Ghost BRK Ghost Review

The .22 MRDs were shot for a couple of Ultimate Field Target matches last winter season. At targets out to 100 yards, the .177 isn't an option.

Generally, yes the .22 MRD is JSBs worst offering, when consistency and accuracy are the metric. But for some unknown reason, they shot fairly well out of that BRK barrel. THAT barrel was the best experience I've had from .22 MRDs, and that's across probably 40ish barrels, across various manufacturers and from various guns.

With the .177 and .20 projectiles listed above, they've all been shot straight out of the tin. The closest to a perfect score using the Ghost in a field target match was with the .177/10.34, and it was a 47/48. And I had quite a few matches with scores like 58/60 from the .20/13.73 out of the Ghost, also straight from the tin.

Generally speaking, sorting high quality pellets like JSB is not something that I've found to be worth my time. The .22 MRDs are their outlier-And even sorting won't eliminate subpar accuracy from them.
I have never pellet sorted myself but would if I was in competitions for sure. I have no big complaints about the Mrds out of my Ghost as a hunter overall very good. But I can pull my S510 with 18.1gr JSBs or the TX with 8.44s at their zeroed distances and usually beat the Ghost shooting MRDS on paper 4 out of 5 times. Everything else out of it so far is not great (to light usually and moving too fast) I must spend some quality time with the chrono and some heavier pellets for sure with it soon!
 
I have never pellet sorted myself but would if I was in competitions for sure. I have no big complaints about the Mrds out of my Ghost as a hunter overall very good. But I can pull my S510 with 18.1gr JSBs or the TX with 8.44s at their zeroed distances and usually beat the Ghost shooting MRDS on paper 4 out of 5 times. Everything else out of it so far is not great (to light usually and moving too fast) I must spend some quality time with the chrono and some heavier pellets for sure with it soon!

Seems the Ghost HPs in .22 come set up too hot for 18.13s.
 
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...indeed...

...according to a Garmin XERO C1 Pro, mine is shooting them @ 985 FPS at the lowest setting on the power adjusting wheel...

...the regulator looks to be set around 110...

...I had asked the guys at AoA to set it up for those pellets because I have so many...they said it was shooting them @ 960 FPS...

...I had told them I wanted tuned to have as much power as I could get w/o harming accuracy...

...whatever the velocity is, they got it to shoot a tiny group with 18.13 JSB's...

...they sent me a softer spring in case I want to detune it further...
 
...indeed...

...according to a Garmin XERO C1 Pro, mine is shooting them @ 985 FPS at the lowest setting on the power adjusting wheel...

...the regulator looks to be set around 110...

...I had asked the guys at AoA to set it up for those pellets because I have so many...they said it was shooting them @ 960 FPS...

...I had told them I wanted tuned to have as much power as I could get w/o harming accuracy...

...whatever the velocity is, they got it to shoot a tiny group with 18.13 JSB's...

...they sent me a softer spring in case I want to detune it further...
That is still pretty fast for an 18gr pellet, but if it's accurate hey why not! As shipped my HP was sending them @ 1040fps H.W. on minimum, reg @ 165. Accuracy was ok but not consistent like an 18gr usually is. 3 would smash the bullseye, two would go left an inch, 3 up high, so no go on factory settings! A softer spring isn't a bad idea, if u swap it let us know results! 👍
 
That is still pretty fast for an 18gr pellet, but if it's accurate hey why not! As shipped my HP was sending them @ 1040fps H.W. on minimum, reg @ 165. Accuracy was ok but not consistent like an 18gr usually is. 3 would smash the bullseye, two would go left an inch, 3 up high, so no go on factory settings! A softer spring isn't a bad idea, if u swap it let us know results! 👍
It seems with the hp guns if you go 1 lighter on spring you can get the shorter barrels power level without changing much else
 
Some Ghost updates....

Competition
I used a 23inch .22 barrel in the Ghost for the benchrest portion of the recent Extreme Field Target Grand Prix in Williams, AZ a few weeks ago. This was a combined benchrest/high power ft event. One of the cards I shot from the Ghost was a 211 and the second was a 218, for a total of 429. The highest single card was shot by @5Power, a 228 (also shot by a Ghost). And the 1st place for the two card aggregate was always-tough-to-beat, John Bagakis, with a 439. My 429 put in in 7th place for the EBR portion of the event, and that score, coupled with 1st place in the extreme field target portion (shot with a different gun) got me a paycheck for 3rd overall for the weekend (2x100 yard EBR cards + score from the EFT course x2 days).

