Airgun Therapy

Walther LGR and Target Set-up

Last week while reading Vin Sparano's anthology "THE GREATEST HUNTING STORIES EVER TOLD" I came across Jim Carmichel's "The Great Jonesboro Pigeon Shoot" and that reminded me that I have been neglected one of the greatest form of shooting anyone, Professional Small Boy or not, can dream about: airgunning.

If you dive though the different posts in this blog you will come across half a dozen or so air gun related postings, but my writing is rather primitive when compared (if it could be compared at all) to Mr. Carmichel's.

Another great writer that also penned some fantastic airgun words is the late Peter Hathaway Capstick, who I believe coined the term professional small boy, which I still shamelessly. Two of the best Capstick's air gun stories are "Backyard Safari" and "Mini Sniping."

One or way or the other I have lived similar experiences as those described by these gentlemen. I may not have shot pigeons out of a court room, but I did that out of fertilizant plant and from the middle of a park in an undisclosed South American country, and while I have not bagged the dreaded bull Gundwan, I have stalked and terminated the dangerous saurian Ameiva ameiva, also known as "Jungle Runner" or South American Ground Lizzard.

I've also spent countless hours with friends or alone in my basement airgun range, mostly shooting at reactive targets for the almost instantaneous gratification of seeing a target flipping or flying. Many of the different targets that I shoot at are improvised: playing cards hanging from binder clips that are suspended from a cooper wire, spent .22 LR or center fire pistol cartridges set on golf tees (the only practical use that I have for an golf equipment), and any other thing that is same to be shot at. I also have a very nice Gamo running deer target (Gamo MTS 1000 Moving Airgun Target System to be more specific).

But with spring coming to Traverse City, and beautiful sunny days ahead, cold or otherwise it is indifferent, I just could not bear the thought of being in the dungeons and wanted a set-up that would allow me to enjoy airgun shooting in my backyard.

In the past, shooting an airgun in the backyard could put you in trouble with the law depending on where you lived in Michigan, but since July 1, 2015 airguns are no longer considered firearms, and as part of the provisions in the Air Gun Reclassification Package "these devices cannot be regulated on private property where authorization is given and the possessor takes precautionary measures to ensure that the projectile remains within the bounds of the property."

So yesterday night, when I stopped at the local Gander Mountain to buy my spring turkey license, I bought a Caldwell Resetting Airgun Target System Steel (if the Gamo is called the MTS, then this one should be called CRATSS), and this afternoon I inaugurated my new private outdoor range.

I placed the CRATSS in front of one of my archery targets to have a large and dependable back stop, placed a chair at about 20 meters and started banging at the target. Actually, my Walther LGR is so quiet that the only noises that I could hear were the hammer striking the valve and the pellet hitting the target (or the backstop if I did not do my part.)

The 10X scope on the LGR is dead on at 10 meters (the distance I generally shoot in the dungeon - sorry, the basement - and I found out that the first MIL-Dot above center was dead on at 20 meters, and when I moved to 30 meters I just had to go back to the center of the crosshair.

The cold wind blowing from the West Arm of Grand Traverse Bay easily pushed the pellets an inch sideways at the distances I was shooting, and with time the near freezing temperature started to take its toll on my finger tip sensibility. Finally, the setting sun started to play a torturing game of shadows and mirages. This was a great reminder of how much more challenging outdoor shooting is than when done in the controlled environment of an indoor range.

My next plan is to set a regulation Mini Snipping range. Of course I will have to get permission from my wife, as she is the only grown-up around the household. I will keep you posted on that, provided she allows me.

And tomorrow, the Brown Truck is supposed to bring me another Walther: a .22 caliber LGV high power spring piston. You know, professional small boys just cannot have enough toys!

A Blast From The Past

El Gamo Model 68

When I was a child in the 1970’s it was very common for boys to have air guns, but that was not my case. Although I got my first shotgun, a CBC 8 mm rim fire “Mini-Skeet” when I was around eight, my father would not allow us to have an air gun due to an accident that he had around the same age.

In Brazil air guns were almost always a break barrel spring-piston rifle, and my dad had a Diana .177 (4,5 mm) and one day when he was crossing a barbed wire fence it discharged accidently and the pellet hit him just outside of the left eye. He came home covered in blood and the family in shock started to pray for Santa Luzia, the saint protector of eyes and eyesight. My father carried that pellet deeply embedded in his skull for the rest of his life, and although he did not loose his vision, the trauma may have been responsible for an early cataract, which he had corrected by surgery before he was fifty.

Because of the importation restrictions in place at the time, only Brazilian made products were generally available. CBC, Rossi and Urko made quite traditional break barrel rifles with wood stocks, and were the most common, but there was one that stood apart of the lot, the El Gamo.

The El Gamo was coveted because it had a grip “like a machinegun”. Initially the El Gamo was produced by a whole owned subsidiary of the Spanish company, but the in the 1980’s Forjas Taurus bought the company. Initially there were two models available, a single shot and a repeater – the Gamatic, and after Taurus took over a third model was added. It used the same folding steel stock of the Beretta/Taurus MT-12 sub-machinegun.

Even in face of my father’s objections I would shoot an air gun whenever possible, and one occasion I was able to had my mother’s brother Rossi on a long-term loan, but it eventually had to be returned.

Believe it or not, it was not until after I got married that I was finally able to get my hands on a El Gamo, but it did not last long. I got it from a colleague at work, and it was functional but in real rough shape. The barrel was wrapped in electric tape, and the plastic panels on the stock were painted black.

Even in that shape I shot several air gun matches at the Helvetia Gun Club close to Indaiatuba (SP), until a certain day when a “very helpful gentleman” said that he could refurbish the El Gamo for me. It would not take long, nor would it cost much. I don’t think that I need to tell that the SOB disappeared with my gun and I never saw him again. Since this happened about twenty years ago and ten thousands miles south of Michigan, I do not have high hopes that he will bring the gun back.

Last Friday I stopped by On Target Guns & Gunsmithing, on M-43 just west of Kalamazoo, MI, to wish my friend Eric a happy new year, and when I saw an El Gamo on the air gun rack I just could not leave the store without it.

This gun is known in the US as a El Gamo Model 68, and I started to shoot it in my basement range I was surprised by its performance. First of all it is very quiet and has amazingly little vibration for a spring-piston air gun, and although I was shooting it at only about thirty feet, it is surprisingly accurate. Well, it is no on par with my Hammerli AR-50 or my Walther LGR, but it was never supposed to be a 10-meter match rifle.

I got started by shooting shotgun shells and silhouettes, and I just shot a 10-shot string on an air pistol target and except for the first two shots; every other one was inside or touching the nine-ring. This is not bad when you consider that I am shooting an original condition open sights rifle off-hand, and that I currently have an incurable eye condition called middle age.

But the little El Gamo shines when shooting the Gamo Running Deer target. Just swing the little Model 68 ahead of the self-resetting steel target and pull the trigger and it is hard to miss.

In order to get full use of the El Gamo capabilities I probably will have to scope it, but I will do it in the safety of my basement, and no “very helpful gentleman” will ever get his dirty hands on my precious “blast from the past”.