Reply With QuoteExtra-Strong Mints. Rub one edge a bit so they stand up without rolling away.
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I recently came to realise the most enjoyment I get from my air rifle is actually setting the sights up correctly.
Both my rifles are equiped with telescopic scopes and both are spring powered, meaning clamping in a vice is basically impractical when scoping them in. Instead, I simple aim at marks on a card, tweaking the adjustment until the gun is right.
A nephew visited, bringing his "impossible to aim" rifle and we spent an afternoon messing around with the scope and its mountings until the thing started hit the marks reliably.
The penny slowly dropped, when I realised I get far more enjoyment setting a gun up properly than I understood. My garden is fairly large, allowing a 40 mtr range (with a moss covered cliff face at the end). Generally a selection of plastic bottles are dangled, usually filled with water initially with the challenge eventually being to hit all 10 bottles in a row, once they have emptied and are swinging in the breeze.
Alas, this gets boring pretty soon.
I'd be interested in what targets other folk use to keep it fun, challenging, and interesting. Surely the greatest enjoyment isn't from sighting in rifles?
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Extra-Strong Mints. Rub one edge a bit so they stand up without rolling away.
may also be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocation dingle arm, to reduce sinusoidal repleneration
It sounds like you might be a person who would enjoy Benchrest shooting.Originally Posted by gwendog
Plastic bottles are FAR to large to shoot at with anything but a pistol. You need to get more interesting targets.
These come in two types, frangible and solid.
If we are talking pure plinking, then the frangible ones include, in order of size
Frangible: cheap out of date Tea biscuits, Trebor mints, sugar cubes, Tic-tacs
Solid: Toy plastic dinosaurs, old wheel lug-nuts, 1/72 scale polythene soldiers
Just buy a box of sugar-cubes and try them at various ranges, they are about 1cm across. Obviously they are dry-weather targets ...
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[QUOTE=Hsing-ee;7540026]It sounds like you might be a person who would enjoy Benchrest shooting.
It never ceases to amaze me how much pleasure can be had from using a spring gun to try and hit a 2 mm dot 25 yards away EVERY TIME!
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I use, amongst other things, NSRA 25yd 10 ring targets. A bit like these;
https://www.nsrashop.co.uk/collectio...0-br-15-target
I buy them loose from my rifle club and the challenge is to work along all 10 diagrams and obliterate the centre pip on each.
I find that if I use a single bull target I get lost after five or six shots.
Extra Strong Mints are good fun though
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Charity shop pram teddies on a string. No noise to annoy the neighbours!
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Plastic tops from drinking water bottles.
They're 30mm in diameter by 11mm deep.
They make a cheap, reasonably difficult, and reactive target at 30 to 40 yards, and they can be used over and over again.
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Spinners and flip up metal targets?
The firecap reactive targets are fun
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I use a number of targets consisting of circles and dots which i download print out and cut up to make a mixture of differing targets to which i stick to card (cut from cereal boxes).
I shoot on a rifle range so shooting at items that arent recognised targets or banned items is out of order but as mentioned mints, sugar cubes are ok. Also matches (saftey type) or cocktail sticks make good targets.
After awhile i get fed up punching holes in card and end up shooting daisy heads and stalks on other weeds and of course the odd unlucky fly gets shot also.
Regards
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Used 12 bore cartridges on spikes. They either spin or leap off when hit
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Bin the scope
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Thanks folks. Some good stuff there. Suspect my Saturday will be interesting, shooting at charity shop bears stuffed full of matches. <grin> And trying not to eat the mints (really like that as a target idea) or digestive biscuits!
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There is a lot to getting a rifle just right. The hardware is just part of the game. The hardware comes in many forms, and there are different combos to have. Different calibres too. Sight systems too, I do love open iron sights, but also red dot and scopes.
There is a lot more to zeroing; its just the start. Getting familiar with combo so you know the drop and the wind until you can hit at all the ranges in all the conditions, and in all positions, is what really matters.
Jaz it up and add some speed, or even moving targets.
There is some great targetry to be had; even some that goes off with a bang.
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..or at short range if you hit direct over the spike the pellet bounces back and hits you. Happened to me. Keep plastic cartridges for 25m plus!
The Proclaimer
Hi, Gwen, here's some more target suggestions...
If you buy some Actimel or similar make of yoghurt drinks, the type that come in small plastic 'bottle' shape containers, then pierce a hole in the bottom, you can attach a knotted string through them and suspend a row of them from a T-shaped wooden frame with cup hooks screwed into the cross bar. Put them out at 25 yards plus and they'll provide some fun for a while.
Similarly tin cans, particularly smaller ones, can be filled with sand.. don't detach the lid when opening and with a hole punched halfway along the side of the can, again with a knotted string threaded through the hole they can be suspended from a tee bar or a branch of a tree, preferably with the shiny circular end facing you to give you a smaller target.
Old green spuds can be spiked onto a cane and provide a good visual target on hitting them as they disintegrate.
Regards, Graeme
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