Ep. 1 – The Airgun World Podcast – welcome to the show

Welcome to the Airgun World Podcast.

Join hosts Dave Barham, Terry Doe, Mat Manning and Rich Saunders as they talk all things airguns. From news, latest products, and invaluable information in the Q and A section, you can learn first-hand from the nations best airgunners.

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Hello everybody and welcome to the first ever episode of the air gun World podcast bear in mind this is the first episode we thought we’d introduce you all to the hosts who you’re going to be listening to over the coming weeks uh and just have a bit of a a general

Chitchat about what this podcast is going to be all about and uh what we’ve all been up to so if you’re watching this the guys on screen don’t need any introduction but if you’re listening to this we’ve got none other than Terry do the Godfather of air gunning himself how

You doing Terry I’m doing very well in in a Godfather sort of way good man loving my retirement loving it excellent stuff okay then we’ve got Matt Manning Matt doesn’t need any introduction at all he’s probably one of the best uh air gun hunters in the UK Lo knows loads and

Loads and loads about air guns you’re not too well are you Matt uh I’ve got a bit of a head cold it’s much worse than my wife asks but but for you you guys it’s fine tell it tell it like it is mate it’s man flu we know it’s bad yeah I I

Have got the alus oil and strep seals at the ready I’m I’m on my knees I’m on my knees here okay so the other guy we’ve got with us is none other than Rich Saunders Now Rich again is a very very experienced air Gunner Hunter and Rich

You actually do every single month you write in the magazine you actually do all of our group test don’t you yeah and it it’s lovely to play with gear that you don’t actually have to own yes the sad thing is want us to go back again at

The end of the the the session but uh yeah no it’s all good fun excellent stuff okay so this is the first one we’re doing we’re just going to have a little bit of General chitchat but going forwards uh we’re splitting into two teams so every two weeks you’re going to

Have ter do and myself interviewing our studio guests and then two weeks after that you’re GNA have Matt and Rich again doing the same interviewing a studio guests and talking about what they’ve been up to now this is going out on the 22nd of December December I believe so

Merry Christmas to everyone watching and a Happy New Year in two weeks time from today Terry and I are going to be talking to none other than Mike hery from the shooting party about all things importing air guns pellet that sort of stuff and distributing it to all the

Shops so you guys and girls out there can go and buy it um and then two weeks after that I think Matt and Rich you may be interviewing the wi man himself Tony B beas from day state BRK broock that’s the that’s the plan that’s the if we can pin him

Down okay so um what have you guys been up to I mean I’ve just come back from a trip to Ireland I’ve been on holiday for a week and I’ve eaten far too much drunk far too much Guinness so I haven’t actually been out shooting for the last

Week or so what you guys been up to uh I have I have been out hunting uh so I was like ratting a couple of nights ago on the F that’s quite a varied week I was at a gig on Wednesday night went to see Ice Cube and Cypress Hill but that’s

That’s probably not the demographic that we’re aiming at so yeah yeah back to the ratting I mean now the weather’s colder um it was really slow to get going actually this winter on most of the Farms where I shoot Rats the weather stayed mild it was wet but it stayed

Mild but now it’s turning a little bit cold and we’ve had some serious flooding down in my part of the world in Somerset um and it seems to be driving the rats obviously onto the farmyards for the shelter the food and and certainly the higher lying Farms where the rats have

Been flooded out off the lower ground they they’re starting to turn up in numbers there now so it’s starting to get exciting excellent stuff okay so rich what have you been up to you’ve been out you’re always out as well aren’t you yeah lot lots of times I like

Matt I mean this time of year it’s ratting ratting ratting and um I like Matt a lot of the rivers around by me have flooded out as well so the rats are really something to come into the Farms that I shoot on and one of my Farms is a

Chicken farm and effects the focus of the the air gun show on YouTube a week or so ago where I think there about 8,000 Birds on the farm in two big chicken sheds and every 18 months that 4,000 birds from one of the sheds gets moved out and the shed gets dragged back

Into a field so all the mut can be cleared up and the Rats that have been living underneath the shed all of a sudden there’s no shed so they don’t know where to go and um just I’m just shooting so many rats I’m sick of the

Sight of them I went for about four nights on a row and I lost counted about 300 rats and um that’s an awful big pile of rats to burn up as well at the end of the night yeah so lots of that’s bit bit of rabbit shooting as well um one of my

Main permissions I tend to drive around in the truck and shoot out the window um because it’s just such a big area to cover and the tracks have been really wet and muddy so that slowed things down a little bit but managed to get a few

Rabbits too but mostly rest so i”ll be back on the Scrolls next week both you boys Mak me want to get out now I know 300 that’s an unbelievable amount isn’t it that’s a lot of pet been hunting and I’ve had to fill up with air

And open a new tuna pellet yeah superb what about you Terry what you been up to mate well the last three gigs I went to were the Mavericks first aid kit and Teddy swims so Matt’s not the only happening GE are on this screen at the

Moment so they were all brilliant but um I’ve been ratting and rabbiting and mainly testing down at bizley I’ve um I got got a load of gear from um Highland Outdoors um that RTI P3 I did for last month for this latest issue they sent me

