Donation

Airguns by Make and Model > Gamo Airguns

Beginner's help with ammo and scope-sighting

(1/1)

Ronnie:
Hey I haven't been on this forum in almost 2 years, glad to be back! I see the looks changed.

Anyways, my first and only air rifle is a GAMO Whisper VH with a charlie turbo-tune on day 1 and a GRT-III trigger. Haven't had time to be able to use it much in the past year (though I did clean it/put 5 shots through it regularly each month to keep it working) and the other day finally I had the pleasure of seeing a squirrel in my back yard.

Needless to say, 1 head-shot later and now I'm back!

So as I reinvigorate my new hobby, I need some help....

First off, ammo. I'm currently using an old tin of Crossman match pellets, but I need to know what I should buy when that runs out? I'm going to buy 2 tins of match and 1 tin of hunting, so which does anybody know the advantages of the different shapes of hunting pellets? Not looking for raptor PBA or anything special like that, besides its too loud and neighbors react badly to the only teenager on the block making loud noises!

Ive heard that Gamo's are great, and especially if your shooting a Gamo too.

My second question is about scope-sighting. I'm going to a gun range where they have a gun-bench and a varying-distance target to sight in my scope and laser once and for all, but I need help deciding the distance I want my scope to be zeroed at! Like I said, I'm a bit of an amateur, so I will rarely shoot anything above 50 yards. Maybe that's just cause I haven't sited my scope well enough to try anything at that range? But either way, I currently will shoot squirrels in the wilderness at 20-40 yards, and the other 2/3 of the time I'm shooting at 10 yards at an extremely small target.

So I don't know where I should sight it. At 30 it would be best for my hunting, but how useful would it be when I'm plinking? Or is that type of thing something you can easily adjust your aim for at different differences, without adjusting the scope?

Or maybe if I sight it at 50 (I wont be able to do that at a gun range), I will find I can be accurate further than I thought?

So basically, where do most of you guys zero your scope, where would you recommend I start?

Thanks for reading my wall of text!

Progun:
Welcome back Ronnie. For your pellets most shooters generally prefer a domed pellet for most hunting and longer range accuracy. Those match wadcutters seem to be great for punching clean holes in paper targets at close ranges and can be effective for some live target situations but as the distance increases they are less dependable. They have the aerodynamics of a brick after all so they lose energy fast. Another hunting pellet that has gained favor is the JSB Predator/Polymag. Some guys swear by it's effectiveness, some say they aren't accurate in their particular gun.So try some domed pellets and try some Pred's. For sighting in your scope to shoot squirrels and such out to your effective range, I like to think in terms of trying to get a dead zero at 30 yds. I'll be a little low until I get close to 20 yds and I will be a little low again @ 35yds.This enables me to have a pretty much point and shoot distance out to about 40 yds with a little compensating for holdover or hold under.If your scope has multiple aim points such as mildots this makes holding off easy.Don't be afraid to have fun with your gun and scope though so go ahead and try different zero distances when you just want to have fun. What you'll probably discover is shot's past 40 yds tend to waste a lot of lead .

Navigation

[0] Message Index