honestly don’t know if I’ll do this in winter again, it was very cold, but it was a mini adventure that got me fired up and can’t wait for the spring and summer months to roll around!

A couple years back I took a fall trip, it had started to cool down but nothing like this recent frigidly cold outing. I loaded the gear into my Ocean SOT kayak, which is fully rigged for fishing, and took off for a couple days. My gear on this trip was my camping hammock with insect net and tarp, lightweight sleeping bag, alcohol stove and cook kit, my AirForce Talon-P, camo insect suit, and my regular kayak fishing rig (including a stocked ice box).

My kayak is a great way of getting into areas without trails or public access. On navigable water stay below the high water mark and you have a lot of places to explore!

My wife dropped me at a spillway coming off a large reservoir, I followed the stream through farmlands where I camped along the way, to a lake where I had some great fishing all to myself. With no public access across the farms, I hunted squirrels in the trees bordering the stream, and threw my hammock up within the high water mark. On day two I paddled to a take out at a local city park, met my wife, loaded the gear and drove a few miles home. A great trip, and for the most part I didn’t see any other people, even though I was within a suburban/hobby farm environment a couple miles from town.

The trips I’ve planned for the warmer months this year, include more on my kayak, more ultralight hike/camping, taking off on my mountain bike, using my Jon boat to explore some of the rivers and small lakes all around us, and mixing up some fishing and hunting. And on each and every trip, I will take an air ridle appropriate for the mode of travel, sure that new opportunities will become available along the way.

Hammocks, airguns, and kayaks; this mix of gear opens a lot of possibilities

When you get to a certain place and time in life, it can be hard to get away on those adventures you did when you were young. I spent the better part of a summer sailing and living on my small sailboat in the Sea of Cortez when I was 19, three weeks hiking the lower PCT and entire summer long collecting trips (with a herpetological bent) in the southwestern deserts in my teens, weeks wandering South America, Europe, and the Caribbean in my twenties. But college, carrer, wife, kids, and other things become more important as you (slowly in my case) grow up, and the adventures get thinner on the ground.

My ultralight kit has a base weight of 10 lbs, not counting gun.

I am lucky, traveling to Europe and Asia on business a lot, going off hunting in Africa most years, doing a lot of hunting trips, and I get to do a lot of shooting. I enjoy all of this immensely, but these don’t feel like adventures per se. However, add a unique means of transport (kayak, bike, snowshoes, etc), and a night alone in a camp you set up while on the go, and it turns your fishing trip or squirrel hunt into a bonfide mini-adventure!

And the best part; this doesn’t take a lot of time or a lot of money, and you are only limited by a willingness to do a little research and preparation. There is hardly a place in the country where you can’t get away on your own little expedition, give it a try, and let’s hear about it!

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYxX7Gv5A4gAhbZYBE-gf_Q

Website: http://www.americanairgunhunter.com/

Categories: Airgun Expedition, Camping with Airgun, Destinations, fall hunts, Hunting Accessories, Hunting Guns, Jackrabbits, Small Game Hunting, Spring time hunting, stealth hunting, Urban hunt, where to hunt | 7 Comments

Back on track!

Posted on February 6, 2016 by Jim Chapman

There’s been a lot going on with the new year; the SHOT Show has come and gone, I’ve had a lot of writing work to get caught up on as well as picking up some new publications, and getting ready for more hunts this year than I’ve ever had in a 12 month period. Also had some great new guns that I’ve been working up, and also have spent a lot of time improving my indoor testing range and studio for photo and video production. So while I know my blogging has been a bit erratic, I think I’m now in a good place to get caught up. I will work on answering all the posts and emails, and thank you for sticking with me. But with all this activity and new stuff, this week I want to talk about an old favorite …… again. I know it seems that every year I write something about my Beeman C1 springer, but then it seems that at some point every year I fall in love with this gun again….. so here we go!

Fig 1. The author lining up a shot with his Beeman C1 .177. This gun has taken literally hundreds of desert jackrabbits since it was purchased in the late 1990’s.

My Favorite Springer

I was recently speaking with a firend in the airgunning trade, and he remarked that there has been a sustained growth in the North American airgun market over the last few years. He attributed this to the growing popularity of airguns for small game hunting and pest control. Many North American hunters are beginning to appreciate that airguns are quiet, inexpensive to shoot, ammunition is available and that they are capable of delivering tack driving accuracy with enough power to be very effective in the field.