The yeah yeah there’s a bit of confusion about that we’re gonna have to explain this Dave or I say we I mean you um yeah when I when I got that rifle there was a little little paper swing tag on the trigger guard and it said uh performance

Compact you see and I thought that’s what it was called but what it was it had a little ring around the performance so if it had been a compact it have had a ring around the word compact so it wasn’t a performance compact it was a P3

Performance but the one they sent me is the performance compact they didn’t have a swing tag anyway I I briefly expl explained it they sent me that they sent me a superb pair of mounts that all the guys all the tragic people at my club like me we’re looking at these tier one

Mounts and they’re all going oh my God look at those oh look at even the even the little box it comes in got a metal push button to open it in the cardboard box it’s mad and all the like got a little set it’s got a little spirit

Level set in the mount and everyone’s looking at and saying oh I’ve got to have these mounts we’ve got have and they are they’re 120 or 130 quid for a set of two-piece mounts but they’re machined out of a solid Billet and they’re they’re just jewelry just air gun jewelry they’re wonderful things

Ludicrous money but wonderful things and um here’s where here’s one situation I was in that Matt wouldn’t have been in I doubt Richard would they sent um a GP which I found funny GPO scope so I thought i”d have a post reticle hey Matt GPO post anyway German Precision Optics okay um

Spectra 46 50i and I I put it on the P3 and first shot I I always start the zeroing process at 12 yards so first shot was about half inch high half inch right I thought right I’m there I’m there few clicks on the turrets second shot miles

Out miles higher miles more right what on Earth’s going on here next did loads of more altering next shot off the plate all together into the ground I’ve taken the silencer off I’m looking to see if it’s clipping I’m and then I finally did what we never do and I looked at the

Instructions on the turret and it’s the other way around you know every time we twiddle down don’t we no no no you don’t you twiddle up for down and you twiddle out for for left on this one and you will not believe how non-intuitive that is

For someone who’s been doing it as long as we have I got it and it’s a superb thing my God they’re not cheap they’re 600 and something quid but it it is incredible but I am still seriously struggling with the backwards turrets you know I’m zero tried on about three

Guns but that’s what I’ve been doing and I’ve been turning up at bizly at 7 o’clock in the morning and um I’m so energized but I can’t sleep at night still it’s great in it I love absolutely love and I don’t have press deadlines like you do

So so I’m just loving it excellent stuff I’m glad to hear you’ve all been out and having a bit of fun I think just before I went to Ireland um I popped up to see Jill at range right I know you’ve been there Teri yeah and what an experience

That was that rexim X rifles coming out of turkey I mean for years and years and years the stuff that was coming out of turkey was 5050 to say the least wasn’t it and crwl as well obviously talking to Jill at range right and seeing their

Operation and what they do do you know like every single rifle they sell loads of Crossman stuff all the exat they sell cwl every single rifle that goes through the doors and out the doors of range right every single rifle is tested even including all the Springers all the

Crossman Springers that they sell and they sell thousands of them every single one they’ve got like a 10-point checklist and they’ve been working really really closely with rexim X over in turkey and I know Matt you reviewed uh the Lyra a couple of issues ago I reviewed

It in the December issue and that you know it’s a Turkish warn up stock PCP for less than 400 quid and it’s absolutely spot on isn’t it I I was surprised by how good it was also though I’ve got what I’ve hung on to is the rexim X pretenses which is

Another gun you wouldn’t expect first it’s a really handsome looking gun but also it puts pellets in the right place um and at that price it’s mindblown but I think we’ve got to a point these days there are very few bad air guns out there be well a because it’s such a

Competitive market you can you you get so much for your money these days but also because of social media everybody’s got an immediate comeback um and manufacturers Distributors they can’t get away with a substandard product these days it depends how how picky I guess you’re going to be if you if

You’re expecting a 400 quid rexim X to do the same job as a VAR HW 100 or so it’s not realistic but I’ll tell you that they’re a lot closer together than their price tags will will dictate absolutely and I can do I’ve done groups that you couldn’t tell which which rifle

Had done them you just couldn’t tell you you wouldn’t say oh yeah well that’s from a 500 quid gun and that’s from a 1500 quid gun it’s we’re now into the into the Realms of it’s doing a I don’t know going around a racetrack in

A in a fiesta and doing 100 miles an hour and doing it doing the same thing in a Mercedes they’re still 100 mph but they’re different experiences and it that’s where we are now I think we’re down to refinement because the basic performance is amazing for the money now

That you know if you look down a range of 30 mters there’s not an awful lot of difference in performance between guns that cost 500 quid and 1500 quid other than just the tactile interaction with the quality of engineering you know for for a lot of guys you just want to shoot

A few targets and yourd rat underneath head they don’t need ,000 or500 regulated Ral a good Springer or a cheap BCP will do the job you you spend 400 now you you certainly get 400 pounds worth of air rifle certainly in most cases and that sort of incremental

Improvement for each 100 pounds you spend between 200 300 400 500 you will see a quantifiable Improvement you usually with that extra spend but there’s kind of like a ceiling now that you have to start spending increments of 500 or a grand more to get a really quantifiable noticeable difference in in