From the .22 Ghost I used the .22 Grands @ 960-965fps. Reg was set at 150bar, power wheel on MAX. Barrel is 1:30 twist, choked, and one of the variations of OEM Ghost barrels. Something to be said of home court advantage b/c with that setup I'm averaging 100 yard EBR scores in the 230 area in my back yard where I have a better grasp of the wind. To get that tune I need the 0.051" wire hammer spring, and the current production (heavier) hammer. It maxes out at 980fps with the 28.55gr Grands and a reg pressure of 165bar, but is just as accurate at 960-965 and lower reg pressure.

Fun
A few days ago I had some family in town and asked this brother in law if he was interested in some prairie dog shooting. He enthusiastically said yes. He has some experience shooting, but not a lot, and certainly none behind a high magnification scope and a highly precise gun like a modern high-end PCP. So I mentally went through my options for him....and settled on the Taipan Veteran, mostly because it has magazines and because I thought the simple 20x fixed power scope would simplify that aspect. So the Vet got placed in his hands first. He STRUGGLED to get in the eyebox of that scope for the first 15-20 minutes. At that point I had him try the Ghost with the .20 barrel and slugs and explained that he would have to single feed them. We turned the scope mag down to 6x and he started dropping dogs! After the first 8-10 shots he had it figured out and was quickly asking me to range specific dogs for him so that he could reference the dope sheet taped to the bottle. From that point on he was self-sufficient. We spent a couple hours, killing 40-50 and enjoying the heck out of ourselves. His farthest was a 154 yarder and he got it on the second shot. Those .20/18.9grain slugs are amazing. He eventually used up the 80ish slugs I had brought and we swapped over to the .20/15.89 JSB pellets and I told him to use the other column on the dope sheet. No prob, he was killing dogs with the pellets just as readily. He kept commenting how cool the Ghost is and how much fun he was having and how he had no idea airguns were capable of this. It was fun to see somebody experience the fun for the first time.

Later that evening we were all hanging out in my backyard and he was telling his 16 year old son about earlier. I asked 16 year old nephew if he'd like to shoot the Ghost....and got another enthusiastic yes. So, out comes the .20 Ghost and the slugs. He proceeded to spend about 40 minutes working over my steel paddles. I've got them from 40-90 yards in 10 yard increments, and then some more at 130 yards. Initially he was yanking the trigger but I talked him through that and he started to connect. His best was connecting on the 2.5" paddle at 130 yards on the 3rd shot. He was also pretty impressed by the whole experience.

Overall it was fun to witness the joy of sending accurate projectiles out of an airgun for the first time. They definitely got to jump straight to the champagne version of airgunning, bypassing all the budget guns and springers and going straight to the good stuff.
 
Some Ghost updates....

Competition
I used a 23inch .22 barrel in the Ghost for the benchrest portion of the recent Extreme Field Target Grand Prix in Williams, AZ a few weeks ago. This was a combined benchrest/high power ft event. One of the cards I shot from the Ghost was a 211 and the second was a 218, for a total of 429. The highest single card was shot by @5Power, a 228 (also shot by a Ghost). And the 1st place for the two card aggregate was always-tough-to-beat, John Bagakis, with a 439. My 429 put in in 7th place for the EBR portion of the event, and that score, coupled with 1st place in the extreme field target portion (shot with a different gun) got me a paycheck for 3rd overall for the weekend (2x100 yard EBR cards + score from the EFT course x2 days).

From the .22 Ghost I used the .22 Grands @ 960-965fps. Reg was set at 150bar, power wheel on MAX. Barrel is 1:30 twist, choked, and one of the variations of OEM Ghost barrels. Something to be said of home court advantage b/c with that setup I'm averaging 100 yard EBR scores in the 230 area in my back yard where I have a better grasp of the wind. To get that tune I need the 0.051" wire hammer spring, and the current production (heavier) hammer. It maxes out at 980fps with the 28.55gr Grands and a reg pressure of 165bar, but is just as accurate at 960-965 and lower reg pressure.

