New Cricket .25…Taking the Next Step
I decided recently to “bump things up a notch,” and buy a Kalibre Cricket in .25. For the first time I have gotten lucky with an airgun purchase. The Marauder was a bit anemic out of the box and it took adding a hopped up valve to fix that and the Condor has had accuracy issues which, I am in the process of fixing..so all good there. Don’t get me wrong; both are great guns.
But the Cricket arrived after work yesterday, and out of the box…all I can say is, I’m VERY impressed! Solid as a rock…beautiful clean lines…all black tactical look. I think had Borat been here, he might have said: “Great Success…She’s a Nice.”
I cleaned the barrel first thing, (it was filthy), then set it up with the Aeon 6-24X50 that I bought as well. It was chrony’d and checked for accuracy before leaving the retailer and here are their numbers, with JSB 25.4:
969.4; 969.7; 970.1; 970.1; 971.9; 972.7; 970.1; 972.5; 969.5; 974.1
After the set up, I threw a target up at 30 yards. Shot the first shot…right on the bull…held my breath, thinking…please, please, please be a good one and the second shot was right in there too. One flyer or I might have pulled it, then it settled down into grouping like a Mofo-D! :8:
I quickly shot the remaining 5-shot groups (JSB EK’s) before losing the light.
First shots right out of the box….(not sure why I only shot the 3rd bulls-eye once….must have gotten overly excited)
This is looking to be a real “shooter”….good power and accurate…oh, and the trigger? For the first time I understand what people are talking about when they use phrases “crisp” and “breaks like a glass rod.” Not touching the factory setting…works for me. Wonder how this gun will be once broken in. Couldn’t be happier.
For the remainder of the evening I sat on the couch, with it in my lap just looking at it….LOL.
KPinNC
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If you are a bow hunter, when you get started bowfishing, there is no “off-season” :fishinghole:
Very cool. I live a few miles away from the Meramec river that runs into the Mississippi river about ten miles down stream. We get some huge gar but I have never got a shot at a really big one like that. We do some bridge shooting as well right off of tributaries on the Mississippi river. We are flooding a bit here now too so come on in (we have many mined lakes off of the Meramec).
Came from an old ox-bow lake off the Trinity River… The Trinity is known to have the largest population of Alligator gar on the planet. It is flooding right now and it is spawning season for the big gar… that could be good or bad for my honey holes… Already had some good ‘uns in the ox-bow. This flooding will allow them to leave, but the flooding is how they got there to begin with, so I’m hoping more will come along… When the river returns to its normal flow, these ox-bows are cut off from the main river. The fish are in a sense trapped… The ox-bows are big so they can sustain a pretty big population of big fish. it’s not like they are in a little pool. I actually shot this one from a bridge over one of the ox-bows… fought him for over 4 hours. Wore him down to the point I could launch my canoe and complete the fight and landing with it. Pretty unusual to get a big fish like this from the bank so to speak and with only ONE arrow! I was totally exhausted when it was over. She was 7’-5″ with a 36″ girth. estimated weight 200+ pounds and she had already spawned out, otherwise she’d have weighed another 25-30 pounds more…
Here’s a live shot I took with my phone from the bridge a couple weeks before I shot this one… I didn’t have my equipment with me that day.
Holy crap. That is longer than my bear rug. My son got me into bowfishing with all of the rivers around here. Pretty cool.
What lake/river did you get that one? 😯
My biggest from last year… at the taxidermist… 7foot 5″ being mounted at #13.00/inch! :suprisedn:
I bet that’s fun… Show some pics if you get some…
It’s all good… plenty to do around here… Will likely get the bowfishing boat out this weekend…
Salt, sorry to hear about all the flooding….isn’t that like TX? If it isn’t drought, it’s floods. Last time I was in Austin, Lake Travis was lower than I had ever seen. Hope they are getting rain there, they really need it. Not so sure Houston ever needs as much as it gets :confusedn:
Wow, those pictures are crazy! I had an office right next to the Trinity up in Ft. Worth years ago. I knew there were gar in there but never imagined this! Looks like y’all had a blast.
Well, at the risk of becoming obnoxious, shot again today at 50 with windy conditions and my worst 5-shot group was 1 1/8″ but my two best were 3/8″ and (unbelievably), 1/4″. Got those when wind died down at sunset. One quarter inch…..That’s a personal best with any gun, period.
Zonk, you’re exactly right….the more I shoot, the more I like!!
KP
Yep, KP where I usually go to do my plinking is over in Liberty County… The trinity river is flooding out all over the county right now. They have all the gates open on Lake Livingston… That spells trouble for folks between the lake and Galveston Bay… More rain expected this week 🙁 Buddy of mine was out on Saturday shooting Gar out of his Polaris Ranger with his bow… in the middle of the road! We get some bigguns from time to time too! :fishing: :8:
Wow guys those are some impressive accounts …..I really like the .22 into the .25 shooting. I was impressing my buddy yesterday, zinging shot after shot into the same hole but a .22 into the .25 …that’s like Wild Bill’s Wild West Show stuff! Cool.
I too have been messing with Chairgun and Strelok and have also been coming up low (1 or 2 mildots) on POI calculations as well. I thought maybe the BC value might have been off but for it to be that far off it has to be connected more to velocity. I usually punch in the average but I’ve not had a regulated gun before so the Kalibrgun might have a better result. Please post what you find. I’d like to get to where that App is useful. Can’t remember but I think Chairgun gives me better results.
SaltWaterSlick, I’m in NC but originally from Houston. I remember the rains! Got off work once and went out to get in my car (which was luckily parked at the top of the hill) …but the others at the bottom of the hill were completely under water after a day of rain. totally submerged…
KP
Will do.
Oh boy that suck! Post the info when your done..
Yea, my longest sparrow head shot so far is 55 yards with the .22. Got me a turtle with the .25 at 139 yards. I’ve got a 97 yard head shot on a turtle on video with my CondorSS 22.
I’m hoping to do some Chrony work this weekend with my bugs and get a real accurate string for data entry into my ballistics software programs. I’m using ChairGun Pro and with both guns I’m off a whole mil-dot at 75 yards and out. I downloaded Strelok Pro last night but haven’t played with it yet… I hope to be able to do a good comparison of the two this weekend …dang weather permitting. My normal shooting area is under about 3 feet of water right now with all the rain we’ve been getting in southeast Texas… 🙁
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I try to never miss any hunting or fishing season. :rofl: My wife wonders why I need so many different types of guns and bows not to mention fishing gear yet want more. Spring Turkey in 4 weeks and they are out in force. 😀