“Gotta get through January, gotta get through February…” — Van Morrison
Winter can be a tough time of the year for a silhouette shooter. Silhouette is an outdoor sport and shivering on a cold, windy and (sometimes) snowy silhouette range is not conducive to shooting good scores. For the most part, North American silhouette shooters are stuck inside waiting for March or April to roll around and glorious springtime to bloom and bring with it warmer temperatures, sunshine, and (finally!) silhouette matches.
Down here in the deep south, we have it much easier in the winter months. While it can be brutally cold and we can have rainy (or occasionally snowy) wintertime weather, for the most part our winters are mild and we are able to shoot relatively comfortably all year long. In fact, of the four club matches that I attend every month, three of them continue to shoot year-round. The only one that takes a break is our monthly highpower silhouette match. Despite the relatively mild temperatures and available matches, winter is winter and we are eagerly looking forward to spring and the start of the REAL shooting season, which for us starts THIS WEEKEND at the Coop Shoot in Jonesboro, Louisiana!
So how in the world to we shoot a regional championship in February? Well, we cheat the winter elements by shooting inside! There is one, and only one, type of silhouette that can be shot indoors; it’s the most versatile silhouette game on the planet and if you read the title of this post you’ll know that it’s air rifle silhouette. Down here in the southern region of the United States, the official start of the silhouette season is the “Coop Shoot” Indoor Air Rifle Silhouette Regional Championship the last weekend of February. The first third of the season, through the spring, is heavy on air rifle silhouette championships with the Shamrock Silhouette Shootout regional in Baton Rouge in mid-March, the Spindletop Championship’s Friday air rifle regional in Beaumont, Texas in early April, and the Louisiana Silhouette Championship, which awards state championships in both smallbore and air rifle, in Gonzales, Louisiana in early May. If you want to shoot silhouette in the deep South, you gotta have an air rifle in the safe!
Have you ever shot air rifle silhouette? Chances are the answer is no. Regardless, you definitely should try it for the first time or try it again. In Fact, air rifle silhouette is the one type of silhouette that EVERY silhouette shooter should shoot, yet it is probably the silhouette sport that has the fewest regular competitors. Read on and I’ll tell you why that should change and why YOU should start shooting air rifle silhouette.
The idea for this post was sparked by this question:
Dustin, my knowledge of high quality air rifles is very outdated, like early 1980s. What are competitive, top of the line examples of an Open Air Rifles for silhouette, including the fine details, if applicable?
I’m going to answer that question, but to get to that answer we have LOTS to cover regarding air rifle silhouette; so get ready and let’s get rolling.
Air Rifle Silhouette: The Most Important Silhouette Game
I’m going to say it again: If you are a silhouette shooter, you NEED to be shooting air rifle silhouette! I’ll take it a step further, if you are a competitive rifle shooter, you NEED to be shooting air rifle silhouette. Okay, if you shoot benchrest or F-Class or one of those games that you get to rest the rifle the whole time, air rifle silhouette is not a necessity for you. But, if you shoot 10-meter air rifle or 3P smallbore or Field Target or Sportsman’s Challenge or any other type of sport that requires you to stand up and shoot a rifle, air rifle silhouette is a key way to rise to the top of your sport. I’m talking to all you lever action silhouette shooters and you BPCR silhouette shooters too.
So why should everyone be shooting scoped rifle silhouette, even if your sport of choice doesn’t use scopes? The answer to that question is PRECISION. And nothing builds precision offhand shooting skills, while also being FUN, like shooting scoped rifle silhouette. John Mullins completely dominates lever action silhouette, yet all of his training is with scoped rifles and he shoots a complete competitive schedule of scoped-rifle silhouette. Shooting silhouette with a scoped rifle requires a precise hold and nearly perfect trigger control and follow-through. Regularly shooting scoped silhouette builds skill in these areas and keeps those skills sharp. You simply cannot build that level of skill, and keep it, shooting iron sights at big silhouette targets. Now, you can build those precision skills shooting Olympic smallbore or air rifle at international Olympic paper or electronic targets, but that is tedious and not nearly as much fun, which is why I suggest that 10-meter and 3P shooters shoot scoped silhouette as well. You build the same precision skills and have a lot more fun shooting steel targets than just punching paper all the time. Finally, you BPCR silhouette shooters, I’ve seen your chicken scores. You need to be shooting scoped silhouette!