The performance of that gun and and if you can afford it and you want to pay that extra Grand yes you will get a dream gun but but you don’t have to isn’t it great that we’ve got that though we’ve got that option it’s wonderful we’ve got

So many so many tiers of of where you want to be you know if you want to really want to push it and and have something you’re going to cherish and stand there and admire you’ve got that if you want to pay for that or if you

Just want to go out and do a job and shoot 50 rats you can do that for a quar of the money we’ve got the option now the only thing we we must be realistic about is that extra money and as Matt so rightly says once you’ve hit 500 quid

You’re going to have to double that to get twice the gun and more probably probably more treble it to get twice the gun than your 500 quid model and you’re you’re in a different territory then so we need to be realistic that it takes a while for your shooting to get that

Extra benefit out of your spend also and this is this is something I always come back to a lot of people find out the hard way certainly with live Quarry shooting you will never buy your way out of the the fieldcraft problem um so no

Even if you’ve got a 200 accurate at to 20 yards um if if you learn how to creep within 20 yards of what you want to shoot you’re fine um I think this this is a big problem in modern air gun shooting is that too many people haven’t

Cut their teeth the Hardway they haven’t done those hard yards that we all did as kids with inferior equipment that we probably quite resented having at the time but now sat here you know as 47y old Matt I realized that the apprenticeship that I served with that

That kit that wasn’t quite up the standard or any where near the standard of what I I’m using now taught me so much and and made me able to appreciate the extra 1% here in the extra 2% here of when you’re using high-end Optics or

A top end air rifle um but but it’s all down to that long and frustrating apprenticeship and a lot of people just don’t quite realize that seem like there’s more of a golf between cheap pcbs and good pcps um you know that that performance Gap is getting much much smaller but

With Springers I think there’s still quite a gap between cheap Springers and more expensive Springers you know I see people who spend 180 quid on a on a on a cheap Springer and you know frankly they’re struggling to hit you know 20 25 meters you give them a good Springer and

All of a sudden they’re you know they’re hitting the target every time it just seems that there’s a more of a gulf when it comes to the Springer Market those pcps in terms of price and performance yeah that changed so Terry like you just said isn’t it great that we’ve got all

That now you know the price gaps and the quality of the stuff and I’ve actually written a little note down here on my piece of paper and we could talk a little bit about the magazine in a second for those people listening and watching that of not of with it but I’ve

Written here there’s I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to be an air Gunner than there is right now um you know we’ve got the magazine air gun world it’s the only air gun magazine out there and you know it’s it’s the best before there were there were two

Other magazines and we s of Amalgamated them all into one big Super Mag um you know it’s I believe it’s it’s the best air gun mag that there’s ever been out there on the shelves um but not only that you know we’ve got the YouTube channels that we’ve got um Matt and and

Richard as well you know on the air gun show which is on the the shooting show on YouTube um is that every two weeks Matt it’s every two weeks uh yeah the current episode which is a rich Saunders hunting package frustratingly is absolutely flying I think it’s approaching 40,000 people about five

Days um so yeah doing great I I I fear that might now be dated when this podcast goes out but um yeah it’s it’s every fortnite it’s never dated Matt because it’s there forever on YouTube and anyone can watch it at any time around the world you know so we’ve we’ve got the

Air gun show on the shooting show on YouTube we’ve also got shooting and Country TV uh where we’ve got Gary Chillingworth who does his life at the range uh piece I believe that’s every two two weeks to a month um and of course Mick Garvey as well he’s always

Out hunting on Sho Country TV um yet there’s never been a better time I don’t think to to gain knowledge from people who’ve been doing it for for years and years and years all their life you know every channel hence how this podcast has popped up you know it’s just a another

Multimedia Channel where we can all share our knowledge and learn a bit of stuff as well from from people in the trade and whatnot yeah my view is very simple I I predate most of you guys but um mine was just a trial and error more

A ton of trial error all over the place years and years behind the false belief that mule energy would cure everything and that that still hasn’t gone for far too many people they think if they’re Miss missing they don’t realize you’re missing with 11 foot pounds even if you

Go and get yourself an fac uh if you hit a rabbit in the wrong place with a 22 Rimfire it’s it’s not going to be any more you know it’s going to be less dead than if you you put the 177 pellet in the right place at at 11 foot pounds but

When I when I started all I had was a a raving enthusiasm which I still have but the the information was just what your your mates did and what you learned yourself and then air gun world came out in 77 and and things really changed it got us

Together it pushed me toward a club where I had like-minded weirdos the same as I was who really into what we were doing and it all it all went from there but as you are absolutely right there’s never been a better time for learning than there is now and and I hope between

All of us and more more people out there we’re going to we’re going to increase that we’re going to cut down on the on the errors and give them more positive stuff to work toward Ward and be better quicker because not only does it benefit the individual the more individuals we

Turn on to how fantastic this sport of ours is the more that they will help protect it like we do and the more the bigger voice we have and and the more people that that will keep an eye out for for something they love and it’s

Welfare so you know we’ve all got a duty to it to to the people and to the sport and this is the time to do it and without a doubt social media in its many forms is has got to be used in a very

