Field Target Wildcat mk1 sight-in (& first FT comp)

[mcoulter]

I'll start out by saying that I do hope to shoot Field Target this summer. And yes, I said the same thing last summer too...

Anyhow, I found a nice used FX Wildcat Mk1 this past winter, fitted my Athlon 8-24 on it and have been shooting it a little here and there. Well, I have some time off this week and finally spent a very nice morning yesterday sighting it in.





The gun is shooting a bit hot, but seems pretty accurate (as the seller assured me it was). From a 225 bar / 3263 psi fill I am getting 8 magazines (64 shots) before it seems to go off the regulator at 120 bar / 1740 psi. And the kicker is that the gun only had an 11 fps spread over that full range The high was 951 fps and the low was 940 fps making the average of 946fps or 20.5 fpe. I figure I'll have to lighten the hammer spring a bit to drop to under 20 fpe, but I was curious what the velocities would do at the end of the string. I found that after the 68th shot or so, the velocities dropped steadily. This is the string with the last mag chopped off.




And here is where the gauge was after the 9th magazine / 72 shots. So not going lower than 120 bar should be keep me where I need to be, velocity wise.





(BTW, if anyone knows the plenum size on the .177 wildcat mk 1, please let me know. I guessed at 15 cc and also made an educated guess at the tube size of 230 cc. Anyone who knows for sure, please confirm. Thanks!)

I was shooting from the bench to get a feel for the trajectory and this is how it worked out for hold-overs.

Yards	Hold-over
10	3.5
11	3
12	2.75
14	2
15	1.5
17	1
20	0.75
23	0.5
25	0.5
30	0.25
35	Zero
40	Zero
45	0.5
50	0.75
55	0.75

And the view through the reticle at 24x. This target was at 45 yards




And here's my target. I go by 5-yard increments in the top two rows. The bottom row was for the shots at misc distances that figured that I'd need to shoot. Starting at about 45 yards I started shooting full magazines. I'd do 4 shots with no holdover and then the rest of mag testing my holdover. It got kind of sloppy there. (stickers are 1/2 inch)




I shot a few more targets at 55 yards and with larger, 1-inch stickers. This is where I settled in on .75 hold-over. The wind was dead calm on the top-left group! Oh, the bottom right target was with a set of boxed Crossman 10.5 (Die I) which did quite well out to 45-50 yards.



Next time I'll be off the bench and probably have dropped the velocity a bit to keep it under 20 fpe.

 

[Danman]

Man that is a nice stock! I've always liked the looks/design but you usually see the gamo grade plastic stocks on em.....eewww Sounds like she is pretty air efficient as well! Seems like this summer your going to have to actually participate in some Field Target!

 

[Dogowski]

I'll start out by saying that I do hope to shoot Field Target this summer. And yes, I said the same thing last summer too...

Anyhow, I found a nice used FX Wildcat Mk1 this past winter, fitted my Athlon 8-24 on it and have been shooting it a little here and there. Well, I have some time off this week and finally spent a very nice morning yesterday sighting it in.


View attachment 6120


The gun is shooting a bit hot, but seems pretty accurate (as the seller assured me it was). From a 225 bar / 3263 psi fill I am getting 8 magazines (64 shots) before it seems to go off the regulator at 120 bar / 1740 psi. And the kicker is that the gun only had an 11 fps spread over that full range The high was 951 fps and the low was 940 fps making the average of 946fps or 20.5 fpe. I figure I'll have to lighten the hammer spring a bit to drop to under 20 fpe, but I was curious what the velocities would do at the end of the string. I found that after the 68th shot or so, the velocities dropped steadily. This is the string with the last mag chopped off.

View attachment 6117


And here is where the gauge was after the 9th magazine / 72 shots. So not going lower than 120 bar should be keep me where I need to be, velocity wise.


View attachment 6119


(BTW, if anyone knows the plenum size on the .177 wildcat mk 1, please let me know. I guessed at 15 cc and also made an educated guess at the tube size of 230 cc. Anyone who knows for sure, please confirm. Thanks!)

I was shooting from the bench to get a feel for the trajectory and this is how it worked out for hold-overs.

