" Broken Sights ": First trial at air rifle Benchrest 25

Today, June 25th, 2011, at the Carregueira shooting range (Belas, Sintra, Portugal), with an outside temperature on the 36 C / approx. 97 F range (!), I made my first trial at Benchrest 25, BR 25, air rifle (25 meters / 27 yards). I used my "old", Field-Target "focused", Air-Arms EV2 Mk.II, with AA Diabolo Field .177" / 4,52mm pellets (0,547 grams / 8,44 grains), scoped with a Nikko Stirling Diamond 50x (mil-dot reticle) mounted on Sportsmatch UK mounts, on my Varide Cicognani bench rest, and made about 85 training shots with it (approx. 25 "sighters" plus 60 "match like") with overall average / bellow average results.

Air Arms Ev2-MK-II, Nikko Diamond 50x scope,

Varide Cicognani rest, Gibraltar / Roc-n-Soc adjustable stool

Scoring is a little different from BR50 - at BR25 the tiny central ring-dot is the 10 point mark by itself - if you break the ring you score 10 points, if you obliterate the ring entirely you score X. On BR50 the entire central tiny ring is only for Xs and the immediate envolving circle is the 10 points mark.

Scoring (out of 50) was:

First target: 46, 46, 41
Second target: 47, 44, 48
Third target: 47, 48, 48
Fourth target: 47, 44, 47

Overall average score was: 46 / 50 points .

Since I was using cut down A3 to A4 photocopied targets, only 3 series per sheet were available instead of the regular 5 series per sheet. Extrapolating the average per series above for a full 5 series target, that would be 230 / 250 points (9,2 / 10 points per individual target). Since I'm running 240-245 at the BR50 .22 LR there's a lot to improve around the air rifle - but, anyway, this was just the first trial, and for sure it was fun!