Positive way and it can be we all use it positively and and for the consumer it’s fantastic yeah I think YouTube is for me it’s one or you know online social media is is probably the biggest impact because you know magazines have been around for a long time um but I think

You know when I look back to when I first started shooting as a kid you know I try and sort of stalk rabbits and and they just used to run away and it’s very frustrating and I decided one day just have a sit down and see what happened

And all of a sudden I discovered ambushing now I had no idea that that was a tactic before um I thought I’d invented the thing but now you know you watch R of YouTube and you see some guy doing it and and other things and all of

A sudden you learn so much quicker and I I think for me the the moving word the the moving picture is is a lot more um impactful for a lot more people now than than than magazines probably ever were and to my mind the magazines fill that kind of indepth insight and

Knowledge um requirement still YouTube is um it gives you that sort of instant learning yeah yeah I mean for me and for for many people these days after a day sat a screen I may not feel inclined to spend another 10 minutes half an hour at

Screen so I I’d like to pick up a magazine and have a mug of coffee and relax that way but when you want that quick fix of information and it’s like anything these days it change a tap washer change a b battery in your watch

Um zero an air gun it’s just a quick two three minute video you’ve seen it unfolding in real time it’s it’s just that that tutorial element of it is amazing when so much of our gear is getting more complicated you know like digital night vision scopes they’re very

Hard things to communicate through the written word you know literally a picture is a thousand words and you show a video on it and all of a sudden you know with an accompanying piece of text maybe in a magazine and all of a sudden you know it becomes a lot clearer you

Know whereas we didn’t have that level of technology to have to communicate years ago no absolutely I mean well let’s talk about the magazine so we’ve got the January issue that’s on sale now the thing is with the magazine is that as far as Gear reviews goes we get a

Hell of a lot of new gear where we get all of it it all goes into this magazine as soon as it comes out it’s either on the cover or or it’s inside um and obviously the YouTube stuff that sort of complements that but that a lot of the

Time that comes afterwards you know after it’s been in the mag me for instance in this this January issue um you’ve got Terry you’re doing the RTI arms P3 not compact um Matt you’ve just reviewed the the BSA R12 SLX the new one the new side

Lever um I’ve got uh the the curvan airboss which I’ve done as my editor test I mean that’s another Turkish rifle really nice bit of Kit that’s sold actually by Mike from the shooting party and Rich you you’ve done uh a group test on four uh infrared night vision add-ons

Yeah you know the previous issue you did dedicated uh day night Scopes that’s not for everybody some people don’t like to shoot during daytime with a digital scope but these these uh add-ons that you can bolt onto your your your normal day scope I mean they becoming ever more

Increasingly popular aren’t they Best of Both Worlds and you get thermal add-ons now as well and you know they they had the benefit of of enabling you to shoot with just one rifle you don’t have to have a separate rifle set up uh for a dedicated night vision scope you know

You’ve been shooting in the day popping on the front or the back when the Sun goes down and carry on yeah no I love I I I sort of you know I I grew up in the shooting with a torch or a lamp strapped to my gun era and I remember when the

The night sight stuff came out you with the the screen on the top and the big camera and that was such a huge step change and yeah it’s not that long ago and all of a sudden we’ve moved into dedicated night vision scopes day night Scopes and

Now and add-ons as well and it seems to be a sector that’s moving faster than anything else and that you know that’s a good thing but I think it’s also a um it’s a troubling thing for some customers or some consumers because they literally don’t know what to get because

There’s just so many out there um so yeah so hopefully that that I always with a group test try and give folks a flavor of the options that are open to them um and give them a little bit of a start point before they go and and put

Some hard cash down that’s probably going to do us for this section of the the podcast I mean we’ve introduced each other told the the listeners what’s going to be coming up in the next few months um one of the things that’s going to be a regular slot on these podcasts is

Listeners q& a obviously this is the first episode so it’s going to be readers Q&A we’ve got some uh questions I believe you’ve got some as well ter from from readers of the magazine if you’re listening to this watching this and you want to ask us questions for the

Future you can email me dave. baram fieldsports press.com or you can hit us up on our social media pages on Facebook and just drop us a message on there we’ll do everything we can to answer your questions this question is from Nathan Jenkins he says the Camas that

You wear at hunting do you wash them as usual in the washing machine the reason I of this is because wouldn’t really clean fresh smelling clothes send a scent off into the field and scare away whatever you’re hunting I usually wash mine with no fabric conditioner but my

Wife washes them and they smell like flowers for days now I don’t know about you guys but I tend to try and not wash my hunting clobber if I do wash it it’s probably once a year I mean that that little and then even then once it’s been washed

Hang it out in the garden and wait for it to rain for a couple of days um what’s what are your guys thoughts on this you must have experienced this before like if you’re ratting in a in a yard you know with lots of people moving around and stuff it’s probably doesn’t

Matter so much but certainly if you’re out stalking rabbits um then yeah it’s in I I I never wash my coats or shooting coats because I think they’re just too complicated to do that and they’re probably the stinkiest things um but um yeah I I I never worry

About it too much to be honest um main because I think my boots will probably stink and my coat will always stink and there’s very little else that I’m wearing there is some stuff I’m wearing I don’t want to fight anymore but you know the once you take into account the