Fun
A few days ago I had some family in town and asked this brother in law if he was interested in some prairie dog shooting. He enthusiastically said yes. He has some experience shooting, but not a lot, and certainly none behind a high magnification scope and a highly precise gun like a modern high-end PCP. So I mentally went through my options for him....and settled on the Taipan Veteran, mostly because it has magazines and because I thought the simple 20x fixed power scope would simplify that aspect. So the Vet got placed in his hands first. He STRUGGLED to get in the eyebox of that scope for the first 15-20 minutes. At that point I had him try the Ghost with the .20 barrel and slugs and explained that he would have to single feed them. We turned the scope mag down to 6x and he started dropping dogs! After the first 8-10 shots he had it figured out and was quickly asking me to range specific dogs for him so that he could reference the dope sheet taped to the bottle. From that point on he was self-sufficient. We spent a couple hours, killing 40-50 and enjoying the heck out of ourselves. His farthest was a 154 yarder and he got it on the second shot. Those .20/18.9grain slugs are amazing. He eventually used up the 80ish slugs I had brought and we swapped over to the .20/15.89 JSB pellets and I told him to use the other column on the dope sheet. No prob, he was killing dogs with the pellets just as readily. He kept commenting how cool the Ghost is and how much fun he was having and how he had no idea airguns were capable of this. It was fun to see somebody experience the fun for the first time.

Later that evening we were all hanging out in my backyard and he was telling his 16 year old son about earlier. I asked 16 year old nephew if he'd like to shoot the Ghost....and got another enthusiastic yes. So, out comes the .20 Ghost and the slugs. He proceeded to spend about 40 minutes working over my steel paddles. I've got them from 40-90 yards in 10 yard increments, and then some more at 130 yards. Initially he was yanking the trigger but I talked him through that and he started to connect. His best was connecting on the 2.5" paddle at 130 yards on the 3rd shot. He was also pretty impressed by the whole experience.

Overall it was fun to witness the joy of sending accurate projectiles out of an airgun for the first time. They definitely got to jump straight to the champagne version of airgunning, bypassing all the budget guns and springers and going straight to the good stuff.
H.W. on max for competition? I found that surprising! Mine is angry on max😅 So you find the grands edge out the lights and Mrds you think out of it? Was wondering if you have tried the JTS 25grs in you .22 Ghost as well? I did, slightly tighter groups some days but the fliers were much worse😒 Sure sounds like a everyone had a blast!
 
H.W. on max for competition? I found that surprising! Mine is angry on max😅 So you find the grands edge out the lights and Mrds you think out of it? Was wondering if you have tried the JTS 25grs in you .22 Ghost as well? I did, slightly tighter groups some days but the fliers were much worse😒 Sure sounds like a everyone had a blast!

Yep, on MAX.

I didn't ever try a head to head with the Lights versus the Grands but tried lots of head to heads with the Grands versus MRDs and I was scoring slightly better with the Grands.

My opinion is that the Lights get pushed more in the wind, the BCs I measured with the Lights were better than 18.13s, but not as good as 25.4s.

I did try the JTS 25.4s, from multiple barrels, and I'm not a fan. The good ones are good, and the bad ones are BAD. With the JTS out of 10-12 shots @ 100, 8 or 9 of them will be 9s or 10s and the other 3 or 4 will be sixs (or worse) way out in no man's land.

My highest BC pellet right now is the 25.4gr Monster RDs, from a 1:32 polygonal barrel. THAT 1:32 is the barrel I used to win the field target portion of the Grand Prix I mentioned above. The Grands from the 1:30 BRK/Lothar barrel in the Ghost are just slightly behind the MRDs from the 1:32 in BC, but for some reason the Grands score slightly better on a benchrest card.
 
Really rare for a pigeon to test his luck in my back pasture ....BUT one landed about 30 minutes ago. A mad dash for the Ghost ensued, and the pigeon actually Sat there long enough for me to get the gun, slide open the gun turret window on the second floor, annnnnnddddd POP him!

I guessed his range @ 60 yards and just held dead-on, since that's the zero for the JSB .20/15.89 @ 915.