Everybody that reads this column knows that the airgun hunter has a couple options when considering an airgun; either a spring piston or a pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) power plant being the most widely used. Pre-charged pneumatics are gaining a lot of traction with the enthusiast and hunting intelligentsia, and the fact is that I use PCPs a lot more than any other type of airgun. The other power plant is of course the spring piston airgun; the advantages being that they are fully self-contained, can be quite powerful and accurate, and as a rule cost a lot less than PCPs. The disadvantages are that they tend to be larger and heavier (not always the case though), have more recoil so take a bit more practice to shoot well, and require more effort to cock as a strong spring must be compressed to ready the gun for shooting.

A compelling argument can be made for either of these power plants, and there are strong proponents for both. I think that it depends on your intended use, your specific hunting requirements, personal preferences, and how deep you want to go into your wallet. Admittedly the cost of entry level PCPs is coming down, but even a high quality springer will get you into the game for quite a bit less. But outside of financial factors, my personal view is both are worthwhile and valid hunting tools. I have both and use both for hunting a variety of quarry, but in this post I want to take a look at the spring piston power plant, and more specifically I’ll talk about one of my all-time favorites.. I find the idea of a fully self-contained gun very appealing, and will often take a springer with me when heading out fishing or camping, anywhere that I don’t want to carry along a lot of extra gear or can’t be reliant on the availability of an external air source to keep the gun shooting.

Fig 2. The C1 is compact and carries well, even when hiking miles over rough desert terrain

Spring Piston Performance

The spring piston airgun generates power using a powerful spring-loaded piston that is housed within a compression chamber. Cocking the gun causes the piston assembly to compress the spring. When the spring is released it pushes the piston forward compressing a column of air in the chamber behind the pellet. The spring piston power plant is capable of developing sufficient energy to get a projectile moving at supersonic velocities, though effectiveness as a hunting tool is not solely a function of muzzle velocity. All discussions of terminal performance aside, very powerful airrifles tend to be large and heavy guns. If I need this power I will put up with the bulk, however, for a lot of small game, and especially when I want to keep inside of 35 yards, I’d rather have a compact gun. To get a compact springer generally means giving up some power and I’m OK with that. I have owned many spring piston Airguns over the years, most have stayed with me a short while, a few for quite long periods, and some have been superseded with more recent versions of the same model. But one that has been in my collection for well over 20 years is my Beeman C1. And even though it is a .177,and I have few .177’s having gravitated towards larger calibers, I love this gun. It meets virtually every requirement I have; it is accurate, it has the right power for squirrels, rabbits, etc, it’s very compact and light, easy cocking effort, great ergonomics (for me, shooters tend to love or hate the stock), and it digests a large variety of pellets.

There are a lot of very powerful springers, some in the 30-40 fpe range, being produced today, but these guns are all huge and none (that I’ve shot) are particularly comfortable to shoot, especially for extended target or plinking sessions. But my little C1 is a blast to shoot all day long; I’ve been testing a cool new .30 caliber springer that I actually like, but after a couple dozen shots you have been rattled and shaken! But I’ve gone through a tin of pellets with my C1 in a session and feel none the worse for the experience..

Fig 3. The Beeman C1 with a ground squirrel dispatched at 35 yards with a headshot.

In the United Kingdom, where airgun hunting has a huge following, hunters are limited to 12 fpe guns without afirearms certificate (FAC). They have taken untold numbers of rabbits, squirrels, pigeons, and crows with these guns over the years. The whole objective of airgun hunting is achieving optimal accuracy from both the gun and the hunter. This is the overriding criteria; once a gun is doing 12 fpe any small game animal it connects with is going down cleanly so long as the shot placement is correct. However, once pinpoint accuracy is achieved, more power never hurts, and it will permit the hunter to reach out a bit further! As mentioned I’ve been using this Beeman C1 (built by Webley & Scott) for well over two decades, and this mid 800 fps carbine in .177 has put more game in the bag than just about any springer I’ve ever owned. If you’ll be going after larger quarry such as raccoon, a gun producing over 20 fpe or more is a good idea.

If you will be doing a lot of plinking or are a smaller shooter, another consideration when choosing a hunting springer is the cocking effort. It only takes a single cocking motion to prepare the gun for shooting, but the effort can be substantial. As a rule of thumb, the more powerful the gun the more effort will go into cocking it. That’s why my 30 fpe .25 caliber Webley Patriot is not the first choice when plinking. The 40 lb cocking effort is very manageable for a days hunting, but is less ideal if the intention is to shoot a couple tins of pellets during a range session! I think finding the right balance of accuracy, power, cocking effort, and field attributes (size, weight, fit) is key to selecting the right gun.

