SMK XS26 - Straight out the box and down the range

[ScottP]

Being a complete Noob to Air Pistol shooting and shooting in general I have decided to give it a go make it my goal to try and get good at it. I wanted to start right from the simplest set up and set myself of a budget of £150. This needed to include Pistol, Pellets, Case, Safety Specs and a small target/pellet trap. All these things aside it was the gun choice I want to talk about the most. Nipping along to my local Airgun Shop I had my eye on a second hand HW70 I'd seen on their website however it wasn't available so I asked to look through new pistols and start out at £100 and see what I could get (Don't get me wrong I wasn't expected anything mind blowing, just something to get started).

I got my hands on the new SMK XS26. It was bigger than Imagined a pistol would be however I jumped in with two feet and managed to get the Pistol, 500 Biseley Practice Pellets and a Pellet trap within £100.

Then it was off for my first visit down the local Rifle range. After a bit of sight adjustments at 20 yards on a Bulls Eye Target we got to the point we where shooting pretty straight. The trigger is smooth but you couldn't say it was light however with practice you got the feel for its break point. We where pleasantly impressed with its performance, straight out the box. At 20 yards we had some groupings between 4-5inches within the black (Please remember this is my first time with a pistol of any kind and was happy to just be hitting the paper) The fibre optic sights work well however if shooting with two hands you find the front sight doesn't fill the foresight fully and the pistol is quite heavy to be shooting with one arm stretched out (Which does fill the fore sight).

I should of gone for a .177 pistol instead of a .22 however that lesson was learnt after my purchase unfortunately. All in all it is a fun pistol. Shoots relevantly straight for now and as got me in to the world of Air Pistol Shooting. I'm only going to use it down at the rifle range as it is a bit to much to power in my 18 foot back yard.

I'll probably give it 3 months max, when I will start needing to invest more in a better more suitable target pistol, however if I can master the SMK XS26 then hopefully this will of given me the surprise on how a pistol of higher value will be.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Scott

[SuffolkRifle]

Not tried the SMK 26, but have got the SMK 25 (in .177) bit of a 'beast', but accurate enough and it'll match most of the pistols at the club in the pistol 'corner'. I found that it was pellet fussy, in that some pellets were grouping(?) all over the target, and only two types actually would group - strangely enough, Spitfires & Daystate Li (it gets fed a diet of Spitfires!)
Hope you've stuck with it, I'd not swap any of my pistols, as they're good fun (got C02, BB, SSP, and springers)

[eyebull]

Hi Scott, glad to see another person join the fray, don't be surprised if you catch the bug and end up surrounded by airguns

20yds is a fairly long distance for paper punching with a spring pistol, but if you are getting results then stick with it! Shooting, and getting better at shooting, is all about consistency - just find a hold that works for you and keep at it, and you will see steady improvement.
Could I offer some advice on target shooting? You may already know this, in which case ignore the following, but it may help you to close those groups up.
First, the six o'clock hold: Rather than aiming at the centre of the bullseye, try and get your sights level with the bottom of the black circle, with the merest glimmer of a gap between them, and zero the sights so that they are shooting in the centre of the circle when you have the sights at the base. It's a lot easier to consistently place the sight at the base than it is to see when they are in the centre of the target with the black on black.
As for the sights, you want to ideally see a little space either side of the foresight so that you can align it (though yours may be set up more so that you align the fibreoptics). And the foresight should be the thing you are focusing on, not the rear sight or target! They should both be out of focus.

This is it, in a nutshell:
http://www.concealedhandguncarry.com...ALIGNMENT3.png

This is how the Olympic 10m shooters do it. Very few of us are Olympians (though who knows what could happen with practice ) but you can't go wrong with emulating the guys at the top of their game.


If you have any issues or questions, please don't hesitate to ask away - there's an enormous amount of knowledge and expertise on here and we're all happy to help

atb

[Minuteman]

and alongside all the other good advice one piece more - have fun.

When it all gets serious and you are chastising yourself for hold, follow through, stance etc. forget all that and just go and blast some cans

It's the fun that keeps you coming back for more

[short-carabine]

and alongside all the other good advice one piece more - have fun.

When it all gets serious and you are chastising yourself for hold, follow through, stance etc. forget all that and just go and blast some cans

It's the fun that keeps you coming back for more

Very true. Personally I'd missed out on a lot of fun by dismissing pistol shooting for a number of years. Following a circuitous route by way of longbow and knife throwing, I found that shooting pistol represents a stronger challenge in some ways, and is also excellent fun. Instinctive shooting is very similar to bow and knife work, and can yield some surprising results