Low cost airgun shooting fun

[North Country Gal]

Here's a neat little springer that I posted about earlier in the year, but I finally found the needed 13mm rings needed to mount a scope, this week. It's the Slavia 631 Lux in 177 caliber. Slavia is a CZ air rifle brand that used to be imported to the U.S.up until the 90s. The 631 is a low powered springer designed for introductory 10 meter target shooting and as such, it shoots in that 500 to 600 fps range. A magnum springer it is NOT.

Bill actually found this Slavia 631 on an online auction and bought it sight unseen and unknown to me. He got for $60, drove to the auction site and picked it up, then walked in the house and handed to me with a big smile. This Slavia is actually in great shape, showing very little sign of use.


The odd groove size of 13mm had me hunting for a set of 13mm rings for quite awhile, but finally found some. The scope is a BSA HD 2-7x air rifle scope that I've had for a long time.


The trigger on this springer is very light, but it requires a great deal of pre-travel to fire. It took a little bit of practice to get used to it, but I can manage it just fine.

Even though I would not label the Slavia 631 Lux a 30 yard gun, I was curious to see what it could do at that range. We had a bit of a breeze, today, enough to wiggle the paper targets every now and then, but nothing I couldn't work around. I tried a variety of pellets and finally settled on the JSB Express 7.87s as the best, so here we have a Czech made gun that likes Czech made pellets. Surprise, surprise! Here's two targets that represent the smallest and the largest groups when I was patient and played the wind. When I didn't groups opened up over an inch.


Okay, my HW springers are in no danger of being replaced by the Slavia, but for $60 we found an air rifle that will shoot under an inch all day long at 30 yards. I'm already having a blast shooting off the deck at our steel targets. Low cost shooting fun for sure.

[BigAl52]

Id take that all day long for a 60.00 gun. I too did some backyard shooting today twice. All toll about 2 hours of shooting. I knocked around the swinging balls then tried to flip up my turtles.
https://www.amazon.com/KNINE-OUTDOORS-R ... B08PL22NNW This target is alot of fun because these are heavy enough for rimfire. You need to smack one of these with 22 cal pellet just right or it wont flip it up enough to fall over to rest on the top bar. Its a challenge. I also ordered this tree today to add to my range.
https://www.evike.com/products/94104/
I also have a line on a Sig Texas Star wheel. I plan to take that and the animal tree to Texas where my wife has a girlfriend with 8 acres we can do some airgun shooting on. To top off the entire day a phone call was made to AOA I have a 3x9x40 Hawke scope bought to mount on a HW97 coming in soon that I ordered. I have just wanted a 97 for a while and decided to jump on one. Got the one with the regular monte carlo stock. Its spring time in the Rockies.

[North Country Gal]

Those flip up steel targets that flip up and rest on a top bar are the ones we shoot the most. You're right, at 25 our 30 yards with the light power airguns, you need to hit the target just right. Thanks for the link on the shooting tree target.

CONGRATS on the HW97! We have all the fancy Air Arms under levers, but they mostly collect dust because we MUCH prefer our HW under levers. You're gonna love the 97K.

[BigAl52]

Yes maam I thought that shooting tree looked cool as I saw it on a youtube channel and did a search to find it. That slot in the top is handy for holding one of those check where your gun is shooting targets you were mentioning when shooting CO2 or PCP. Gene might like that one also.

[markiver54]

Ok, time to get out the air rifles!

[RanchRoper]

Nice shooting for sure....

[Sir Henry]

Pre-travel. That is the word I was looking for a few weeks ago to describe the trigger on my QB78.

Great shooting.

[North Country Gal]

Thanks, guys. There is a lot of confusion on this pre-travel feature. It is associated with the first stage of a two stage trigger, but the term "two-stage trigger" is used to describe more than one type of trigger and this sometimes leads to arcane arguments as to what constitutes a true two-stage trigger, so I just uses the all-inclusive term "pre-travel" to describe a trigger the has a lot of take up before it releases.

The trigger on the Slavia is actually simple and anything but sophisticated. I may or may not try to do a kitchen table trigger job, but probably not, since I have adjusted to the factory trigger and because I don't have much patience, anymore, to correct factory triggers.

[daytime dave]

Very nice shooting. It was nice of your husband to get that for you.
I just may have to start air range at the new place.

[North Country Gal]

Good idea, Dave. Nice thing about an airgun range is that it doesn't take much to make a safe one, either in terms of space needed or materials. We've stretched ours to 50 yards, but that's very much the exception. 30 yards has become the general consensus as the distance for accuracy testing and it's the distance we shoot the most, by far. Shooting at 30 yards with air guns roughly duplicates what you can do at 50 yards with rimfires as far as the effect of shooting conditions. Shooting air guns at 30 yards is very practical even with a breeze, but it takes a day of near perfect shooting conditions to realize potential airgun accuracy at 50 yards.

[Sir Henry]

Good idea, Dave. Nice thing about an airgun range is that it doesn't take much to make a safe one, either in terms of space needed or materials. We've stretched ours to 50 yards, but that's very much the exception. 30 yards has become the general consensus as the distance for accuracy testing and it's the distance we shoot the most, by far. Shooting at 30 yards with air guns roughly duplicates what you can do at 50 yards with rimfires as far as the effect of shooting conditions. Shooting air guns at 30 yards is very practical even with a breeze, but it takes a day of near perfect shooting conditions to realize potential airgun accuracy at 50 yards.

I want to be able to shoot quiet rimfire outside and pellets inside during the winter. That dueling tree looks good. I have a couple for rimfire and pellets just bounce off.

[North Country Gal]

How quiet do you want to go? See some of my old posts on using CCI Quiets, CBs, even SV 22 Shorts. Might even be worthwhile to check into paying the Feds and getting a silencer for one of your 22s.

[daytime dave]

It is nice to be able to go out back and shoot what ever you want to. It may sound like heresy here on the forums, but my favorite form of shooting remains the airguns. Rifle, shotgun and pistol airguns. The thirty yard range will be the first one built. Next will be a 25 yd handgun range that can be expanded to 50 yds. The 75 and 100 yd rifle and shotgun range will be last.
Some quiet rimfire is fun and nice to the neighbors.

[North Country Gal]

Some quiet rimfire is fun for sure. The only reason we haven't done more of it this summer is the ammo availability thing. We still have some CBs and 22 Quiets, but we're waiting for the ammo makers to catch up, before we shoot it, again.

[Sir Henry]

Some quiet rimfire is fun for sure. The only reason we haven't done more of it this summer is the ammo availability thing. We still have some CBs and 22 Quiets, but we're waiting for the ammo makers to catch up, before we shoot it, again.

That’s my problem too. I have tons of ammo but not that much quiet. In my search for a new home I want to be able to shoot airguns indoors in the winter.