There are many options available when it comes to the selection of a spring piston air rifle for hunting. The one that is best suited for you depends on what you want to hunt, where you will hunt, what ranges you’ll shoot at, and of course, which rifle appeals to your sense of aesthetics. Many of the newer spring piston airgun designs are capable of supersonic velocities. But as discussed, there is more to it than simply getting the highest muzzle velocity; it’s picking a gun that yields adequate power and exceptional accuracy. When you hit a small game animal with a head shot at 35 yards, it doesn’t really matter if the muzzle velocity was 900 fps or 1130 fps. It’s all about shot placement! When making your rifle and pellet selection, keep in mind that once the pellet goes supersonic there may be some degradation in accuracy depending on pellet design, and it will be louder. With the right gun and pellet combination, a spring piston airgun provides more than enough power to cleanly and efficiently kill just about any small game or pest species found in North America. And because they are quiet and have limited range, they are practical for use in more built up areas. This can result in more hunting opportunities closer to home, and opens up otherwise inaccessible areas where even a rimfire is too loud and carries too far be practical.

People will have their favorite guns, and as mentioned there are a lot of good ones and quite a few great ones out there. I’ve told you about my favorite springer, and why it has made the grade in my eyes. Do your homework, understand what you are going to use it for, how much you can spend, etc. These days when I am going to buy a gun for my hunting use, I ask myself “do I think I’ll still want to use this gun a few years down the line”? I won’t tell you which gun you should buy, but I would suggest you get the best quality gun you can afford. If you walk into a big box store and buy a gun off the shelf, odds are it will do the job for you, but odds are a year two down the line you will have probably moved to something else. But get a quality European gun, you may find that like my C1, it stays with you for many years.

Categories: airgun ammo, Ground squirrels, Jackrabbits, pest birds, Small Game Hunting, Small game in winter, Spring Piston Airguns, springers, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Bushbuck in Texas

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Jim Chapman

I confess, the title is a little misleading, I was not hunting African exotics in Texas, but rather I brought the Airguns of Arizona big bore Bushbuck to bag some Lone Star hogs. And this high power tackdriver did the job for me ….. again! The rifle is a .452 caliber generating about 600 fpe on full power for three usable shots. But power is only one side of the coin, without accuracy it can’t get the job done, and the Bushbuck is accurate! I can frequently print clover leafs at 100 yards, which is about perfect for any big game I’ll be hunting with air.

My buddy Clay and I arrived at the ranch late on a Tuesday evening, and dumped our gear in the bunk house, then went out to catch up with a couple guys that had been hunting earlier that day. Most hunting here is done over feeders, in an attempt to draw the pigs out of the very dense cover. The ranch owner would drop hunters off at a number of blinds over feeders, or blinds along transit hotspots then broadcast corn in the road, in the early morning and late afternoon. In between guys would come in and eat or nap, but we’d hunted here before and had found that more and bigger pigs could be found mid day and hitting the thickets. It was hot and hard to force your way through the brush, but by going slowly and stopping to listen a hunter could locate pigs that had bedded down or were feeding under cover.

The thick West Texas brush was very thick and took some work to get through. But going out on foot was the most productive approach.

Next morning the others hitched a ride out to the blinds before daybreak, but we slept in, had a good breakfast, sighted in and in every respect were the pictures of lazy slackers. But when the ranchers stopped by to catch up before collecting the others, we climbed on the flatbed and rode out to the furthest point, jumped off and started out on foot. Not long after we heard some grunts and slowed into stalking mode, but spooked a small herd with one giant boar before I could get opened for a shot. They crashed away, and we kept hiking. About an hour later we herd more pigs rooting with an occasional squeal piercing the quiet. The wind was not in our favor so we started to circle around. At one point we had to cross a washboard road, and as we stood back in the treeline talking, two smallish pigs stepped out. I pulled up the gun to shoot, but before I could squeeze the trigger they slowly walked back into the trees. We waited a few minutes, not easy to do when you’re imaging your quarry slipping away, but they had not seemed alarmed, and I thought I could work in for a better shot.

The bigger pigs, if they were going to come out in daylight, were either in or very close to the heavy brush.

If pigs were going to come out in daylight, they stayed either in or very close to the heavy brush.

As we moved back into the trees, following the pigs with the wind now in our favor, I peaked around a clump of vegetation and through the branches saw a bigger pig we hadn’t seen earlier. I caught glimpses of a smaller pig moving off, but had a shot through the branches at the big one, for a decent broadside. I lined up the crosshairs, and with the scope at 6X had a pretty good field of view. When I stroked the trigger, the gun barked, the pig squealed and ran into the brush where we heard it crash and thrash then go dead quiet. And when I walked up it was, as my bird hunting buddy Scott says, DRT (dead right there).

We called the truck to come find us when we had a pig to haul back to the meat lockers.

