Springer/Rammer day at the range

by Paul , Saturday, September 05, 2020, 15:42 (1328 days ago)

My wife didn't have to work today so we took the morning off for a family trip to the range. Got there and there were several folks down at the usual multipurpose range shooting "traumatic" pistols. That's the latest thing down here as they are largely unregulated and some folks want to shoot them like they were regular firearms.

So, we drove back up the hill, behind the trap range and over to a huge old samán tree overlooking one of the ponds on the club property. My wife took the dogs, along with the club dog who always wants to join us when "the girls" are along, and meandered down to the pond. I set up under the samán and proceeded to try out the new Hatsan I've been tweaking. The "fire sight" type open sights are atrocious, couldn't get it to group worth beans at 10 meters, but did get it more or less sighted in.

After wiping it down and sliding it back in the case I broke out the old Gamo CFX I carried in back in 2006. It let me down in the first Colombian National Field Target competition I participated in back in 2014 by breaking the main spring right in the middle of competition. It had me far enough ahead that even losing several targets while swapping my scope to a backup rifle (an old Haenel 303 Super that Rich Hoch gave me) I managed third place, but then it languished while I sourced parts (spring and seals from Air Rifle Headquarters - Jim Maccari), bought an Air Arms ProSport and moved a couple of times. Finally that round tuit rolled around and I put it all together - and boy am I glad I did. It's smooth as silk now and accurate as can be. I was shooting it with the front pin sight I designed and had a local machinist make, paired with an old iron chinese rear sight. The rifle is capable of fine accuracy, my eyes aren't up to it. Still, it showed that the problem with the Hatsan is something other than my ability to shoot open sights.

Got the Gamo wiped down and back in its case and broke out the old Cometa 300. This is a rifle I bought last year thinking of fixing it up for a young lady we know who wants to shoot Field Target but is using her grandpa's old Gamo CFR - WAY too big and heavy of a rifle for her, but she does amazingly with it. Anyhow, I bid on a Cometa 220 in 4.5 mm and the fellow sent me a Cometa 300 in 5.5 mm. I was tempted to send it back, but the temptation to see what I could do with it was greater. It was running low power when it arrived and I opened it up to take a look. Some "genius" had machined off the bit on the front of the piston that holds the seal in place and replaced it with a leather seal. So I had a new dovetailed bit made up and replaced the leather with synthetic, messed around with the spring, learned about the issue of over springing a rifle, learned about too generous of a transfer port leading to low power (sleeved it down to 3 mm from 4 mm) and finally cut the barrel back, with each of the steps taken upping the power until we got her running close to the UK "legal limit" of 12 FPE. Yep, learned a lot about these old rifles playing with this one. It's now a comparatively light, handy package of a rifle that puts some serious smack on target - and does so accurately. Here it is, leaned up against the old samán tree, overlooking the "central valley of Club de Tiro Punto Treinta".