Stinky coat I think I’m covered yeah I’m I’m I’m quite paranoid about it if if I for instance if I think I’m going to be going rabbit shooting of an evening and I’ve shower in the morning I won’t put deodorant on after having a shower because I think that’s a really

Strong smell um my good mate Kev Hawker always has a really stinky air freshener in his car and I really resent having to put my hunting clothes in there because you come out stinking of vanilla so yeah I I I am quite paranoid about it wash my shooting clothes as little as possible

And I like to think that my jacket is like a little cocoon that smells like all of the leaf mold that I’ve been sitting in or the Farms that I’ve been on and it’s masking all of that that human smell within it and also think that clothes can feel a bit stiff when

They come out the wash um so the the more you wear them they they sort of loosen up and become softer and quieter I think was the last time one of my shooting jackets went in the washing machine the washing machine ended up full of air gun pellets so there’s a

Lesson there I’m with Matt on this one I think I’ve washed a hunting jacket twice in my life and on both times U pig manure was involved so that was to to get rid of the smell for my benefit um but any any other time no way no I don’t

I do what Matt does I don’t do the deodorant thing um I love my after shaves but I will not be wearing I’ll even if I’m having a shave before I go I’ll even sort of close the pors on my face with cold water or hot water rather

Than than put After Shave or something on um it whether it makes a difference or not it makes difference in my head so um I don’t feel so good about being out there if I’ve not prepared everything so I do everything in my favor but as for

The washing they say oh use pure soap use that don’t use anything unless it’s absolutely smothered and it’s s stinking my hunting clothes are they hang in the in the fishing tackle shed they’re not hanging in polite Society I won’t inflict that on that the general household but that’s where they hang and

They can absorb any amount of Aromas in there you Dave knows better than anyone what lovely smells come out of a wet landing net um or a car Sack or something like that so yeah they can have those I’m I’m happy for my hunting clothes to absorb that but nah don’t

Wash my stuff never Terry Terry’s made a brilliant point there saying it makes a difference in his head and I think there’s so much to be said for that so I don’t I don’t know what rabbits squirrels rats Etc can smell but if I believe they can’t smell me I feel a

Little bit more confident it’s the same with camouflage none of us really know what our Quarry can see we don’t really know if camo makes a huge difference when I’m wearing camo and I’ve got headnet on and I’ve got my green gloves over my over my pink skin I feel a

Little bit more invisible and I just think that it breeds confidence and you believe you’ve got a bit of an edge and I don’t feel like you’re wasting your time absolutely okay so here’s another question you know we were talking about getting kids into the sport this one’s

From Mike Powell um he said what rifle would you suggest for an eight-year-old lad my son has shown an interest in shooting with me both when hunting and at the range and I like to get my St a rifle setup do they make rifles especially for kids these days I know

They do because I’ve bought them for my kids um what about you rich what what do you suggest for for an eight-year-old lad yeah I think there’s a school that says you know teach him how to shoot a springer to start with and and what have

You but it’s a little B like like fishing you know if you take little kids fishing they want to catch them something every two minutes they don’t want to sit there for an hours and hours and hours let Spit with with a PCP I think you if you give a kid a springer

And they’re going to miss tin can and what have you and they’re soon going to get bored so I would say start them off with a even a cheap PCP ID did one made for junior so that they’re going to hit what they aim at and that’s going to get

Their enthusiasm and then you can move them on to more you know to stringers and things and and refine their technique but yeah I I I think um yeah the BSA do a junior rifle some of the the jsr come up nice and small as well

And I I think yeah give them a PCP and get get their enthusiasm I couldn’t agree more with that I’m funny enough I just I’m G to be sending you Dave a a one pager from a question I was asked by a chap who said his um 13-year-old grandson um is he’s

Going to teach him to shoot he’s got a extensive collection of rifles but should he start in where he started with a a Springer an old Springer and open sights and just like Richard said perfect answer no this guy in his collection he’s got an an

S500 um get the kid having success get some success get him turned on not grafting yet if his technique needs sharpening up in yet in later time yeah let him control a springer once he knows he can do it once he knows where the fun is Springers are still the greatest

Means of training your Technique there is every everything you can do with a springer you can do with a PCP but not the other way around but just like Richard says you the kid wants to be turned on because there are so many diversions out there with with like

Video games and all sorts of stuff um that they can get guaranteed degrees of success here get the kid turned on I would personally recommend the uh the junior BSA or if you’re not going to spend too too much money get a secondhand airarms s200 um especially one of the older

Generation ones where you can make cut stock down a little bit uh perfectly accurate rifle s don’t need mag magazines or anything really single shuttle do to start with get them doing the fundamental thing that turned us on from the start hitting a Target and the buzz you get from what’s your opinions

Mat on this completely agree with those models and with the advice for starting with a PCP and I think actually quite f with my kids they they enjoyed that instant gratification of shooting pcps and feeling that they were fairly proficient Shooters but then on the garden range that became a little bit

Monotonous and then it’s time to roll out the Spring Gun because then you’ve got the kick yeah there’s just a bit more going on there’s the mechanical side of it which is good fun and then they feel like they’re going up another level which is it’s kind of a reverse of