Yards	Hold-over
10	3.5
11	3
12	2.75
14	2
15	1.5
17	1
20	0.75
23	0.5
25	0.5
30	0.25
35	Zero
40	Zero
45	0.5
50	0.75
55	0.75

And the view through the reticle at 24x. This target was at 45 yards

View attachment 6118


And here's my target. I go by 5-yard increments in the top two rows. The bottom row was for the shots at misc distances that figured that I'd need to shoot. Starting at about 45 yards I started shooting full magazines. I'd do 4 shots with no holdover and then the rest of mag testing my holdover. It got kind of sloppy there. (stickers are 1/2 inch)

View attachment 6121


I shot a few more targets at 55 yards and with larger, 1-inch stickers. This is where I settled in on .75 hold-over. The wind was dead calm on the top-left group! Oh, the bottom right target was with a set of boxed Crossman 10.5 (Die I) which did quite well out to 45-50 yards.

View attachment 6122

Next time I'll be off the bench and probably have dropped the velocity a bit to keep it under 20 fpe.

Beautiful rifle and great shooting man!

 

[mcoulter]

Thanks for the kind words! While I've been on vacation this week, I've not had the chance to do more shooting. I'll update this after I get more trigger time

 

[Beanflip]

That’s a sweet airgun!

 

[mcoulter]

I did some small adjustments on the hammer spring on my Wildcat Mk1. My base velocity was 946 fps with FX 10.3 grain pellets which is 20.8 fpe.

Hammer Spring	FPS	FPE
Base	946​	20.8​
-1 turn	915	19.2
-1.25 turns (-3.35mm)	904	18.7
-1.5 turns	893	18.2​

At the -1.25 turn setting, the hammer spring adjuster is recessed 3.35mm. Counting turns this way or that way is fine, but eventually I know that I'll lose track of just where I am, so an absolute measurement is helpful!

I did not shoot full strings at these settings, but I can immediately tell that the lighter hammer spring settings I am seeing greater velocity variability. I saw Extreme Spreads of 31 fps across 30 shots at -1.5 turns and an ES of 22 fps at -1 turns. (At my original / most powerful setting I saw an ES of only 11 fps across a full 60+ shots.)

Did slowing the pellet down help with accuracy? I think conventional wisdom would say yes, that's too fast for pellets. They'll spiral or become unstable at that speed. Well, my experience with Kalibrguns in .22 proved this wrong and I'm wondering if this SmoothTwist barrel also likes 'em hot too.

Here are some targets.

The stickers are 1/2 inch and all groups were shot at 40 yards & 8-shots (full Wildcat mag). The first two stickers are at the base setting and are probably some of the best groups I've shot. Beginning with the 3rd group in the top row, I dropped 1 turn on the HS. Unfortunately, the wind did pick up during my testing, so I will have to repeat this testing to make sure.




And this is -1.5 turns on the HS. I did not make any scope adjustments in this or the previous target. When the wind picked up, it was coming from the south (my right).




And here is -1.25 turns on the HS. NOTE: The group I circled was actually a 50 yard test where I measured the actual velocity at 50 yards. The FX 10.3 pellets averaged 712 fps at 50 yards and the true* MV was 912 fps. I also made some small scope adjustments during these shots.



* I say "true" because in most of my shooting the chrony is about 3 yards in front of the rifle. That 912 was me shooting into the ground right over the chrony. All my other velocities are at the 3(ish) yard chrony distance.

Oh, one more interesting thing about this gun. The action rests in the stock quite nicely. With the exception of the 50 yard (circled) group above, I shot these -1.25 HS groups without either of the two screws that hold the action in the stock installed. The bottom left group really made me

So I'd say that with just a bit more bench testing, I'll take off my bipod and get my butt off the bench and recalibrate to shooting off my monopod and order a proper set of shooting sticks.

 

[mcoulter]

OK, I had a VERY calm night yesterday to further test accuracy at the -1 1/4 hammer spring setting. Here are some 50 yard groups with FX 10.3 pellets. All are 8-shot groups.




It also occurred to me that I didn't spend much time leveling the scope so I brought the target back to 35 and then 15 yards to see if my groups wandered at all. Nope. Looks decent and my holdovers seem pretty good still at the lower velocity (912 fps vs 948 fps).

I moved the target back out to a full 55 yards for my last two targets. This was a very gentle wind, but yeah, at 55 yards those 10.3 grain pellet are moved pretty easily. Makes me want to pick up a tin or two of the Monster Redesign 13 grain pellets to test too...

