AGD and AGN "The Long Rangers" competition, who's doing it?

[UpNorthAirGunner]

I posted this on another thread - but here is the full story of the 350 Yard Shot and my early (rocky - yet successful) relationship with my Texan .357....

Well its been a fun month of learning a ton from you all and proud to say I have hit all of the AirGunDepot.com Long Ranger yardage shots from the 150 yard (Hole-in-One First Shot - Talon SS) - 175 yard (it took 86 shots - Talon SS) - 200 yards (Another Hole-in-One First Shot - Texan .357)!  I am also proud that as of 2 days ago I hit a 350 yard shot with my  Texan .357!  Still waiting for AGD to approve the shot and update the leaderboard to put me in the top position (hopefully). During this time, I have learned a lot about my Texan .357 and what ammo it likes, what is doesn't like, where it excels, and what are it's challenges.  I posted this over at airgunnation.com, but though it would be good to post here as well:

Someone asked how I was able to tame the Texan since I had only owned it for 2 weeks to make that 350 yard shot. So how did I pull this all together in a short amount of time?  Pure obsession and a crazy amount of networking within the airgun community.  It is the spirit of shared knowledge that made this 350 yard shot possible.  I just absorbed as much info from all the subject matter experts that I could – lined up the cross hairs and squeezed the trigger.  Thank you to you all!

As far as learning about the .357 Texan – I have been chatting with Jimmy (the guy who won the AGD Texan Give Away) and learned a lot from him.  Through Jimmy I met Nick Neilson of Neilson Specialty Ammo who has been on a war path about the harmonics and twist rate concerns he has about the Airforce Texan series.  Learned A TON from his posts on other forums and hypothesized what tweaks I needed to make even before the rifle arrived.  From that info I was able to reverse engineered (at least some) of what the folks over at Hunters Supply are doing in their tuning services to turn the Texan to a real long range rifle.  It was from Hunters Supply photo and video research that I realized that this barrel was going to need some major harmonics and rigidity help (thus the de-resonator donut and homemade ABS plastic shroud).  See the 200 yard shot video to see what my DIY shroud consists of.

Then finally the introduction to Al Clark, the GENIUS behind Aeromagnum Ammo and the 128 gr. Devastator Hollow Point, is what really made this all possible. If you haven’t seen his rounds in person – words can’t describe….  Order a box and you will see what I mean.  Just for giggles – I am going for 400 Yards before the end of the challenge.  Just need to find a stretch of land as I am out of safe yardage where I have been shooting. So yes – it was a busy 2 weeks to make this shot.  But it has been a fun learning process!  Here are my video submissions so far from furthest to shortest:









...and lastly, here was my response to a few forum trolls who were doubting I actually hit that 150 yard shot because of the weird angle the ball flew up when it was hit by the pellet.  Watch to the very end for some anti-forum troll humor.

[Bizill]

[MonsterMaxx]

Holy Smokes, I did it.  No 350, but (*edit after measuring with a tape) 480' = 160 yards w/ a stock out of the box Impact .30.

I have a plat in DXF and according to my CAD system it's 170 yards.  I paced it off and got 160 paces.  When wifey gets home I'll take an official measurement with a 100' tape, but I'm clearly past the contest minimum.

I can probably get another 10-15yds by moving the target into the treeline and me out to the road's edge, but that's about it on my property.

I did not have an exploding golf ball and it won't be here until Wednesday at the earliest, so I did like Greggers did and filled a plastic egg with baby powder.  I probably have to repeat this w/ a real exploding AGD ball to get entered for an impact, but I'm in the zone now.

My first shot was at 6 holdover was still in the dirt so I moved up to the very limits of the scope and that still wasn't enough so had to move my zero about ten clicks up to get the bottom holdover on the bull.  At first I went 20 clicks and that was too far.
Took me about 10 shots to get zeroed in.

My vid is from start of sighting in to walking up to inspect the busted egg, so I've got some editing to do.

It was fun!

**edit, here's the vid
 

*edit
Measured with wifey's help.  Today's shot was at 160 yards.  When I get the official exploding ball I'll do a little extra w/ the target in the treeline and table on the road, 520'.

[Bizill]

MM, your truck is better than mine.

[d.lead.slinger]

Finally made it home to take part in the challenge.  The winds from the hurricane weren't that bad but were coming from my 5 o'clock and a little gusty.  Got everything set up at daylight before the rain started. I was hoping for a little more time to get some shots at a little farther distances but it didn't happen so 150 yards is gonna have to do.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/cWFmN_rj-PE[/youtube]

[MonsterMaxx]

Great shooting.

I have to ask, those piles of dirt to your right, are those ant mounds?

[d.lead.slinger]

Great shooting.

I have to ask, those piles of dirt to your right, are those ant mounds?

No its not. Its actually mounds of dead grass.  Its stays wet so the guy has to wait a long time between cuts.