Took the Airking down to the range today and put approximently 150 pellets through it !
Initial observations....its a swine to cock but really nice to shoot !
Regarding the cocking operation, yes its a big heavy air rifle with a long cocking arm and a powerful spring which is on the right hand side of the action and it doesn,t help me being southpaw. The situation was worsened somewhat by the lane divider/partition on my right side which resctricted the swing of the arm.
I eventually developed a "cocking style" by standing up, placing the butt onto my right hip and drawing back the cocking arm with my right hand whilst holding the fore end with my left. After loading, with my left thumb depressing the release lever I could easily return the cocking arm to the closed position with my right hand...Simples !
Well not really but in time, I became better suited to it.
I obtained a "rough zero" at 15 yards and trialled JSB Exacts 4.52, Air Arms Fields 4.51 and 4.52, F&TT's 5.25 and Falcon Acc. Plus.
The barrel is not pellet fussy, all the groups were very similar at about 8mm in diameter with the odd flier !
I eventually decided that the AA 4.51's were just about edging it so I took the distance out to to the full range length of 33 yards and proceeded to re zero with the 4.51's !
The rifle began to settle as did the grouping but I began to get slight variations on POI.
As I said in my earler post, I had mounted an MTC 3-12x44 on a pair of low double screw S'match mounts and its possible I could have been experiancing scope shift to a small degree but on close visual inspection notheing untoward was apparent !
I made several adjustments to the elevation and windage over the course of the last 30 minutes or so and eventually things were beginning to settle down.
In future I may need to consider a one-piece mount ?
My range time was then over so I wrapped proceedings up at that !
So on reflection, it was a good first outing for a brand new "out of the box" gun. I feel that I need to put a good few more rounds through it in order to bed it in further sometime the next week or so and at same time keep a good eye on the scope/mounts situation !
There is afterall a "heck of a lot going on" inside this air rifle !
The cocking is a bit of a performance repeatedly for range work but in a hunting situation, not so much an issue as you would only cocking the rifle a few time in any case during a session.
On the plus side once cocked and loaded, its a real pleasure to shoot "almost" recoil free (there's a very very slight nudge) and although quite accurate now, I'm certain this will only improve in time once the rifle is bedded in !
I'll be on the range next week !