He was broadside, my least favorite way to shoot at a thick winged bird like a pigeon or Euro. And that's because it often results in a broken wing and a wounded bird when not using pretty big fpe. But I hoped I could slip the pellet in at the base of the neck, above the wing juncture. Took the shot and he dropped, dead as a doornail.

Upon retrieval I found the pellet hit about 1/2 to 3/4 inch lower than I wanted, and went straight through the thickest wing joint. It continued on through the upper breast, and there's blood on the far side as well, so it went clean through him, even though it hit that wing joint on entering. That slightly lower than intended impact point means he was probably more like 70 yards.

Ghost was ready to go, no sight-in necessary. Last time I shot it was Saturday. Just grabbed it, took the shot and dead pigeon. That's been the experience for the last ten months, completely reliable and always-retained scope zero.

Add a nice big pigeon to the Ghost .20s tally.
View attachment 573
feeling very sad for the pigeon :/
 
Revisiting the GHOST...
Swapped scopes, after nearly two years.

The .20 Ghost has mostly been relegated to prairie dog pesting duty this summer. I had it out a handful of times throughout the summer. Each time it simply did what the Ghost does, puts slugs/pellets on target.

I was recently playing with a .20 cal AirForce Condor and that gun got me converted the idea of the PARD DS35-70RF. It was a hard sell for me, as I typically prefer old school. In this case, a solid Athlon Midas Tac 6-24, conventional glass scope, no electronics. The Ghost in fact has had a Midas Tac on it for nearly two years. Up til today.

I sold the .20 Condor and pulled the Midas Tac off the Ghost, and put the PARD on the Ghost. The PARD is an electronic scope, which means image quality isn't even close to the Midas Tac. Where the PARD shines though, is that it has a built in laser rangefinder, and a ballistics app. So, range the target, click for the ballistics program to give you the holdover, and boom, pellet (or slug) on target. AND it can video all of that.

So, PARD on the Ghost....
pard on ghost.jpg




The scope mounting situation is frankenstein-esque to say the least. Yep, I pulled the BRK OEM scope riser. This was partly for correct scope height/placement, but mostly b/c the PARD was already in those rings, AND on that pic rail from the gun it was coming off. The PARD nearly requires adjustable mounts, so I knew I needed to stick with the rings it was already in. SO, it's got dovetail rings, attached to dovetail to pic adapters, which are attached to the pic rail, which is attached to the dovetail rail of the Ghost. lol, definitely took the long way to go from dovetail rings to dovetail rail, but eye placement wouldn't have worked if I omitted the combinations of contraptions in between them.

I spent about 10 minutes zeroing the .20/18.9grain NSA slugs at 30 yards and plugging the ballistics info in.
Same deal for zeroing the .20/15.89JSB pellets. Same speeds as before, the slugs are going about 910fps, and the pellets are going 925fps. MAX on the wheel for the slugs for that speed and "5" for the pellets to go that speed.

After the data input, decided to test out the predicted trajectory to actual on the steel in my backyard. So, we've got roughly 130, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50 yards on this little video. I tweaked the data slightly (had to bump up the BC from 0.09 to 0.1 for the slugs to track correctly). But the pellets were spot on with a BC of 0.046.

This little vid is the slugs. All one take, no editing. And yeah, the wind was rocking pretty good (check out the foliage. I missed one of the paddles at maybe 70? yards. Just didn't hold enough for the wind.
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Despite the wind, I was too excited for the PARD on the Ghost and spent about 90 minutes in a prairie dog town after the above trajectory verification. I've got some good raw footage and will try to get it edited down to a palatable length vid. If I can find some time for that I'll add it here as well.

Here's a small clip of one kill shot on a pdog from today...
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Revisiting the GHOST...
Swapped scopes, after nearly two years.

The .20 Ghost has mostly been relegated to prairie dog pesting duty this summer. I had it out a handful of times throughout the summer. Each time it simply did what the Ghost does, puts slugs/pellets on target.

I was recently playing with a .20 cal AirForce Condor and that gun got me converted the idea of the PARD DS35-70RF. It was a hard sell for me, as I typically prefer old school. In this case, a solid Athlon Midas Tac 6-24, conventional glass scope, no electronics. The Ghost in fact has had a Midas Tac on it for nearly two years. Up til today.

