Southampton Buccaneers Field Target Club

Although traditional spring rifles can be used, pre-charged (PCP) air rifles dominate due to their lack of recoil, making them easier to shoot accurately.  An accomplished shooter should be able to produce groups tighter than 1/2 inch at 55 yards from a sitting position.  From a bench rest you should achieve a single hole group at this distance.  CO2 powered rifles are starting to appear, but these are not recommended for either FT, HFT or vermin control as the build quality generally tends to be at best moderate, frequently very poor, and the power output is usually quite low.  These are best reserved for plinking tin cans.

The biggest advantage of a full FT air rifle over a sporting type rifle is how it fits you.  Most sporting air rifles come with a one size fits all stock designed to be a reasonable fit for the majority of people.  In reality they fit most people fairly poorly and it will compromise your ability to shoot consistently.  Dedicated FT air rifles generally have fully adjustable stocks allowing you get an exact fit to your body which significantly improves your accuracy.  The major failing of 'off the shelf' sporting/hunter style stocks is the height of the cheek piece which is usually too low and the area in front of the trigger too high.  In FT we shoot the majority of shots from a sitting position which puts your head fairly high on the stock.  In addition the scopes tend to be fairly large which requires high mounts.  It's not uncommon to find that you end up with your cheek hanging in air well clear of the stock which is both uncomfortable and not beneficial to accuracy.  An option is to have your existing stock modified or from about £500 have a custom one made that will fit like a glove.  Most manufacturers make left handed versions, but the choice will always be limited for lefties unless you go custom.  Assuming you have a well maintained rifle from a reputable manufacturer, a good stock will make the biggest single improvement to your shooting.  The other big advantages are a 'match trigger' which can be adjusted almost infinitely for reach, pull and weight on both stages making them lighter and more predictable than a typical sporting trigger unit and a regulator which improves the rifles shot to shot consistency.

The accuracy of modern FT air rifles is incredible, and with the benefit of a regulator (a device which measures the amount of air used to fire the pellet more accurately than the valves found in most rifles) the shot to shot consistency is also very good.  Apart from the shooter, the pellet is the weakest link in the equation.

There is no clear best air rifle, in competition you see a variety of old and new rifles all performing very well.  The weight, balance point and general characteristics can make the difference between a rifle that feels natural or not and this varies between different people.  The best advice is to try out a variety and decide which you like most.  Buying second hand can also be a good option, especially if it's from someone in our BFTA region as there's a chance we already know the guns history and have seen it compete.  The only other thing to be aware of is the choice of calibre.  Everyone in competitive FT uses .177 calibre because of the much flatter trajectory and although the rules allow you to use .22 you'll be at a real disadvantage.  You should also be aware that in both HFT and FT you may not have a magazine fitted between lanes.  If you intend to compete it's worth looking at rifles that are either single shot, or can be used without a magazine.  You also need a rifle that can fire at least 40 consistent shots from one fill.  Non regulated rifles exhibit a power curve where the first few shots from a full fill and the last few are fired with less power making them hit low.  On these rifles we've found that under filling them by about 10-15 bar below the recommended pressure gives a far less pronounced curve, so if your rifle manufacturer recommends a 180 bar fill, just put in 165 bar.  You'll get fewer shots, but they will be more consistent.  Regulated rifles don't suffer from this characteristic.

Am I left handed?
Sounds like a really stupid question as you probably think you already know, but you may be surprised.  In all shooting sports your dominant eye will dictate whether you shoot left or right handed and there's a simple test we can do to determine whether you are left or right eye dominant.  Shooting a rifle is not the same as holding a knife or throwing a spear as there's no pre existing survival program locked away in the depths of your brain that instinctively kicks in when you pick up a rifle.  Unlike your hands, you can't train your brain to switch the main function to the other eye and it's almost impossible to shoot right handed if you're left eye dominant.  At the club we have left handed shooters that shoot right handed and vice versa and we even have some that are ambidextrous!  Your eyes dictate which way you shoot and unfortunately there's no other way.  It only takes 30 seconds for us to check at the club or alternatively your optician should be able to tell you which eye is dominant although you need to be careful that your dominant eye isn't the weakest as this can swing things the other way.