 

[hameditor]

Great shooting as always, Matt! Thanks for sharing

 

[Dogowski]

OK, I had a VERY calm night yesterday to further test accuracy at the -1 1/4 hammer spring setting. Here are some 50 yard groups with FX 10.3 pellets. All are 8-shot groups.

View attachment 6300


It also occurred to me that I didn't spend much time leveling the scope so I brought the target back to 35 and then 15 yards to see if my groups wandered at all. Nope. Looks decent and my holdovers seem pretty good still at the lower velocity (912 fps vs 948 fps).

I moved the target back out to a full 55 yards for my last two targets. This was a very gentle wind, but yeah, at 55 yards those 10.3 grain pellet are moved pretty easily. Makes me want to pick up a tin or two of the Monster Redesign 13 grain pellets to test too...


View attachment 6301

Nice shooting brother! You've got it dialed in nicely.

 

[mcoulter]

I did a "shoot out" between the FX 10.3 grain pellets and the Air Arms version of the pellet. I posted it to the JSB board here.

Spoiler alert, I think this gun likes pellets with a slightly smaller head-size (4.49mm vs. 4.52mm).

Also, I got a basic Vanguard bipod / shooting stick off of Amazon to hopefully use in my first field target competition which is coming up in a couple of weeks. Up to this point I've either been shooting from my bench on a bag or fixed bipod, or I have been shooting from a kneeling or seated position without any support. The results from both have been... well... honestly dreadful. Oh, I do have a monopod that I've tried, but I did not shoot much better with that, than off-hand, seated or kneeling.

Anyhow, here's my progression in an afternoon.

This first target was @ 35 yards shooting from sticks. Ugh, I was all over the place on each axis. I kind of assumed this would be the case. I left lots of room between my 1/2 inch stickers!



From here I needed to get a handle on my wandering point-of-aim. The top row was "meh" too, but as you can see in the top-right group, something was happening. I started to figure out how I could use leverage from my body against the rifle and against the sticks to control my wandering aim...

The bottom row of groups was after lunch and a bit of rest. I was really pleased with how these came together from how my shooting session started!




I felt from here my results were worthy of getting the old rat out (Air Venturi target). I placed it at 35 yards and was able to drop it 7 out of 8 shots at 35 yards! This was shooting through the medium hole which is about 1 inch.





Responsibilities were calling me, but I was on a roll, so I moved the rat and my target box out to 50 yards and repeated the exercise. Here are the paper results shooting off sticks @ 50 yards:




And for the rat, I was able to drop it:

3 out of 8 shots @50y with the same 1 inch (medium) hole
4 out of 8 shots @50y with the large hole (39 mm)
2 out of 8 shots @50y with the large hole (39 mm)
5 out of 8 shots @50y with the large hole (39 mm)

At this point I was all smiles thinking about where I started the day. I wrapped up shooting one more mag at the rat at 20 yards and the smallest hole (15 mm).

7 out of 8 shots @20y with the smallest hole (15 mm)

And just to log my holdovers at these distances shooting off sticks with my scope at maximum power (24x).

(I will fill in the blanks as I test and confirm)

Yards	Hold-over
10	3.5
11	2.75
12	2.5
13	2.0
14	2.0
15	1.5
17	1.0
20	.50
23	.50
25	Zero
30	Zero
35	Zero
40	Zero
45	.50
50	.50
55	.75

Edit: 5/30/24

Here is the off-the-sticks target that helped me with the holdovers logged above. I ran out of daylight on the 35 yard target. I was also making small windage adjustments in the top row.



And a few pics from the day:

 

[mcoulter]

For the last two or three practice sessions I feel like I've been chasing my tail with finding a steady position on the sticks. I shot one more target this evening at my "usual distances". This is each yard from 10 to 15 yards, 17, 20, 23, and then 25 through 55 in 5 yard increments.

I'll take enough shots to feel the holdover (and my accuracy) is good. Tonight I made it to 25 yards until I got hung up. Then again at 45 yards... check out my skill shooting AROUND the bullseye there!

By this point my point of aim was bouncing all around.

