Preparing to shoot airguns this season, big time.

[North Country Gal]

We've been buried with projects of late, so running a bit behind on some of them. One of those projects has been getting ready for even more air gun shooting, now that spring is on the way. We've actually been shooting our air guns outdoors all winter long, but with warmer weather on the way, we expect this will be our best air gun shooting season, ever. All done right home in our backyard, too. Hard to beat that.

This year we will be expanding our air gun shooting beyond our usual spring piston air rifle shooting to include some serious PCP air rifle shooting, all funded by selling off a lot of our regular guns that we haven't been shooting.

First up is the most essential PCP purchase with our AV Hill compressor to fill our PCP guns.


Next is an awesome addition of a superb PCP air rifle, this one a Daystate Huntsman Revere in 177. It'll make a great addition to our vintage Daystate CR-97 which we shoot off the bench. This gives each of us a superb PCP rifle to shoot for our PCP shooting sessions. My husband will get the CR-97 bench gun and I'll get the Huntsman for my offhand shooting, given its svelte weight of only 6 pounds, un-scoped. (The moderator was a custom extra that I ordered with the gun. It makes the Huntsman whisper quiet. You'd have to be standing right next to me to hear me shoot it.) Range report coming, soon.


With this new emphasis on PCP shooting, we've decided to expand our 30 yard range to 50 yards or even more. Our new long range station will be provided via a picnic table we recently bought at an estate auction. Once the snow melts, we'll move it as needed. We have room to go back 100 yards, but right now it sits at a very shootable 45 yards from the backstop.


And speaking of snow, we've managed to keep our range open all winter by clearing snow as needed.


We're getting ready for another great air gun shooting season. Here's wishing a great and a safe shooting season to all.

[daytime dave]

That's a great looking winter range. Glad to hear you are getting use from it.

[John E Davies]

That is great! I would really like to know more about your backstop please.

My trap is a 5 gal plastic bucket with lid, with a round steel disc (an old cookie sheet) and 2” of compacted duct seal in the bottom and the rest filled with rubber tire chips (playground mulch). It sits level on a card table. Behind that is the OH HECK stop, a 24” wide by 30” tall piece of heavy 6061T6 sheet aluminum angled forward at the top at 45 degrees. Behind the O.H. barrier is a whole bunch of cardboard, a 1/2” sheet of plywood, and finally my finished and sheet rocked garage wall.

My PCP rifle is a regulated Hatsan Bullpup .25 shooting 26 gr pellets at 830 fps (40 foot pounds). I get two mags (18 shots) with 3 fps SD before the power starts to fall off. So far not one pellet has escaped the trap, or even made it more than half an inch through the duct seal. The rubber chips stop 90% of them en route.

I shoot from 13 yards inside my attached RV bay, aka The Hanger Deck..I could conceivably stretch that to 75 yards by shooting through the open back door toward my fence line, but that would be very illegal in my city, plus there are houses..... I envy you for your wide open woods. I can come visit you this summer, do you have a place for me to park my 25 foot travel trailer? I will bring doughnuts and guns......

John Davies
Spokane WA

[North Country Gal]

Be a tight fit with a 25 foot trailer, but for donuts, my hubby will squeeze it in.

Our backstop is made of treated 2x6s and faced with plywood. We figured we could replace the plywood as needed.




At 30 yards, our most powerful air guns - 15-20 fpe - barely dimple the plywood because the whole backstop is angled. If we were shooting guns powerful as yours, we'd opt for steel facing, instead. Of course, at 40 fpe, we could also just use our steel rimfire bullet traps and call it good.

[Sir Henry]

Let us know how you like the compressor. I’m amazed at how much snow you still have. I’m thinking about mow the lawn.

[BigAl52]

Following along NCG. Jealous of the Daystate. Really would like to have one in 22 of course but they are a serious commitment.

[North Country Gal]

Let us know how you like the compressor. I’m amazed at how much snow you still have. I’m thinking about mow the lawn.

Will do on the compressor.

This has actually been a very light snow year, well below normal. Our winter sports economy took a big hit.

[North Country Gal]

Following along NCG. Jealous of the Daystate. Really would like to have one in 22 of course but they are a serious commitment.

It sure is, Al. One thing that helped us decide is that we already have the vintage Daystate CR-97, which we picked up at an auction some years back at a great price, Burris 8-32x scope and all. Daystate really does make as fine a PCP rifle as you can buy.

Of course, the other way to look at it is that the vintage Daystate dragged us into spending a fortune to expand our PCP shooting. No kidding, if we hadn't bought that gun, we'd have just stayed with our springer shooting and been perfectly happy. And, yes, our springers will remain our main shooters, though it will be nice to take a break with some PCP shooting.

Our vintage Daystate C9-97 (late 90s model PCP)

[BigAl52]

Really like the Daystate Hunstman Regal. But I will probably never own one because of the price.