Noch zwei weitere Großartige Damen .- Part 2 ©

Gun #2.- An attempt at shooting FT under German rules

Germans enjoy good engineering, but getting a license to operate an airgun at higher than the Olympic Match power level (5.5 ft-lbs / 7.5 J)  is a long and complicated process (also somewhat expensive).
But still, there are enough Germans shooting FT in Classes 4 and 5 that there are actually matches held for those.
Class 4 is the "F in Pentagon" (under 7.5 Joules/5.5 Ft-lbs) spring-piston rifles that recoil
Class 5 is the "F in Pentagon" (under 7.5 Joules/5.5 Ft-lbs) spring-piston rifles with recoil-less actions
These two classes are shot at distances between 9 and 25 meters (as opposed to 9 to 50 meters that the 12 ft-lbs limit game is played).

If you have ever tried to shoot a Match airgun at 27 yards (25 meters), you will realize that it is not an easy task. especially in the outdoors.

Here in the US, we do not have those limitations, and so, when someone talks about "indoor FT" (where distances pretty much correspond to Class 4 and 5 airguns in German FT), eyebrows are raised, and some even start gathering green firewood to burn the heretics, LOL!

But, we're moving too fast ahead, let's talk about THE RIFLE.

As we said in the first part of this entry, we had procured TWO LGV's directly from Germany:

The First one, we discussed extensively in that entry, and so we will not go into it again here.

Gun Number 2 had lost all historical or collector value because a scope rail had been added.
Here is a picture of the modification made by a German gunsmith, attaching the scope rail where normally the "Walther" brand and Patent statement would have been visible:

To compare, this is the original "unmolested" one from Gun #1:

It might be clear to the advanced airgunner that the rail itself seems to be handmade.

In any case, as I said above, this rail destroyed any collector's value the gun could have had and so, it made for a good test-bench to try a few different things and see where the limits of the little engines lie as far as power with accuracy is concerned. And, do please, remember at all times that power by itself is useless in airguns without accuracy.

The same gooey mass came out of the compression chamber of gun #2, and we used the same method (acetone) to dissolve the slime, and a contoured brass rod to scrape, without scratching, the compression chamber walls.
The same HMO style piston went into this gun with an Urethane ORing because the temperatures and the pressures  expected do not warrant the use of HNBR material.
I will not go into all the details of the different things tried (we tried Titan springs #'s 7, 10, and 1; plus the OEM spring and the two counter-wound OEM half-springs), but the end result was very interesting:

Using a Titan # 1 spring, cut to 21 total coils (yes, it was a drastic cut off), we obtained  a VERY nice shot cycle, somewhat skewed towards the light pellets normal for these guns:

The Diabolo Basic yielded 678 ± 4 fps
The QYS.-                         566 ± 5 fps
The JSB RS's.-                  575± 5 fps
And then, just out of curiosity, I tested the Domed GTO's (made out of tin using the JSB Exact 10.34 die) and what a surprise.-               732 ± 4 fps
the "little engine" was doing 8.1 ft-lbs at the muzzle!

I've heard of FWB 300's that using the JM/ARH "Arctic" spring yielded 7½ to 8 ft-lbs, but I have never actually seen, tested, nor shot one. So, to me, that is still "vaporware". But this is reality.

Checking the accuracy, at first was somewhat disheartening. The D-B shot well, but as a wad-cutter, it was not precisely FT material.
The RS's performed very poorly, but that detracts nothing of the JSB quality, it just means that the bore is a little on the large side.
The GTO's were nothing to brag about, and so I started thinking:

Here was a gun that was NEVER intended to reach the 8 ft-lbs, the barrel was pencil-thin, and the weight enhancing "anchor" of a sleeve was not there. Originally, it had borne a medium weight sleeve, but we did not need weight, we needed rigidity.
And then it flashed into my mind some experiments performed way back when (1975-1976), with an ultralight-mountain rifle in a heavy caliber.
And so, I decided to put a tensioning sleeve on the little LGV.

I procured some CF tubes in different sizes and tried various combinations of wall thickness to tensions.

​I also tried the Baracuda Green pellets.

In the end, the best result was obtained with a 15X18 CF tube tensioned to 35 in-lbs:

At 10 meters, from the FT position with the OEM peep sights, the performance was quite rewarding.

But, what to do with this gun? apart from shooting Olympic Match, of course, ROFL!

Well, my good friends at Palmyra Sportsman's Association provided the answer:
They hosted an indoor/winter FT session (not really a Match), that had targets between the 10 yards and the 22 yards that their indoor range allowed.

Obviously, the idea was to put some "handicap" into the shoot by not shooting my "formal" competition airgun. It's no fun to clean a course that has been designed for less energy and less ranging capabilities.

So, this little gun came in perfectly for the task. How perfectly? you will have to be patient because first we need to talk a bit more about the gun.

The challenge to shoot indoors and still make it a meaningful event, starts with the optics.

You simply cannot put a monster scope atop a relatively little engine. Yes, you will range perfectly, but that is not a challenge! I started looking over my collection of scopes and although I have some really remarkable specimens, after some testing between eye relief, magnification, weight and mounting options, the only real solution was a Leapers Bug-Buster, set in a pair of old steel RWS adjustable mounts.
Why the need for adjustable mounts?
Consider that the OEM peep sight has about 50 MOA's of elevation capacity. There is NO scope in this size that can match that.
And the rifle's architecture does correspond to that. So: adjustable mounts!

​Here is the result:

In here I have to say that I wish the original owner could now see the gun. All the expense and trouble to add a rail, in reality was not needed. The RWS steel mount is installed in the same dovetail that the OEM peeps sit.
Here is a view of the OEM peep arrangement:

And here is a view of the Bug-Buster equipped rifle:

Clean, light, unobtrusive.

And, so  equipped, I shot some distance targets to try to establish the trajectory:

Measuring the drop and measuring the LOS height, I came up with some reasonable idea of the trajectory, which we will discuss in the entry for the indoor FT event.
​Overall the gun is a pleasure to look at, to shoot, and to carry.

The Glossy CF tube adds some texture and bling, while contrasting with the matte of the sighting equipment.

In the old days they knew what they were doing and made no qualms about reinforcing the wrist/pistol grips of Match guns. By the very definition of a Match gun, it is a gun that will travel.
And they didn't use ugly wood either:

So, I packed scoped gun, pellets and all the necessary accessories and headed to Palmyra, where the sighting-in cards offered a rewarding and amusing testimony:

5 shots at 12 yards above and 10 shots at the same distance, but with "1 mil" elevation, below.

At 22 yards with various aiming variations. 5 shot groups. From the knee.

One thing that did became apparent early on is that the gun is temperature dependent. I am not saying sensitive, because 50° F of temperature swing is nothing to sneeze at. The gun had stayed in the trunk of the car overnight, and then brought into the indoors range where we were shooting in long sleeved T Shirts.

After a little while and with a little bit of action, the gun stabilized and I started shooting the course.

But that, as my Father used to say: "Is another story"  ;-)

Keep well and shoot straight!





HM                                                                                                                                                          © 08/02/22