Why air rifle? One word: training! How do you train? Do you go to the range for training? If so, do you live next door to the range? Probably not. Unless you have unlimited free time and unlimited access to ammo, driving to the shooting range is not an effective method to getting in enough training time to be competitive. The top shooters are all training at home for a significant, if not predominant, portion of their practice time. So how do we train at home? Dry-firing? Well, yes, dry-firing is one of the most effective forms of training. But it’s boring! You’ve got to have a lot of patience and persistence to dry-fire every day. It’s simply more fun to live-fire, and unless you live someplace very rural, live firing a .22 (or larger) at home is not possible. Enter the airgun. Air rifles are fun, quiet and safe. An air rifle is the perfect training tool for shooting in the back yard or in a basement. It’s easy to set up a small range; and you simply need a reasonably sized steel backstop to have a completely safe training range.
I have two air rifle ranges in my backyard. One is shot at free-standing targets from the yard with everything open to the elements. The second is shot at swingers from my reloading room above the garage. (All of the targets are cut to the size of the airgun chickens, so they are scaled to be shot at 20 yards, but I shoot them at about 30 yards (there is a training tip for you, shoot at targets set farther than they are supposed to be.) Both of those ranges get LOTS of use; my preferred method of training at home is live-firing with my Target air rifle. It’s nice to be able to shoot from inside the reloading room when it gets really hot and the south Louisiana mosquitoes are looking for blood. This time of year, however, is perfect for shooting from the yard and as I’m writing this sentence I just came inside from shooting in the yard. Shooting pellets is way more fun than dry-firing and, as any silhouette shooter knows, it doesn’t get any better than knocking down those free-standing targets! The fun of shooting steel is the reason that I contend that EVERY competitive rifle shooter should shoot air rifle silhouette; it’s such a welcome break from shooting paper and it builds the same skills as training for 10-meter air rifle or any other standing shooting. The more fun you’re having in training, the more training you will do and the better you’ll get. It’s basically impossible to beat an air rifle for enjoyable and effective training.
I know what you’re thinking now: “Okay, air rifles are great for training, so I’ll get an air rifle as a practice rifle, but I don’t need to start shooting air rifle silhouette.” WRONG! As much as training can build up and improve scores, NOTHING is as effective as shooting in matches! NOTHING! The more matches you shoot, the better you’ll be and the better you’ll perform at bigger matches. We need to shoot as many matches that count with scores being counted and someone is winning. We need to shoot competitively so we will be comfortable dealing with shooting competitively. So, you need to shoot air rifle silhouette because it adds to your opportunity to shoot matches; and shooting LOTS of matches is key. So get your air rifle set up, practice with it, and get to a match and compete with it!
Air Rifle Silhouette: The Most Available Silhouette Game
You probably snickered a little when you read that heading, because for the VAST majority of you, going to an air rifle silhouette match as I suggested above is not possible because there are no air rifle silhouette matches anywhere near you. Most of you are thinking that air rifle silhouette is the LEAST available silhouette game, and today as you’re reading this, you’re probably right. But, I’m going to tell you why YOU should get a couple friends together and start an air rifle silhouette match. Yes, I’m talking to you! YOU should do this, and here’s why: because starting an air rifle silhouette match is easy!
Think about all the things you need to set up a smallbore or highpower silhouette range for a new match: First, you’re probably going to need a gun club that is willing to let you set up a range and host a match. You need a LOT of land, 500 meters plus buffer space for highpower and 100 meters plus buffer for smallbore. You need that land to be secluded because of the noise. You need berms — thousands of dollars of dirt work. You need a few more thousand dollars for highpower targets or a few hundred for smallbore targets. You need lots of steel rail to set all those targets on. Starting a highpower or smallbore range takes a special place, lots of money and lots of work.
None of these problems exist with air rifle silhouette! It can be shot on almost any small field or back yard. No need for a gun club. All you need is 45 yards, no need for a buffer. Noise is a non-issue, airguns are mostly silent and they can be easily and cheaply made completely silent. We shot a match for years off a porch in the back yard of a house in an affluent city neighborhood with neighbors on either side of the fence; the neighbors never had a clue. There is no need for berms; pellets don’t skip off the ground, place the targets close to the ground and misses will go into the grass and stop immediately. If you want a backstop to spot misses, put a thin piece of steel about a foot behind the target; no need to move a single piece of dirt. A very nice set of targets will cost about $120 and they can be set on anything, from steel rails to stands to a piece of 2x4 sitting on the ground. Almost anything will work and work well!