What too many people believe what I think it’s it’s quite easy as a parent to be guilty of just wanting your kids to do follow the same course of what you didn’t know know the old rake Barrel Springer was good enough for me it’s good enough for them well actually

Engage them make them feel competent with the PCP and then bring in that bit of excitement with with a with a mechanical Spring Gun bit later on I think when I think back to when I started you know shooting guns 40 45 years ago you know I wanted the best

Rifle that I could get my hands on and my friends always had better rifles than me and if one of them had had a PCP 45 years ago I wouldn’t have even considered a springer you’d want that gun you’d want the best thing and to make kids start off with old whole

Technology now I think um is a little bit cruel really well let let me hit the hit you from this from this point um I agree with absolutely everything you’ve all said my oldest daughter Mia I got her started she started shooting when she was about 10 years old and yeah she

Was shooting my pcps off the bench in the back Garden absolutely loving it but then she sh she saw me and I I actually got to start taking some photos of me first for rifle test she was watching me shooting standing up and uh she couldn’t manage that with

My PCP rifles so I invested in a webble vmx cub nice little short lightweight Springer it’s only I think it’s only six foot pound so it’s sort of half UK power which is easier for someone little person to that’s another thing with Springers a full power UK Springer takes some cocking doesn’t it

And yeah so she went from shooting my PCP every weekend off the bench to absolutely not wanting to shoot that anymore and spend as much time as she could shooting standing with her own brake Barrel in the garden but she’d already had that training about safety trigger safety control she had success

As well though hadn’t she she she chall version of The Buzz that she was getting which is great yeah it’s great absolutely okay so you’ve got a couple of questions as well Terry haven’t you yep I’ve got I’ve got three questions the first one’s going to be the quickest one ever cuz I

Already know the answer to it um I’ve asked do any of us change our trigger settings in the winter to compensate for cold hands and all that here’s my answer no no I don’t not ever but no couple of my mates do couple of my mates do um so

Do any of you guys do it my only provisor on that cautionary is if you’ve got it set so lightly that a slightly colder finger is going to Res is going to risk um an unwanted trigger shot then you’ve got it set too light in summer I’m more about winter so get it

To a position where it’s practical it’s a hunting gun you’re out in the field you know temperatures will vary conditions will vary and your hands can get cold I’m lucky I don’t I’ve never felt I’ve been out all my life I don’t feel that but if if you’re setting your trigger so light

That you’re worried about it going on you know going off because you can’t you’ve lost a bit of sensitivity in your Tri trigger finger then you’re you’re running on too light a set my opinion I don’t like light triggers I like a long first stage and a rockard second stage I

Know where it’s going to break that’s just the way I shoot which is hence why most of the guns that we get sent for review that come out of the factory come out of the shops they’re normally pretty spot on for how I like to shoot you know

I’ve I’ve never been one for adjusting that trigger so that you blow on it and and off it goes many years ago we conducted a survey in the magazine to find out about readership habits and stuff and I asked a part of the survey was how many of you

Alter your trigger how many of you adjust your trigger you know that from the we had something like I don’t know two and a half thousand replies or something over a course of a year and a half less than 20% of shooters ever adjusted their trigger you try to sell a non-adjustable

Trigger you try to sell a gun with a non-adjustable trigger you won’t do it but less than 20% of them and now we’ve got the editor of air gun World saying he doesn’t do it either so yeah you you’d think everybody like us tweak tweak tweak tweet tweet they don’t you

Know they absolutely don’t maybe some more should but that was it that time ago and we had plenty of adjust adjustable triggers then we’ve had them for many years and less than 20% said they do adjust their trigger I think certainly when you’re spending 750,000 1500 on an air gun it should

Leave the factory with a pretty well set trigger I do like to know that a trigger is adjustable because using several guns I like them all to feel fairly similar and that s of boils down into what I was saying earlier but I don’t like to really change anything so at least if

I’m Shuffling between guns the triggers have some similarity between them but as long as it’s relatively crisp and predictable and not hair light there’s no har in leaving it alone I think the problem that we all face is changing kit so frequently um and it’s it’s a lovely

Problem to have you know in this privileged position of getting our hands on all of this kit you know week in week out but my goodness that lack of familiarity doesn’t have affect your shooting I can remember back when I had one air rifle I was a way better shot

Than I am now because I was just so ruthlessly familiar with it um so yeah back to the original point the only reason I would adjust a trigger is to make it feel similar to the Triggers on my other go-to guns that’s why I do it

That’s why I do I like I’m like Dave I like a long first stage give me plenty of micro adjustment time and then a definite stop absolutely a definite stop and all of my guns I use a hardcore of about five guns five rifles I want their

Triggers to be as identical as I possibly can get them and um that’s the only reason I generally I adjust them because n most most rifles these days have got decent Triggers on what about you rich yeah I I would rather have a a trigger that that is set heavier than

Lighter because I don’t think you get surprised by a heavy trigger whereas you get surprised by one that’s too light it goes off before you’re ready um but I I very rarely adjust them out of the box you know um I I tend to shoot the same

