Post your Air 50m Unlimited rifle here 😁
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Post your Air 50m Unlimited rifle here 😁
Post your Air 50m unlimited rifle here. Doesn't matter if its just the rifle or the full setup 
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Graham@benchrestUK
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sun Jan 19, 2025 9:43 pm
Re: Post your Air 50m Unlimited rifle here 😁
it started off like this but i will post the changes soon ok
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AnschutzShooter
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2025 9:52 am
Re: Post your Air 50m Unlimited rifle here 😁
Back in August, 1999, the BenchrestUK national championships were held at Portishead, with Air Arms sponsoring the air rifle competitions and awarding prizes.
I was fortunate to win both Air LV (shooting an Ataman M2 Sport in a benchrest stock) and winning Air HV (shooting a Daystate Tsar, which is essentially an Ataman M2 Sport in an FT stock).
My prize for having the highest aggregate score (obviously after winning both competitions) was an Air Arms HFT500 in a custom benchrest stock made by one of our regular shooters (Colin Rose from Durham). I mentioned that the air competition was sponsored by Air Arms so my prizes also included 20 tins (10,000 pellets) of AA FT pellets. That was a very profitable weekend!
By 2023 I was no longer shooting the AA HFT500 and a new class of competition had been announced - Unlimited Air at 50m. I wanted to enter this new competition but was not prepared to spend a couple of thousand pounds on a new gun and benchrest stock so decided to buy an AA S510XS Ultimate Sporter in 0.22" calibre. I would use the custom benchrest stock made by Colin Rose for the HFT500 which was a direct swap with the laminated stock on the S510XS. I then sold the HFT in the laminated stock, which looked like an original gun from AA.
Testing the S510XS in my garage (shooting over a chrono into a bucket of sand) I was amazed at the consistency of the muzzle velocity which indicated a very good air pressure regulator. However, when I took the rifle to my local 25m indoor range for testing I was dismayed by its poor accuracy. One inch groups at 25m indoors would not win competitions.
I decided to replace the gun's original 493mm long x 12mm diameter barrel with a Lothar Walher 600mm x 18mm stainless barrel, which I machined and fitted myself - I have my own workshop machinery. This new barrel is much heavier than the original barrel and although the extra weight itself did not bother me, because I wanted the gun for Unlimited Air benchrest, the weight meant the barrel needed muzzle support using the original figure-8 barrel band which I had been hoping not to use. I had been hoping to leave the barrel free-floating, but that was not to be.
Once I found the right pellet (preferred in the 18 grain range, giving 35 ftlb energy) accuracy proved to be superb with one-hole groups at 25m indoors. Shooting at 50m outdoors is more demanding, over the last year my average score being 230 with a personal best of 242.
I was fortunate to win both Air LV (shooting an Ataman M2 Sport in a benchrest stock) and winning Air HV (shooting a Daystate Tsar, which is essentially an Ataman M2 Sport in an FT stock).
My prize for having the highest aggregate score (obviously after winning both competitions) was an Air Arms HFT500 in a custom benchrest stock made by one of our regular shooters (Colin Rose from Durham). I mentioned that the air competition was sponsored by Air Arms so my prizes also included 20 tins (10,000 pellets) of AA FT pellets. That was a very profitable weekend!
By 2023 I was no longer shooting the AA HFT500 and a new class of competition had been announced - Unlimited Air at 50m. I wanted to enter this new competition but was not prepared to spend a couple of thousand pounds on a new gun and benchrest stock so decided to buy an AA S510XS Ultimate Sporter in 0.22" calibre. I would use the custom benchrest stock made by Colin Rose for the HFT500 which was a direct swap with the laminated stock on the S510XS. I then sold the HFT in the laminated stock, which looked like an original gun from AA.
Testing the S510XS in my garage (shooting over a chrono into a bucket of sand) I was amazed at the consistency of the muzzle velocity which indicated a very good air pressure regulator. However, when I took the rifle to my local 25m indoor range for testing I was dismayed by its poor accuracy. One inch groups at 25m indoors would not win competitions.
I decided to replace the gun's original 493mm long x 12mm diameter barrel with a Lothar Walher 600mm x 18mm stainless barrel, which I machined and fitted myself - I have my own workshop machinery. This new barrel is much heavier than the original barrel and although the extra weight itself did not bother me, because I wanted the gun for Unlimited Air benchrest, the weight meant the barrel needed muzzle support using the original figure-8 barrel band which I had been hoping not to use. I had been hoping to leave the barrel free-floating, but that was not to be.
Once I found the right pellet (preferred in the 18 grain range, giving 35 ftlb energy) accuracy proved to be superb with one-hole groups at 25m indoors. Shooting at 50m outdoors is more demanding, over the last year my average score being 230 with a personal best of 242.