There is absolutely no reason that air rifle silhouette is not the most widely-shot, most popular silhouette game in the world! There is nothing to setting up a range and maintaining it forever. The targets don’t break; the berms don’t get shot out (if you have berms); the only maintenance is changing out the rails every few years if you use wooden rails. Air rifle silhouette is available to almost anyone almost anywhere in the world! It is the most available silhouette game once YOU get it started in your hometown.
Air Rifle Silhouette: The Most Fun Silhouette Game?
If you get the chance at a match sometime, have a conversation with Dan Cates and John Mullins. Both of those guys are smart and forward-thinking and I thoroughly enjoy bouncing around ideas and concepts with them. Once, when discussing the (more lenient) equipment rules in Mexico, John said something that has stuck with me. He said that the Mexicans have found a way to make the most difficult shooting sport in the world an little easier and a little more fun. This is a brilliant insight and makes complete sense and helps to explain the popularity of the game in Mexico. When shooters hit more targets, they have more fun, and the Mexican equipment rules help them to hit a few more targets (why didn’t we think of that?)
Air rifle silhouette has that same advantage. Air rifle silhouette is a little easier than smallbore and highpower for three reasons: First, air rifle silhouette targets are 1/10 scale of highpower targets, but they are not set at 1/10 the distance of highpower targets. Air rifle targets are set at 20 yards, 30 yards, 36 yards, and 45 yards. Setting them in yards instead of meters gets them closer to the shooter, and setting the turkeys at 36 yards instead of 38.5 meters and the rams at 45 yards instead of 50 meters gets the targets closer still. 50 meters is about 55 yards so the ram sits a full 10 yards closer than to scale. If we’d had the airgun technology that we have today when the game started, the targets would probably be set at the scaled distances of 20, 30, 38 and 50 meters; but air rifles weren’t as capable back then so the targets were set closer and it’s not changing!
The second reason that air rifle silhouette is a little easier is because the air rifle game doesn’t have all the ridiculous equipment rules that smallbore and highpower have that affect the fit of the rifles. With an air rifle, you can get a fully adjustable rifle, fit it perfectly to your shooting stance, throw a scope on it and shoot it. It’s easier to hit targets with a rifle that fits you perfectly and air rifles can legally be made to fit you any way you want them.
The third reason that air rifle silhouette is a little easier, and this is a very minor one, is because there is no recoil and no noise in air rifle silhouette. Recoil pulse and noise affects shooters even with smallbore rifles but that’s not an issue with an air rifle. Shooting an air rifle is a lot like dry firing.
These three things make air rifle silhouette just a little easier to hit targets than the other scoped rifle silhouette sports; and hitting targets is more fun than missing targets. For that reason, it can be argued that air rifle silhouette is the most fun scoped rifle silhouette game.
Air Rifle Silhouette: The Most Affordable Silhouette Game
I’m not going to argue that air rifles are cheap. Some air rifles can cost as much or more than a custom smallbore or highpower silhouette rifle. Like most things, you can find a way to spend as much money as you want on an air rifle. However, there are many options in the air rifle world that won’t cost you thousands of dollars, and those rifles are excellent for air rifle silhouette. The used market for high-end air rifles is the way to go and you can save a LOT of money buying a used rifle. Even buying new, you don’t have to break the bank to get a great rifle.
Despite the fact that you’re not likely to save a huge amount of money over a SB or HP rifle, anyone that’s been shooting competitive sports knows that the cost of the rifle is just a fraction of the money spent over time when you factor in ammunition. It doesn’t take very many cases of .22LR ammo to exceed the cost of even the nicest smallbore silhouette rifle, and ammo is something that you never get to quit buying. Highpower ammo is even more expensive. Ammo is where shooting airguns really becomes more affordable than firearms. A brick of .22LR ammo is 500 rounds, which is the same as a single tin of pellets. A brick of SK Standard Plus is about $75 currently, and Midas+ is about $200 per brick. Compare that to a tin of premium pellets at $15 - $20. Pellets cost a fraction of what .22 or highpower ammo costs and that makes air rifle silhouette the most affordable silhouette sport and a MUCH more cost effective training option (I hope Adam Braverman doesn’t read this post!)