Clay and I dragged the pig to the road, then continued hunting. We pushed a couple more animals, I had an easy head shot (so I thought) on one big porker, but when I pulled the trigger a small tree limb I hadn’t seen exploded between me and the pig, it was his lucky day. By then it was late in the afternoon, and we knew that the other hunters would be heading for the blinds scattered around the property, so called for a ride and some help moving the unprocessed bacon back to the shed.

The Bushbuck is the first gun that Airguns of Arizona has built, and it’s a very promising start to this side of their business. I’ve got several new big bores and this is a happening area in airgun development these days. The thing that would make it perfect for me, would be a carbine version. I’d give up some power to make the gum more compact….. but that’s just me, and I find that almost every time I get a new big bore I make this comment. But, I can say without reservation that if you are looking for a big game gun this is one of my favorites and should be on your short list!

I’ve got a couple hunts in January and then off to SHOT Show. I bought a new set of snow shoes and have been doing a lot of hiking the last several weeks, and hope to use them on some predator hunts as winter wears on, so I’ll let you know how that works out. I hope you all enjoy your New Years, and will catch up with you next week!

Jim

Categories: Airguns of Arizona, AOA Bushbuck .451, Big Bore Airguns, Big Game, Hog hunting, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Early Hunts With the Discovery

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Jim Chapman

Here’s a PCP rifle that has gotten a lot of shooters interested in hunting with a air, the Discovery from Crosman. The reason this gun has appealed to a lot of new airgunners entering the precharged arena is multifold: it is inexpensive, it is rugged and reliable. offers pretty good performance on small game, is light and compact, it fills and operates at a relatively low pressure and is ideal for hand pump ….. and did I mention inexpensive. On the less great side, it is loud, the trigger is functional but that’s all, and it’s a single shot. But weighing the pro’s and cons will prove the gun out as a great entry level and project gun. I received the second prototype of this rifle (the first went to my friend Tom Gaylord) and I used it for a lot of small game hunting providing feedback to Crosman pre-production. The Discovery below is my personal gun, dressed in a nicely figured custom walnut stock. Those that have read my work over the last several years know I have a true love for the Beeman C1, which is a gun built to Doc Beeman’s specs by Webley and Scott in the UK before Beeman was sold and changed direction several years ago. What differentiated this gun from the other compact springers, including the Webley Vulcan it is based on, was the stock. With a straight wrist similar to a Winchester lever action, this gun was very fast to mount and put on target. I commissioned the same stock to be built for my Discovery, making this a beautiful little small game rifle.

My Discovery started life as a budget hunting rifle. But then I had a custom stock built using my Beeman C1 as the pattern, and ended up with a hot little hunting carbine … though over-capitalized, the stock cost about twice as much as the rifle!

I’ve carried this gun for summer ground squirrel and jackrabbit hunts, winter squirrel, through rain, snow, and scorching sun and it’s always done the job for me. I want to use a Discovery as a platform to build a compact .30 caliber, and might do so deep into winter later in the year, when Minnesota gets too cold for this California native to go outside! A lightweight compact gun along these lines is a good choice for hunting in heavy brush, where there isn’t much room to move around.

I like the shorter buttstock when bundled up in winter gear, and took a lot of game with the pre-release test rifle!

I’ve written before that I try to look at all guns through the eyes of potential users; if one gun suited all shooters there would not be so many popular guns out there. While not a gun snob, I do have an affection (affliction) for high end guns; I live Daystates, FX, AirArms, Falcons, etc…. but you don’t have to spend a fortune to get started. I think this is a great first gun for anybody moving into PCP’s on a limited budget, and is very suitable for young shooters while they save up for that Huntsman Classic! We need more hunters to join the ranks, which in turn will motivate more states to open up their regs to include airguns, and a less expensive gun with solid performance helps the cause immensely.

I have lost count over the number of squirrel and rabbit this gun has bagged! Here it wears the standard stock… with the C1 style it is a gun I will never sell.

If you are an experienced airgunner and already have a high end gun, but want to start playing around with customizing, tuning, or modifying, this is a good option for a build platform. There are a lot of after market parts, custom stocks, and know how out there to support your efforts to build a gun of your own on the Discovery, and while odds are you won’t damage it won’t break the bank if you do.

Other Stuff

Have been getting a lot of shooting in with some great guns, and working on some articles and videos to come out soon. I have been shooting the Daystate Pulsar Bullpup, the FX Wildcat Bullpup, and the Bushbuck big bore….. I am having a blast. Also had some great hunts for deer in Virginia with Chip and Nathan, boar and predators in Texas, and squirrels all over…. and plan to hit the predator competitions when deer season is over with my buddy Brian Beck in Indiana. I hope all of you are getting out in the field and having some quality hunting time! Catch up with you next week.

Categories: Uncategorized | 2 Comments