Supported Air Rifle Shooting - early days

[zooma]

When we first started to plan the "new to us" Supported Air Rifle Shooting (SARS) discipline at our club we looked to see what would be the most suitable types of air rifles to use. We also hoped that some of the less expensive types would be as competitive as the latest (expensive) crop of PCP match rifles to help encourage newcomers to "join in" by not being put-off by the equipment cost.

As we are a target club, most of our air rifles are match rifles, and most of them are recoilless, so we had a good pool of models and types to look at and to test to see what was the most likely to work the best. We think that they can all have their advantages, and all of them can be made suitable for SARS at a modest cost. None of them "need" to be modified for SARS shooting but if used every week it may be desirable to protect the undersurface of the stock from "bar rub".

SSP rifles usually need to be removed from the bar for the easiest re-cocking method and this was thought to be a good idea as it forces a break between shots and prevents too many "rushed" shots being taken. These rifles are also comparatively inexpensive and have excellent triggers together with a totally recoilless action so they make a really good choice. More about these at a later date.

Some of the oldest PCP match rifles are quite cumbersome and heavy compared to the latest crop of much thinner and lighter weight PCP match rifles, and although they are still "pin-point" accurate they have been discarded (prematurely) by many of us in favour of various newer types.

One of these is the FEINWERKBAU P70. We have some of these excellent rifles in our club (the type with the alloy stock), but they were not being used much by any of us any more as we had all bought newer models that are smaller, lighter, and generally easier to balance and shoot in the usual free standing position - but the P70 rifles remained extremely accurate and have a very good trigger.

The cocking action of the P70 match rifle is also ideally suited to SARS as it is easy to simply push the cocking levers forward - either left or right handed as they are on mounted on both sides of the rifle, and this can be done without removing the rifle from the bar (all PCP rifles can be cocked and loaded without removing them from the bar).

The P70 rifles have a "nose heavy" balance and this suits SARS perfectly and works well.

Those that read the Target/Competition shooting section of the BBS will have noticed that I failed to sell my red "as new" P70 match rifle a few weeks back and this turned out to be a really unexpected bonus. I had some genuine regrets about parting with it, so when we started SARS I was delighted to take it off sale and to give it some regular work - probably for the first time in its life!

The P70 rifles have been given a new lease of life in SARS shooting, and we actually think that they are at least as good as any of the newer and more expensive PCP match rifles, but no PCP rifle will be able to beat a better shooter with an SSP rifle.

As an aside, our alloy P70 match rifles are either coloured red or blue. We have never seen a black coloured P70 but have been told there were plenty of them made so we are looking forward to seeing the first black alloy P70 come through the doors of our club and we have yet to see the various laminated stock P70's !