Airforce for Benchrest at 50yds.?
My local club has been shooting .22 cal benchrest at 50Yds. Several of us are interested in shooting air rifles.
I’ve been looking and reading about Air Rifles for a few months. It appears that the Airforce Talon SS or a Condor may be a good choice for this style of shooting.
Does anyone have any experience using a Talon or Condor for 50 yd. Benchrest shooting?
I;m thinking the .177 , faster thus less wind drift, or the .22?
I have a Pappas one piece rest that i use for my .22 Cal BR rifles, and I was thinking that it might be used with the talon/ Condor. Any comments.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions
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Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
Are they cheaper than an AF 24″ barrel ?
Don’t know about cheaper but BSA barrels are of incredibly high standard. The choke is a integral part so there is no riffling distortion. There also very strong and hard wearing. Each barrel is hammer beaten. This is a extremely expensive way of doing things compared to push, pull or individually cut riffling. But is generally considered to be a superior method. The physics as to there advantage is clear but to the actual performance I have never done a back to back comparison. Guess I should get one and do a comparison on my Talon.
Tuned in .25 or .22 it can do it. It’s pricey and the .25 Eunjun’s work the best at 50 yards…IMO due to high winds.
Are they cheaper than an AF 24″ barrel ?
I have a Condor fully tuned from Anthony in .25 caliber. I can shoot a ragged 5 shot at 50 yards. By ragged its barely larger than the pellet basically a hole with shredded paper making it a smidge larger.
Yep! Our guns an be Very Accurate! Especially for a hunter. But bench rest competition is an extremely precision sport. Our guns are not in that league. Nor should they be. It isn’t what they are designed to do.
When our guns fire, you can feel it, and you can see the movement in the scope for instance. A true bench rest AG is dead. And I mean DEAD. You feel nothing at all. To the point it is almost boring!
Our guns are definitely Not Boring! Mine can shoot under 1/4″ at 50 yards, and on a calm day, well under one inch at 100 yards. And this is being shot with gun rested across the roof of the car!
But this is no where near bench rest accuracy, which is measured in thousandths of an inch. That is if it is a REAL bench rest Competition. A lot of the AG competitions are not really serious Bench Rest Comp’s but rather just a fun shoot.
Big Difference! I have a target here that is .003″ at 100 yards shot at Ft. Hood Rifle Range. Signed and witnessed. It was a fluke! A .257 Weatherby Mag. loaded with 87 gr. Barns solid copper hollow points. Impressive yes. But no where good enough to be a bench rest gun! One of my Neighbors, Jim Meyers, was a National BR Champion, and builds BR rifles. These things are highly precision instruments. Same with the Bench Rest Air Rifles. A factory Sporter, whether AG or PB just isn’t in the same Universe, much less in the same league.
Can you shoot a AF Rifle off a bench for fun? Sure! Seriously Compete? No.
Mike
If noise is not really an issue- go with the Talon in .20 -the 18″ barrel will shoot 14.3 .20cal CPs at 900—850-880 for lots of shots– the only down side is pellet selection is not as broad in .20 cal—but at 800 or so fps the 14.3CP is accurate to 50 yards —and when shot at 900 fps it shines even more….—I wish Crosman would make the .20 cal Premier in two more weights -you know to make this even more fun —a 16gr and a 18gr that would be sweet. 8)
177 are excellet rounds when used as they’re intended, the Olympic’s use them for a reason , they are accurate with the right gun and the right range. the furtherthe range, the more the heavier round becomes the better choice. Some one compared it to throwing a baseball and throwing a wiffle ball
The Airforce rifles have just to much power and range for the 177. at 50 yards + your going to need a heavy pellet.
I think it’s fine for a bench rest rifle as long as it isnt super serious , Your not likely to find a gun cheaper than the airforce that can do as much as the airforce.
This gun is sick accurate, they re are some serious shooters on the net that can hit targets out well beyond 100+ yards . I mean 1 inch groups.
I think that with some tuneing 50 yards is very do’able .
I was hitting clay shotgun pigions (stationary not thrown) out to 75 yards consistantly with my 350 magnum springer, which are notoriously hard guns to shoot so my groups were under 3 inchs at 75, and I know for a fact the Condor can beat that in spades.
Im new to the Condor , But from what I have seen so far , Im more than impressed
No, a .177 is NOT the way to go. A .177 round has a much worse ballistic coefficent, and will be nearly impossible to keep subsonic. For 50 yd. benchrest, I’d go with a modded talon valve (for consistency) and a BSA (Or Weihrauch) 24in .22 caliber barrel from Tim or another tuner. Kodiaks @ 920 and DEADLY accurate. But it all depends on how much you want to spend and how competitive the competition is.
I don’t know that our guns would be considered Bench Rest guns. There are better guns for this type of competition. These are great hunting guns for sure! Very powerful. But for precision shooting, you want Killer bedding. Super smooth tiger actions with very short travel and infinitely adjustable trigger groups to suit the user. That just isn’t what these guns are about.
Sorta like taking a M-16 or AR-15 to a High Powered Rifle Bench Rest Competition. It may shoot very well for it’s intended purpose, but it won’t win a Bench rest competition.
About the wind drift. These are PCP guns. .177’s aren’t faster except in the very basic forum or the talon ss. The .22 is far less effected by side winds than the .177. Just about any of our guns here are capable of pushing a .22 or .177 past the speed of sound. We don’t normally do this simply because it destabilizes the pellet making for poor accuracy.
Mike
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Are they cheaper than an AF 24″ barrel ?
Don’t know about cheaper but BSA barrels are of incredibly high standard. The choke is a integral part so there is no riffling distortion. There also very strong and hard wearing. Each barrel is hammer beaten. This is a extremely expensive way of doing things compared to push, pull or individually cut riffling. But is generally considered to be a superior method. The physics as to there advantage is clear but to the actual performance I have never done a back to back comparison. Guess I should get one and do a comparison on my Talon.
I’m aware of the BSA barrel’s quality – I own a BSA Magnum 240, BSA meteor and owned a BSA S-10.
I should have cut off the BSA part – was more interested in the price of a 24″ HW Barrel machined for a AF rifle.