Here's my newest air rifle.
I love my Venom, but it's just too powerful (and "too scoped") to get to shoot much around the house. I found I was shooting my Crosman pistols more often, and 95% of the time at 4 pumps or less. So I shopped around and ended up buying a Ruger Explorer youth rifle for about $65.00, delivered.
Once I got it shooting straight, I made a few alterations. The skin on my middle finger knuckle is still growing back, so I cut away part of the trigger guard. The plastic on this gun is thick and strong; I had no qualms about weakening the trigger guard. It is still solid:
The grip is way too short for me, still, so I routed away part of the stock so I could shoot it with a 3-finger grip. I found there was enough room in the handle to stick a 35mm film canister, which can hold about 230 pellets.
Here, you can see the 10 rd pellet holder I installed behind the barrel pivot. Its just a thick piece of leather. There are two rails (wooden Q tip sticks) running on either side of the pellets as spacers. After degreasing the receiver, the leather is glued on with high temp hotmelt glue, using a heat gun to preheat the receiver and reflow the glue. You can also see some of the wiring for the LEDs I added to the Tru Glo sights.
The battery and some circuitry are glued to the bottom of the barrel and then secured with electrical tape. Yep, I'm ghetto like that.
I can't really comment too much on accuracy. I shoot it like an AR pistol, with the buttstock floating on my cheek +/- the bottom of the butt resting on my chest, rather than my shoulder. Additionallly, the Tru Glo sights are a little hard for my eyes to focus on, and I don't have an extra airgun-rated scope lying around. But the gun is a bit more hold sensitive than my Venom, and it kicks about as much, if not more. The rifle weighs only 4.5 lbs, or so. I have it shooting minute of rat out to 10 yards, anyway, and the gun is a blast to shoot! The best part, it likes 177 Daisy wadcutters. After straightening the barrel, recrowning, and fire-lapping, I can hit a bandsaw blade-guide bearing that is slightly smaller than a quarter about 19 times out of 20 at 9 yards, when I use beeswax-lubed Daisy wadcutters.
I love my Venom, but it's just too powerful (and "too scoped") to get to shoot much around the house. I found I was shooting my Crosman pistols more often, and 95% of the time at 4 pumps or less. So I shopped around and ended up buying a Ruger Explorer youth rifle for about $65.00, delivered.
Once I got it shooting straight, I made a few alterations. The skin on my middle finger knuckle is still growing back, so I cut away part of the trigger guard. The plastic on this gun is thick and strong; I had no qualms about weakening the trigger guard. It is still solid:
The grip is way too short for me, still, so I routed away part of the stock so I could shoot it with a 3-finger grip. I found there was enough room in the handle to stick a 35mm film canister, which can hold about 230 pellets.
Here, you can see the 10 rd pellet holder I installed behind the barrel pivot. Its just a thick piece of leather. There are two rails (wooden Q tip sticks) running on either side of the pellets as spacers. After degreasing the receiver, the leather is glued on with high temp hotmelt glue, using a heat gun to preheat the receiver and reflow the glue. You can also see some of the wiring for the LEDs I added to the Tru Glo sights.
The battery and some circuitry are glued to the bottom of the barrel and then secured with electrical tape. Yep, I'm ghetto like that.
I can't really comment too much on accuracy. I shoot it like an AR pistol, with the buttstock floating on my cheek +/- the bottom of the butt resting on my chest, rather than my shoulder. Additionallly, the Tru Glo sights are a little hard for my eyes to focus on, and I don't have an extra airgun-rated scope lying around. But the gun is a bit more hold sensitive than my Venom, and it kicks about as much, if not more. The rifle weighs only 4.5 lbs, or so. I have it shooting minute of rat out to 10 yards, anyway, and the gun is a blast to shoot! The best part, it likes 177 Daisy wadcutters. After straightening the barrel, recrowning, and fire-lapping, I can hit a bandsaw blade-guide bearing that is slightly smaller than a quarter about 19 times out of 20 at 9 yards, when I use beeswax-lubed Daisy wadcutters.
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