wolfmangreg
HAM Ranger
In all my years of shooting, never had a rifle take truly bad fall onto a hard surface. Had them slip of a rest onto the table, maybe a half foot. Bumped them into a tree or fence post plenty of times. Dropped a few feet onto a soft forest floor while stumbling through thick brush. Some of those did result in cosmetic damage & changed point of impact. But never anything that immediately had me seriously concerned. Until this morning...
Had the Taipan Vet II on a raised work table, sitting on a one piece rest after pulling a few patches through the barrel. Have a cat that loves the smell of Ballistol, so she was hanging out with me as usual. She got bored & jumped up to a shelf near the table, in the process knocking a tackle box off the shelf. Tackle box fell & hit the rifle just right, knocking it off the rest. Rifle hit the edge of the table, then fell to the concrete floor. Total distance from the rest to the floor is about 4 feet even. Less than a second for the whole fiasco I'm sure, but it felt like an hour as I watched in horror from a few steps away.
Did a quick inspection of the rifle. Shroud/barrel & the laminate wood grip hit the concrete first, then onto the side opposite the cocking handle (a stroke of luck that the cocking handle didn't take the brunt). The shroud, unbelievably, didn't show any damage at all. The front, bottom edge of the grip had a pretty good dent, and some small pieces broken off. Trigger hand doesn't touch that part of the grip at all, so pretty sure I can sand that to a smooth radius around the bottom & refinish it to look just fine. No other physical damage, not even scratches. Damn lucky.
Made a note of the air pressure, then left to run some errands. Back a few hours later, & no pressure loss- bottle & connection are ok. Worked the cocking arm, no problems there. Dry fired & found nothing unusual. Now to see how it affected point of impact.
Used a front rest & rear bag to eliminate my influence, then shot two pellets from 30 yards- spot on. Now I'm feeling better. Took the target out to 65 yards, & shot 10 pellets (used my 60 yard scope setting to preserve the tiny red bull, that's why group is low in photo):
Now it won't group 10 shots quite that tight "all day long" as they say, but this really is an accurate rifle. And obviously robust as well!!! Tensioned barrel & Czech build quality for the win. Went on to have a practice session on Frogger the Field Target, with no drama. Have officially graduated from "really like this rifle" to "I love this rifle!"
That said, admit there was considerable luck involved to not have more cosmetic damage. Coulda been ugly.
Had the Taipan Vet II on a raised work table, sitting on a one piece rest after pulling a few patches through the barrel. Have a cat that loves the smell of Ballistol, so she was hanging out with me as usual. She got bored & jumped up to a shelf near the table, in the process knocking a tackle box off the shelf. Tackle box fell & hit the rifle just right, knocking it off the rest. Rifle hit the edge of the table, then fell to the concrete floor. Total distance from the rest to the floor is about 4 feet even. Less than a second for the whole fiasco I'm sure, but it felt like an hour as I watched in horror from a few steps away.
Did a quick inspection of the rifle. Shroud/barrel & the laminate wood grip hit the concrete first, then onto the side opposite the cocking handle (a stroke of luck that the cocking handle didn't take the brunt). The shroud, unbelievably, didn't show any damage at all. The front, bottom edge of the grip had a pretty good dent, and some small pieces broken off. Trigger hand doesn't touch that part of the grip at all, so pretty sure I can sand that to a smooth radius around the bottom & refinish it to look just fine. No other physical damage, not even scratches. Damn lucky.
Made a note of the air pressure, then left to run some errands. Back a few hours later, & no pressure loss- bottle & connection are ok. Worked the cocking arm, no problems there. Dry fired & found nothing unusual. Now to see how it affected point of impact.
Used a front rest & rear bag to eliminate my influence, then shot two pellets from 30 yards- spot on. Now I'm feeling better. Took the target out to 65 yards, & shot 10 pellets (used my 60 yard scope setting to preserve the tiny red bull, that's why group is low in photo):
Now it won't group 10 shots quite that tight "all day long" as they say, but this really is an accurate rifle. And obviously robust as well!!! Tensioned barrel & Czech build quality for the win. Went on to have a practice session on Frogger the Field Target, with no drama. Have officially graduated from "really like this rifle" to "I love this rifle!"
That said, admit there was considerable luck involved to not have more cosmetic damage. Coulda been ugly.
. I'm glad nothing worse happen! Great story.
Seems like your Taipan Vet II took it in stride, the 60 yard group? Simply awesome…
Yeesh brings back the memory of me flopping my TX onto the concrete when I leaned it against my roll up door like a clown and then opened it from the inside to get my shooting table out. Glad its alright.....that group looks better than most of mine without dropping the gun first 
