Pennsylvania Game News - March 2022 - 57

drops 13 inches at 100 yards. A .22 LR
firing a 40-grain pill at 1,150 fps delivers
around 117 foot-pounds with a 6-inch
drop at 100 yards.
By comparison, a 22-caliber 14.5-grain
air-gun pellet starting out at 950 fps with
a muzzle energy of 25 foot-pounds and a
25-yard zero will dip to around 600 fps
and drop 6 inches at 50 yards. A .177
8-grain pellet at 900 fps has 14 footpounds
at the muzzle and drops around 5
inches at 50 yards. A 25-caliber 27-grain
pellet at 900 fps has a muzzle energy of 50
foot-pounds and a 6-inch drop at 50 yards.
Experimenting with a variety of pellets
will determine what's best for a particular
air gun. I settle on a middle- to heavyweight
pellet for the caliber and learn the
trajectory curve.
To be consistently accurate, shooters
should keep a few things in mind.
First, inspect your pellets to make sure
there are no deformities. Keep them in a
clean container so no dirt or anything else
gets stuck on the pellet's wax or graphite
coating before chambering.
When loading a pellet, be sure that the
skirt is flush or slightly below the face
of the chamber to ensure it doesn't get
damaged when closing a break barrel, or
when placing a magazine full of pellets
into the gun.
Also, when trying pellets by different
manufacturers, run a few cleaning patches
through the barrel and shoot a dozen pellets
before switching brands or types.
Coiled-spring or gas-piston guns,
because of their vibration, tend to slightly
bounce when held too firmly or even
when rested on hard supports. That creates
different points of impact. For best
accuracy, support the air gun with both
hands using a light touch, whether on a
MARCH 2022
rest or not. This allows the gun to follow
its natural recoil without restraint, putting
the pellets at the same point of impact.
Study the ballistics curve from 10 to
50 yards of your most accurate pellets
and use an index card to write down the
rise and fall every 10 yards. That way you
can determine how high or low to hold the
scope crosshairs.
Most manufacturers specifically build
scopes to withstand the vibration of spring
and gas-piston guns.
While the parallax of most scopes for
rimfire and centerfire guns is set at 50 or
100 yards, air-gun scopes typically have
a starting parallax that will focus down at
3 to 10 yards.
Fixed and variable power air-gun
scopes with a variety of reticle choices
are essential for figuring out where to
hold with the trajectory of pellet ballistics.
There are websites that have ballistic
charts for air-gun calibers that detail pellets
at different speeds. There is even an
application that shows where to hold the
target inside a Mil-Dot reticle once you
put in the distance, wind speed and pellet
information.
Even though an air gun is deemed
accurate if it can group shots in an inch
at 25 yards, I have seen several high-end
guns with good scopes do that at 50 yards.
A good air gun with a quality scope
using the right pellets can be a lot of fun
and sharpen marksmanship and hunting
skills. I have enjoyed air guns since I was
young, but it's been within the past 10
years that I've experienced top-end rifles
that are impressive in velocity, accuracy
and aesthetics.
That's why, these days, an air rifle is
a nice complement to any hunting-gun
collection.
57
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - March 2022