One more thing regarding affordability that everyone needs to be aware of. Back in the day, the esteemed committee in charge of the rule book decided that it would be advantageous to have three different categories of air rifle silhouette to make the game available to more shooters. They came up with a “Target” category to allow 10-meter shooters to put a scope on their 10-meter rifles and bring it to a silhouette match. They created a “Sporter” category for folks that just had ‘regular’ spring-powered airguns and didn’t want to invest in more elaborate and expensive precharged pneumatic (PCP) rifles. Finally, the “Open” category was (and is) for any rifles that didn’t meet the restrictive criteria for Target and Sporter. This enabled airgun shooters of all types to bring their rifle to a match and shoot what ya got and promised to flood air rifle silhouette with new shooters. Of course, in typical silhouette fashion, these categories didn’t bring in any new shooters and instead, air rifle silhouette shooters just went out and bought rifles for Target, Sporter and Open and it then became necessary to have three rifles, three scopes, and three types of pellets to compete at an air rifle silhouette match. Things proceeded that way for years and years until a few years ago when we changed the way we run air rifle silhouette matches. Today, if you go to a match, you shoot only one rifle and you compete against shooters with similarly-categorized rifles. So, at the Coop Shoot this weekend (and at every other air rifle silhouette championship match) there will be three distinct matches going on, the Open match, the Target match and the Sporter match. No shooter will shoot in more than one of those matches and there will be three separate champions. She shooter that shoots the highest score with any rifle will be the Open champion; the shooter that shoots the highest score with a Target rifle will be the Target champion and the shooter that shoots the highest score with a Sporter rifle will be the Sporter champion. This has been an excellent change because no shooter can win more than one championship and shooters only need to have one rifle. So, if you are under the mistaken belief that you have to buy two or three air rifles to be competitive in air rifle silhouette, forget that! You only need one rifle and one rifle is way less expensive than three rifles!
Air Rifle Silhouette: The Coolest Silhouette Game
As outlined above, there are many reasons that air rifle silhouette is a GREAT silhouette game and the best silhouette game for training and range options, but the most compelling reason to shoot air rifle silhouette is probably because air rifles are so cool! The advances in air rifle technology the last 10 years are staggering and the rifles are just getting better and better! That said, all of my air rifles are more than 10 years old and they are all excellent for this game. Air rifles have been great for a long time and they are getting better. It is absolutely amazing that these rifles are as accurate and great to shoot as they are! Also, nice air rifles have WAY better triggers than most firearms and for some reason air rifle manufacturers seem to make almost all their stocks for offhand shooting whereas firearms manufacturers never do. This is just my opinion, but I think that high-end air rifles are way cooler than .22s and centerfire rifles and I bet that you’ll agree if you try a few.
Some Equipment Recommendations
I suppose I should finally answer the question posed and recommend some rifles. Let me start this by saying that I am in no way an expert in air rifles and there are MANY MANY MANY air rifles out there on the market that will work great for air rifle silhouette. I’m going to suggest just a few to look into. Remember that you just need one of these but you’ll need to start by deciding which category you want to shoot. PCPs are the nicest to shoot since you don’t have to manually cock the rifle, but a PCP requires an air tank to charge the rifle. If you don’t want to invest in an air tank, I suggest starting with a Sporter rifle or a single-stroke pneumatic (SSP) Target rifle. Also, your goals are important, are you getting into air rifle silhouette primarily for training? It’s my opinion that a Target rifle is the best air rifle for training because the pellets are slow and the rifles require you to learn to follow through perfectly. However, if you live out west or in the midwest where the wind blows a lot you’ll probably want to stay away from a Target rifle and go with a Sporter or Open rifle. Open rifles are the most fun to shoot but will usually be the most expensive. Remember that the caliber must be either .177 or .22 (I recommend .177 because of pellet selection) and Open and Sporter need to be limited to 20 FPE (foot-pounds of energy) to avoid target damage.
Sporter Rifles
By far the most popular Sporter rifle is the Air Arms TX-200. It’s an excellent rifle with a very nice trigger and a GREAT offhand stock.
The second most popular Sporter rifle is the Weihrauch HW97. It is very similar to the TX200 and just as good in my opinion.
For slightly less-expensive options, the higher-end break-barrel springer type rifles are nice. Most competitors will tell you that a fixed-barrel rifle is more accurate, and I agree, but the break-barrel rifles I’ve tried from Weihrauch (HW98) and Beeman (R9 & R7) have all been impressive.
