Pump It Up

Some plinkin' of a different kind this time. Our gun club has a brand new indoor range. The CFO for Ontario has set some pretty high requirements for the use of this facility namely only Lead Free ammo is allowed. Now I agree with the premise of using lead free ammo but it places those wanting to use the facility in a very difficult position, finding it! I've googled to death sources for lead free rimfire ammo and came up blank. (I apologize for the pun). Apparently it's made but every source I could find is sold out.

Wanting to get at least some use out of the indoor range this winter (it suks standing outside freezing your gronicles off just to punch holes in paper targets) I purchased an air rifle. This seemed like a good bet for shooting indoors in the winter. Lead Free pellets appear to be more readily available (not locally though) so it was off to Ottawa the other day to find some, which I did. Three kinds actually so I stocked up a bit.

The rifle is a Ruger Blackhawk. Listed at Canadian Tire for $249.00.  I paid $99 and apparently it's on clearance now for that price. I think that's fair because $99USD is what they sell for in the States. The pellets I found that were lead free are: Stoeger X-Speed 5.56gr ($14.99/200), Powershot Penetrators 8.5gr. ($11.99/125) & Crosman SSP Hyper Velocity 4.0 gr.($13.52/250).

The scope supplied with the rifle is a 4X Ruger. Pretty basic. The rings that hold it to the rifle are pretty poor and I think they moved quite a bit while I was trying to dial it in. The rifle has a pretty good kick to it. The lighter pellets seem to fly all over the place and the Stoegers were the most consistent. The Powershot Penetrators seemed to pull down and to the right likely due to their weight. All shots were at 17.5 yds.

All in all I think it'll be fun and I really like the indoor shooting range. The one thing I can't figure is why the pellets are 2.5 X more expensive than .22 LR's? *Scratching Head*

Standby.