Add on's and other enhancements
Most FT rifles come almost ready to shoot out of the box but there are often things you can do to improve them.  If you trawl the net and forums there are many sources of add on bits for your rifle that 'make it much better', silencers, air strippers, muzzle flip compensators being just a few.  Some of these items do make a difference, but most are just nicely turned pieces of stainless and aluminium which could cause your rifle to become less accurate as they mimic the appearance of the real thing without the engineering knowledge to make it perform.  The general advice is to avoid after market components, however, there are some things which are worth considering and there are a small number of people that make some really good bits that actually work and look nice.  If the fitting of an after market item requires you to make a permanent modification that can't be reversed to your rifle think long and hard before doing it.  If it doesn't work you may be stuck with £1000 of scrap metal or a big bill to repair the damage.  There are only a few people in the country that I'd trust to do that sort of work and even if someone has lot's of references on a forum, ask at the club for advice first.  It's worth noting that no modification will make you shoot any better than you already do.  If you're missing most of your shots either you're not shooting as well as you'd like to think you are, or there's something seriously wrong with your rifle that no amount of shiny bits will ever fix.  See tuning and mods for more info.

Multi shot rifles
Current safety rules prohibit magazines being fitted between lanes at both FT and HFT competitions as well as club events, even if they do not contain any pellets.  You can use a multishot rifle, but you'd need to remove the magazine after every lane to comply with the safety regulations which often involves cocking the bolt to remove the magazine and then dry firing it.  For competition use, single shot is definitely advantageous as you could be disqualified if you forget to remove the magazine.  The reason for this is to enable you to prove your rifle is safe, with a magazine fitted you could be loaded without realising it.

Sporting class
There are no restrictions on the rifle, although fit will still be a critical factor.

The pro's and con's
Here are some thoughts on typical rifles of four different types.  Bear in mind that there are always exceptions to the rule, for example it's possible to buy some really inaccurate PCP rifles, so view this as what to expect from a mid range rifle from a reputable manufacturer.  Cheap rifles are usually pretty poor quality and if you're on a really tight budget we'd recommend you save for a little longer and get something reliable than hand over £100 for complete junk that's made of monkey metal.  Generally the top end rifles are over priced by some margin and are not good value compared with a mid range sporting PCP although they may offer features not found on lower cost models.  As with most things you need to apply the law of diminishing returns.  If you want a springer expect to pay about £200 and for a sporting PCP £450 to get something good that will be reliable and accurate.  FT target rifles start at just under £1000 and none of these will come with a scope.  There's always the second hand market, and if you know what you're looking for you can pick up a real bargain. 

Cheap rifles can be great fun and a good introduction to shooting but don't expect to compete with it or for it to be 'accurate'.  Many of us started off with a cheap and cheerful spring gun shooting baked bean cans and loved it, so this isn't intended to knock cheap equipment, but it will give you a level of expectation. 

A little history
Don't think that pre-charged rifles are recent inventions, they've been around for over 300 years and predate spring guns in fact Louis XIII used air rifles to hunt stags and wild boar and there is some questionable evidence that Swedish snipers used them against Napoleon's army.  Compared to the powder rifles of the time, air rifles had similar or in many cases greater power levels, were easily as accurate, could be reloaded in a fraction of the time, made much less noise and there was no tell tale plume of smoke to give away the shooters position when used by the military.  They recharged the rifle using a hollow cast iron ball shaped reservoir, or a hollow iron butt on the rifle refilled from a hand operated pump. Unlike modern PCP's which use high pressure low volume systems, these used low pressure high volume to propel large calibre shot.

Send mail to Robert at webmaster@sbftc.co.uk with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: 08-Oct-2007 09:30