I recommend finding a a used Sporter rifle that has been tuned to make sure they shoot smoothly. These rifles are readily available. Remember to make sure that you get a “shock-proof” scope designed for spring piston rifles to use with any Sporter rifle.
Target Rifles
Any 10-meter rifle made by Anschutz, Bleiker, Feinwerkbau, Grunig, Steyr, Walther, etc. are going to be excellent for Target Rifle Silhouette. The used market is excellent for 10-meter rifles (check out targettalk.com). I shoot an Anschutz 2002CA that I bought in excellent used condition.
As mentioned above, if you want to get a nice target rifle that doesn’t require an air tank, you’ll need to stay away from PCPs and go with a single-stroke pneumatic like the Anschutz 2002SSP
The other great option for a non-PCP Target rifle is a Feinwerkbau 300. These rifles fire with springs and voodoo but are Olympic-level in accuracy and triggers (they are also easier to cock than a SSP).
Target rifles are plentiful and absolutely wonderful to shoot. They are SLOW so you have to remember: no modifications to the velocity if you want it to be legal in the Target Rifle category.
Open Rifles
This is where things get really interesting. An Open rifle is basically anything (remember: 20 FPE and nothing larger than .22 caliber). I personally own four Walther Dominators and love them (I really like Walther triggers). The Dominator is a rifle made for Field Target but unfortunately is no longer made.
I Believe that a shooter has three options for an excellent Open air rifle today: First, find a field target rifle - there are lots of rifles out there and they are mostly all excellent. They are also going to be expensive.
The second option is to buy a used 10-meter rifle and send it to someone like Alan Zasadny to modify it to an Open rifle. This will include making it shoot faster and giving it a new power plant. This is not a cost-effective option but it will produce the finest airgun possible.
The third option, and the one that I recommend to most shooters, is to buy a rifle from one of the airgun manufacturers that don’t make Olympic-style rifles but are pushing the technological boundaries in the industry. These are companies like FX Airguns and Daystate. In fact, the Open Air Rifle that I recommend the most is the FX Dreamline. This is an extremely accurate rifle with three power settings (you’ll need to shoot it at it’s lowest setting). The Classic stock is excellent for offhand shooting. The trigger is very good, not quite as nice as the triggers on the Olympic rifles, but nearly ideal for silhouette. I suggest getting a single-shot adapter and shooting it single shot. It retails new for around $1,000 and is worth every penny.
The Dreamline also supposedly comes in a Field Target edition with an adjustable stock which would be great if you can find one. I’ve never seen one in person. FX makes several other rifles that are great for silhouette (see the FX Crown, FX Royal, etc.) and Daystate also makes some excellent rifles (check out the Huntsman) nearly perfect for silhouette. There are options galore. If you’re considering a certain rifle, shoot me an email or a comment here and I’ll ask the braintrust at our airgun club about it.
This post is getting too long so I’m going to cut it off. I hope that you’ll consider giving air rifle silhouette a try if you don’t already shoot it. If you do, I hope to see you at one of the championship matches coming up. The season kicks off for us at the Coop Shoot in two days. I’m ready! I hope you are too. Until your 2023 season starts, keep shooting!
P.S. — Regarding air rifle silhouette targets, most of what you’ll see at bigger matches are resettable sets of targets. These are great but not necessary to get a match started. In fact, I much prefer shooting freestanding targets, they are just more fun. I suggest buying air rifle silhouette targets from qualitytargets.com. I’ve bought from Calvin at Quality Targets many times and he does an excellent job. If you order targets, take my advice: ignore the rule book. You need to get the chickens cut out of 3/8-inch thick steel to keep them from flying all over the place (1/8-inch thick steel for the bases). The pigs, turkeys and rams should be 1/4-inch thick steel (1/8-inch thick steel for the bases). Call Calvin and order them just like that. Buy the cheapest steel he has, there is no need for hard steel.
Air Rifle Silhouette
Great article, but I might suggest there is a 4th reason air rifle silhouette is a bit easier...the bullets are not scaled down (well slightly I guess, 6mm to 5.56mm). Shooting a ram at 45 yards with .22 air rifle pellet is roughly the equivalent of shooting a full-bore ram at 500m with a 2.2inch (or 55mm) projectile. Can't tell you how many times a 55mm projectile at the rams would have helped my score a bit.