I sold the .20 Condor and pulled the Midas Tac off the Ghost, and put the PARD on the Ghost. The PARD is an electronic scope, which means image quality isn't even close to the Midas Tac. Where the PARD shines though, is that it has a built in laser rangefinder, and a ballistics app. So, range the target, click for the ballistics program to give you the holdover, and boom, pellet (or slug) on target. AND it can video all of that.

So, PARD on the Ghost....
pard on ghost.jpg




The scope mounting situation is frankenstein-esque to say the least. Yep, I pulled the BRK OEM scope riser. This was partly for correct scope height/placement, but mostly b/c the PARD was already in those rings, AND on that pic rail from the gun it was coming off. The PARD nearly requires adjustable mounts, so I knew I needed to stick with the rings it was already in. SO, it's got dovetail rings, attached to dovetail to pic adapters, which are attached to the pic rail, which is attached to the dovetail rail of the Ghost. lol, definitely took the long way to go from dovetail rings to dovetail rail, but eye placement wouldn't have worked if I omitted the combinations of contraptions in between them.

I spent about 10 minutes zeroing the .20/18.9grain NSA slugs at 30 yards and plugging the ballistics info in.
Same deal for zeroing the .20/15.89JSB pellets. Same speeds as before, the slugs are going about 910fps, and the pellets are going 925fps. MAX on the wheel for the slugs for that speed and "5" for the pellets to go that speed.

After the data input, decided to test out the predicted trajectory to actual on the steel in my backyard. So, we've got roughly 130, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50 yards on this little video. I tweaked the data slightly (had to bump up the BC from 0.09 to 0.1 for the slugs to track correctly). But the pellets were spot on with a BC of 0.046.

This little vid is the slugs. All one take, no editing. And yeah, the wind was rocking pretty good (check out the foliage. I missed one of the paddles at maybe 70? yards. Just didn't hold enough for the wind.
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Despite the wind, I was too excited for the PARD on the Ghost and spent about 90 minutes in a prairie dog town after the above trajectory verification. I've got some good raw footage and will try to get it edited down to a palatable length vid. If I can find some time for that I'll add it here as well.

Here's a small clip of one kill shot on a pdog from today...
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The Ghost is back out!! Nice to see😅 and good shooting. Ive seen a few guys run their scopes without that rail, Care to comment on why you sold the Condor?
 
Care to comment on why you sold the Condor?

Simply too many guns. Lol

Nothing wrong with it at all, in fact kinda miss it. But walked into the gunroom one day and had three guns out on the tables, not to mention the guns in the safe and hard cases, and just got overwhelmed and decided to thin it down. Still looking to sell a couple more.
 
Stayed up late and got the footage cleaned up.

Skip this one completely if you're a critter lover. While some might consider them cute, these dudes are serious pests for the farmers. I've yet to be turned down when asking permission to shoot them on various properties. All up and down the little farming community where I live I've got people that have given me permission. Many of them I initiated, but some of them actually reached out to me, friend of a friend, etc.

Anyway, the wind was pretty stout this day. In the past, windy days like this would not have been a day I attempted getting after the pdogs, but these slugs make it not only possible, but quite successful.

Most shots felt like they were in the 70-125 yard range. What I included in the video are the cleanest kills from about 2hrs of shooting. I left in some misses. I also left in some hail mary's in the 215-220 yard range. Although even those hail mary's were just this close from connecting. The farthest obvious hit was at 169 yards, towards the end of the video, it was almost a double. There's also a solid 165 yard shot (death dance). The hold off for the wind was pretty evident on some of these, even with a 0.09-0.1BC slug.

If you're just joining in, these are the .20/18.9grain NSA slugs at 910fps from the Ghost. That makes it just shy of 35fpe.

As noted a few posts back, even on the far shots these slugs zip right through the prairie dogs. With a good clean vitals shot they often run 20 or so feet and then flop over dead. I left a couple of those in the video too.

It's also interesting to watch the dust splash after one of these slugs goes through a dog. They often change directions quite drastically, deflection off spine/skull is what I figure.

Anyway, just an example of what this Ghost is capable of when a slug/barrel jives really well. And also an example of how less is often more, specifically when it comes to fpe from airguns. I have a 50-52fpe airgun and rarely shoot it. The Ghost and the .20 NSA slugs are my long range airgun solution. I don't want nor need any more power than this.
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