Core number of rifles and if I have to shoot with another one for whatever reason then I’ll I’ll spend some time tinkering around with it but you know I now realize it’s to get it to feel like all my other guns um but generally speaking Yeah I I find out of the box

They’re usually pretty good we had a guy funny off talking about triggers being set too light we had a guy at our club who came down with an hw80 and he had the trigger set so light that um you it was the thing was going off with with

Him barely touching the trigger and we got a little we always know where he’s sat because there’s a little CL a good group right in the roof of the of the shooting gallery where when he brought the barrel up bang it went off yeah so um I’d rather have a heavier trigger

Than a light one no exactly the same you know once you you’ve got settled and you know your rifle and your scope and your trigger setting don’t change it why would yeah these are good questions and I’m Keen to learn from them as well um

Do any of us use anything in a in the hunting field anything other than round head pellets I must admit I I was using I won’t say the brand uh for a long time but I was using some well-known good quality Diablo pellets and um they just seem to S

Suddenly go off a little bit whether the manufacturing process had changed or whatever they just seem to go off and I switched to um the jsb Hades fellet so they’re still a round head but they have those kind of funny little kind of Scoops out of them

So they’re kind of semi um you know dum dum kind of PS and I thought that they would be rubbish because you know they’re not um a pure surface and and there’s potential for there to be variances in manufacturing but I have to say they’ve been fantastic and I I use

Them um certainly in all my 22 rifles now because they’ve just become my go-to pellet but before that yeah always own so yeah I I use predator polym mags fairly recently quite frequently and was surprised because they kind of went against everything that I’d discovered and been preaching about not using pellets of

Elaborate design and then you’ve got this what is effectively a dum dum with a with a plastic appendage stuck to the front of it and I I my expectations were incredibly low I couldn’t believe how out to certainly mid-range how accurate they were through some of my guns and they did

Genuinely have some improved expansion they were hitting hard or used them for ratting and and still do from time to time very successfully but by and large a quality domed pet for virtually everything and I think Terry’s the one here with the target shooting pedigree they are the go-to pet for any field

Target hft shooters that are regularly picking up silverware they’re using these quality domed pellets now for a hunter we’re trying to shoot things in the head if you shoot something in the brain it doesn’t matter what shape that pellet is that that that creature might

Flip about a bit but it’s dead um it just hasn’t sunk in yet so I think yeah we are we are dealing with even fac power relatively low power levels Precision is like the the greatest tool in our toolbx uh and that comes first so the pellets that give you that consistent

Precision with your air rifle are the ones I believe you ought to be using and nine times out of 10 I think they are the quality doed pellets I have a little Rider on that many many years ago they brought out a pet called um a silver jet

Okay Triple Ring pointy yeah all right silver jet had a silver jet a cboard box yeah well beam and Nick the Nick as he did so many appropriated so many other ideas but the silver jet was was in a flat box with a with a mountain blue and

Silver flat anyway to me I mean we are talking pre- air gun world when I saw these in the um in the gunshop I thought oh my god well obviously that’s it I’m gonna have these and I used them on rats at fairly close range probably the least

Thing they were they were sort of for because you think they just go zipping straight through well in those days I I had no real appreciable brain so they were knocking these things over they knocking rats over at five yards to 15 yards and you you’re getting that bot

Sound when you know the real smack and so I examined a couple I I put put a couple of rats on on a big old sleeper and I cut them up I cut them open and every time I found the silver jet on its side it was on its side sometimes it was

Facing the other way now either the bands were gripping flesh or bone as it went through or it was pivoting on the point and tumbling but either way those pellets were 177 when they went in but whatever caliber the length is of them that’s what they were when once they

Arrived they tumbled and they imparted more they didn’t I didn’t have as many through shots as I did with my my trusty wasp my lovely slightly too tight Ely wasp that I was using but silver Jets they were in 177 this is they were absolutely lethal through my

Hw35e because I I was pretty flash I had a 35 e then um it had a longer Barrel so it must have been more powerful I thought I was doing about 10 foot pounds it turned out and uh I shot thousands of rabbits with that and I mean well Vermin

Anyway with that HW 35b um with a single point sight on it as well or all the open sights but those those little silver Jets they tumbled and I can see why they tumbled it’s either the point was tipping them over or they were grabbing the Rings the ribs

On them were grabbing flesh or something on the way through and spinning them but for whatever reason they did it but as you say Matt a 177 round head to the brain good night there’s no degrees of dead they’re just dead so as a kid I I

Used um and we all did h&n pointed um for no other reason other than they were pointed and I remember shooting one day and the sun must have been just the right position I can see the pets kind of spiraling yeah I thought this isn’t good

And then I moved on to kind of Dao pet and all of a sudden you I think just because you know the potential for a point to become slightly damaged and offset is going to the balance on they weren’t as well manufactured as they were as they are now yeah right fin

Third question question may I last question come on we’ll wrap it up okay then we have night vision we have thermals what do you think is the next great development a combination of both I reckon if someone brings a scope out I would say there a thermal scope that you

Can press a button then it goes to night to infrared with a l range finder in it yeah for about 500 qu I think yeah I think I I’m I’ve used several thermal scopes um on review and what have you and and and they’re fine I think they’re