Until I made two changes in how I was shooting; I went from a heavy lean on my gun and the sticks to a much lighter, balanced hold on the sticks. I raised the sticks a few more inches and found that instead of trying to steady myself by resting on the gun, I actually tried lifting the gun ever-so-slightly off the sticks. It was really weird feeling at first, but wow, it really made my POA much more steady! I did not actually lift the gun from the stick yoke, but probably put a few pounds of upward pressure on it and man, what I difference! It was so much more steady.

I'm really looking forward to shooting this again from scratch trying this the whole way.

 

[hameditor]

Matt, thanks! Let us know how you get on

 

[Danman]

For the last two or three practice sessions I feel like I've been chasing my tail with finding a steady position on the sticks. I shot one more target this evening at my "usual distances". This is each yard from 10 to 15 yards, 17, 20, 23, and then 25 through 55 in 5 yard increments.

I'll take enough shots to feel the holdover (and my accuracy) is good. Tonight I made it to 25 yards until I got hung up. Then again at 45 yards... check out my skill shooting AROUND the bullseye there!

By this point my point of aim was bouncing all around.

Until I made two changes in how I was shooting; I went from a heavy lean on my gun and the sticks to a much lighter, balanced hold on the sticks. I raised the sticks a few more inches and found that instead of trying to steady myself by resting on the gun, I actually tried lifting the gun ever-so-slightly off the sticks. It was really weird feeling at first, but wow, it really made my POA much more steady! I did not actually lift the gun from the stick yoke, but probably put a few pounds of upward pressure on it and man, what I difference! It was so much more steady.

I'm really looking forward to shooting this again from scratch trying this the whole way.

View attachment 6508

That is alot of moving! Do you move the target or yourself then? I have a fairly big and heavy pellet trap that I lug around and push it back 5Yards at a time starting @ 40Y (as 20 to 40 is about the same) i was thinking about putting it on a cart....nice results

 

[Pesty3782]

I made an L shape target out of 2x6 wood…..There are clips attached and They are big enough to hold a 8.5X11 piece of paper….We can sight in on these with our FT rifles for a long time…..Once done just flip it over and you have a fresh piece of wood…..just move the clips over. These have lasted us over a year now for sighting in.

Tony P

 

[mcoulter]

That is alot of moving! Do you move the target or yourself then? I have a fairly big and heavy pellet trap that I lug around and push it back 5Yards at a time starting @ 40Y (as 20 to 40 is about the same) i was thinking about putting it on a cart....nice results

Yes, it is quite a bit of moving! I remain in same spot and move the target. Thanks!

 

[mcoulter]

I changed things up a little bit last night in my shooting - I limited myself to only two shots per sticker. Just making this one change, definitely makes the game different. Not having the history of shots you get from shooting groups makes the two I shot that much harder!

Also, I realized that my earlier comment about lifting up on my rifle when shooting from sticks probably isn't as important as I thought... I suspect now that it helped because it likely used a different set of muscles and its that change that probably allowed me to remain steady. So having a few different ways you can settle in on the sticks is probably really helpful.

Along the same lines, I realized that I was getting really twitchy with my trigger finger... it sounds weird to say that, but changing back so only the very end of my fingertip did help in this regard.

Lastly, I made a new target during lunch today. I'm looking forward to testing it. I posted about it here.

 

[Hateful McNasty]

Man that is a nice stock! I've always liked the looks/design but you usually see the gamo grade plastic stocks on em.....eewww Sounds like she is pretty air efficient as well! Seems like this summer your going to have to actually participate in some Field Target!

Gamo grade ..lol ... Man my whisper fusion mach 1 synthetic stock is my most easy to shoulder and comfortable .. it's ashame the other guns I got aren't gamo grade ..lol

 

[Danman]

Gamo grade ..lol ... Man my whisper fusion mach 1 synthetic stock is my most easy to shoulder and comfortable .. it's ashame the other guns I got aren't gamo grade ..lol

Yeah my crosman springer was synthetic, holds up good. laughs at the weather and was light but not the best looking I've only ever seen a wildcat in synthetic or a fairly simple looking wood stock. The one @mcoulter has seems one of a kind!

 

[Pesty3782]

Here's what I use for MIL scope FT sight in.....I hope it shows up.

Tony P.

 

[Pesty3782]

Here is the same target but in MOA.

Tony P.