Fettling the Ugly Stick

[Manco 16]

In South Africa, in the aftermath of a record grain harvest in the Cape where I live, the storage silos are full to capacity which is good news for air gun hunters, and both good and bad news for pigeons – I use the term generically to cover various species of pigeon and dove. I am fortunate to have been invited by a couple of fellow shooters to go pigeon shooting with them. Today I spent a couple of hours fettling the Ugly Stick Mk2 (Sumatra Carbine in .20 calibre) checking zero and shooting at varying distances in preparation for a shoot which should take place one evening during the coming week.

 

There are a lot of pigeons around at this time of year; the two guys I’ve mentioned recently accounted for over 150 birds over a day’s shooting at the grain silos. Typically, the shooting will be at ranges between 30 and 60 yards and the most challenging shots will be the birds perched on top of the grain silos which are pretty high. Angles are steep and the wind is usually gusting strongly on top of the silos. In comparison, shots at birds feeding on the ground should be straightforward.

 

Some forum members in the UK may be interested in the Sumatra Carbine. If you haven’t seen one, it’s similar in appearance to the Career 707 Carbine – it looks like a cross between an over and under shotgun and a Western lever action rifle. I happen to own both guns and my take is that the build quality of the Career is superior, but ownership of the Career has its risks because of the difficulty (almost impossibility) of obtaining spares. However, Career barrel quality is legendary. Mine is superbly accurate, although the Sumatra has a Lothar Walther barrel which is at least in the same ball-park if not quite as good (just my opinion). But where the Sumatra wins out is its rotary six-shot magazine, as opposed to the Career’s in-line 10-shot (approx) magazine. Those who own a Career will know exactly why I say this.

 

My Sumatra is stored and used in South Africa where the law relating to air guns is quite interesting. An air gun of .22 calibre or larger is classed as a firearm and requires a licence (police permit) even if it puts out 12fpe or less. But air guns of a calibre smaller than .22 do not require a permit or licence irrespective of their muzzle energy. Hence my choice of a .20 calibre air rifle. (But please note that as a responsible air gun user, all my rifles are owned and used in accordance with the law of the land.)

 

Some fellow shooters may be interested in the performance of my Sumatra Carbine. I have set it up to shoot 14.3gn Crossman Accupells (which it likes) at approximately 30fpe which equates to approx 975fps at the muzzle. My zero range is 35 yards. Plugging the relevant data into Chairgun Pro yields a Point Blank Range of 11 to 45 yards, with a 1 inch kill zone, so I can aim dead-on between 11 and 45 yards and expect to be in the KZ. 30fpe is actually a mid-power setting on the Sumatra – full power on mine is approx 43fpe, but I prefer to shoot at 30fpe because accuracy is better.

 

An unexpected plus point of my set-up is that it gives me some easy to remember holdover points on my ‘mil-dot’ scope which I generally keep on 8X magnification. If you take a look at the attachment captioned ‘holdover chart’ you will see what I mean. Rather than rely on Chairgun absolutely I have calibrated holdover at various ranges in the field mainly because mine is not a true mil-dot scope. To date I have managed to take small quarry e.g. pigeons or rabbits out to 87 yards, a personal best, but to set up a 100 yard plus range where I live would attract too much unwelcome attention from local residents. I hope to upgrade my present scope (a Nikko Airking 3 -9 x 42mm) to a Hawke Panorama 4 – 12 x 40mm with a true ½ mil-dot reticule.

 

As those of you familiar with the Career will know, it’s an unregulated gun, which generally means a much wider variation in fps over, say, 40 shots than another FAC gun with a regulator, so one would expect accuracy to suffer as a result. Like the Career the Sumatra is an unregulated and like the Career it has a ‘power wheel’ adjuster which can be used to advantage to compensate for falling air pressure in the air cylinders as each shot is fired. At a fill pressure of 200 bar, my routine is to fire 12 shots (2 magazines) then advance the power wheel one click, then fire another 12 shots (2 more mags.) and advance the power wheel another click, then fire another 6 shots before re-filling the gun with air to 200 bar when the pressure has dropped to 15 bar. As a result I get 30 pretty consistent shots between fills from 50 bar of air pressure which seems to me reasonably efficient and gives acceptable accuracy. I think this is pretty much as good as an unregulated gun gets and looked at positively the absence of a regulator means one thing less to go wrong! But I won’t fool myself; it would be great to have a decent regulator on the Sumatra.

 

To illustrate what happens to accuracy when you just blat away 30+ shots without advancing the power wheel at intervals, take a look at the attached photo Sumatra #1. The gun had already fired 12 shots from a 200 bar fill before I started and I fired another 18 shots at this 1” Birchwood Casey target which was set up at a distance of 35 yards. The first 12 of these clustered nicely around the bull, inside 1/2". I kept on firing until the air pressure in the cylinder was below 15 bar. You can see that the POI has dropped by about an inch and had I kept shooting on the same setting it would have fallen of dramatically. But let’s view the results in perspective; assuming a head or neck POA on a quarry such as a rabbit or pigeon all shots would have been acceptably in the kill zone.

 

Well I had an enjoyable couple of hours fettling the Ugly Stick and I had just finished recharging its air cylinder with my Hill Mk2 pump when I noticed that a pigeon had alighted on a roof gable end approximately 40 yards off. Take a look at the final photo; the rest, as they say, is history...

 

I’m afraid that this has turned out a much longer post than anticipated. But I hope it has been of interest.

Good shooting and have fun.

Chris

Edited December 13, 2011 by Manco

[Manco 16]

Just a couple more photos to attach - I exceeded the file size limit I think.

 

Chris

[todd1989 1]

good read that pal

[villaman 9,982]

Hi

I found this a very interesting post. Well done

[Argyll 1]

Good read. Curiosity has got the better of me though! I'm curious why you would have a 5p coin when you live in South Africa. I thought your currency was rand?

[Manco 16]

Good read. Curiosity has got the better of me though! I'm curious why you would have a 5p coin when you live in South Africa. I thought your currency was rand?

 

I like to keep a British 5p coin in my pocket - and nothing else. If I should get mugged I could claim to be a British visitor and I might get away. Just kidding. Seriously, if I showed an SA coin to give an idea of scale, it wouldn't mean much to most folks in the UK. Glad you enjoyed my post.

 

Chris