Much better for bigger Quarry like you know if you’re shooting center bar for Foxes or something but um I think for air gun Quarry you know rats typically they’re just for me they just don’t give enough definition you don’t know it’s head from its backside sometimes I think

Rabbits it’s okay I i’ I’ve got in the habit I I use a thermal spotter um with which is just the best thing in the world then I use infrared scopes for actually shooting um so my mind it’ be something that would perhaps have a sort of a like a spotting

Capability to it um that you could then turn into a a kind of a retical infrared um scope targeting scope um and I agree with ter I think some kind of Rangefinder functionality is an absolute must you for shooting that’s we should make one I I can’t imagine what the next big thing

Will be I mean that’s that’s the amazing thing with it isn’t we we never see these things coming and then when they do come along we wonder how we ever got by without them the sort of the support the sticks and tripods that coming on the market that we’re using increasingly

Often now coming on Leaps and Bounds getting lighter um yeah some amazing stuff out there not not all of it is stuff you’d want to carry around the field and again it comes back to that are we becoming lazy Shooters should should we be going back to actually you relying on a a

Fieldcraft and our shooting skills rather than shooting off a sticks I think there’s a balance to be struck um and why why not take advantage of something that makes you more effective particularly when you’re dealing with live Quarry but um no I I don’t know

What the next big thing is likely to be so I look forward to seeing it we wait in anticipation bistic calculators will become more of a thing on more Scopes now it’s it’s just starting to be introduced I know ATN had one with their a add-on a few years back but it seems

To be increasingly a sort of a must have feature now on on quite a few night vision scopes that seems to be the sort of the next differentiator I think is is there one that enables you to map yet like you can plot you can plot in a zero

At 10 yards a plot in a z 20 plot in a z 30 40 50 it will join the gaps yeah who does that tell yeah yeah the Pod I think it’s the Pod eight um I think I might be wrong but I think that one does it the8 did it or

The N8 the later one and then the new pod ds35 does it right on the am on the vertical cross here you get a cross you get a cross lighting up on the vertical cross here with a range on it but that’s that’s going on the data

That you input for those ranges and then it will it will between I think Russ Douglas Russ Douglas covers it um in this month’s issue you have to put things like the distance of the sight line Center of sight line and the ball line um the ballistic coefficient the the caliber

And side propell all all of that and it is a a complete pain and someone like me would have to get a a nine-year-old in to off his video game to do it but once it’s in and I have footage on my phone of somebody with an fac taking rabbits

At 100 yards plus with a 60 foot pound air gun and it’s just he’s just scoping them the cross appears tells him you know the range and what aim point and they’re just going they’re just folded they right in center I I’d love one of those I would love something like that

Um I I used the ds35 and and you my experience is the same as yours Terry the one the one tip I would pass on and I found this through b experience is that you know if you set your normal zero at 30 M so you know on your

Crosshairs with no range finding you know you’re you’re on you’re on zero and then you move out to say 40 m the ballistic calculator might give you a slightly different impact point and and you and at 50 m the same again and what I’ve discovered is that that comes down

To you know if you’re zeroing at 30 m you may hit think that you’ve hit a perfect group of five pellets right in the middle but in natural fact you might be an eighth of an inch hour course when you go to 40 or 50 mters at e in in it’s

Bigger and bigger and bigger so what I’ve what I’ve tend to do now is I I’ll zero at 30 then I’ll shoot with the ballistic calculator at 40 50 60 and I’ll I’ll adjust the uh the revised aim Point um to hit onto those groups so because that gives you much purer yeah

Adjusted aim point and there a capacity to edit isn’t there Rich you can edit the results that’s what I would appreciate CU I have real trouble trusting ballistic Cal I’m still I’m still a hold over and hold under man I just think I I know what that what that

Does I’ve practiced it on paper therefore it does it in the field um but yeah if I could plot it more in between then I would probably feel more comfortable yeah if if you’re going to hold under hold over hold under or use a ballistic calculator it all comes down

To having a rangefinder at night to tell you what you need to do you know without that you know I find it very hard to to shoot accurately I think we’ve got a duty to be the best we can be and especially as M says with live Quarry it’s our duty we

We need to be the best the most clinical Hunters we can possibly be and especially with things like rats you know it’s yes we enjoy doing it but you it’s Vermin reduction you’re not going to give them a sporting chance you just want to switch them off it we owe them

That and and that this new technology will allow us to be better at what we do all right then folks so uh thank you everybody for listening and watching and tuning in uh obviously thank you to the other hosts who have joined us Richard Matt and Terry um Terry and I will be

Back in two weeks time with Mike hernie from the shooting party in the meantime grab yourself a copy of air gun World um you can subscribe to this we’ve got actually got a Christmas offer on at the moment which is 25% off and I think that works out at

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Whether you’re sitting at in your garden whether you’re on a range whether you’re out hunting everyone should have insurance of some form or another and yeah you get it included with uh air gun World subscription just uh head over to air gun shooting. co.uk click on the

Shop Tab and you’ll see all of the subscription offers on there so yeah I’d just like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year and Terry and I will’ll see you in two weeks Time