Well my long awaited FX Impact .35 cal (9mm) PCP Pellet Rifle finally arrived this past week. See the video testing at 50 yards vs. Coke can, Apple, and 3/4 inch (20mm) thick Pine board in addition to some targets.
Yes, I'm a happy camper. This is not your childhood BB gun, lol. This PCP (Pre-Charged Pneumatic) is sending an 81 grain Lead Pellet zooming along at 870fps, which generates approx. 134 foot pounds of energy (fpe) at the muzzle, and is still carrying 100 fpe at 50 yards. This is more than enough for small to mid-size game hunting I'm guessing out to 100 yards and beyond (Longer distance testing will have to wait).
Not only is this powerful, but it is capable of extreme accuracy that is comparable or better than many rimfire and centerfire firearms at these ranges. After some minor tuning, I was able to keep 10 shots under a half-inch at 30 yards, and 10 shots under an inch at 50 yards. That's as far as I was able to shoot today in the nice 68F degree (20C) weather. Tomorrow it's down to a high of 22F degrees (-5C) and 5 inches of snow, so I won't be going out!
Even though this is an airgun, (picture for comparison (.35 cal/9mm pellet on far right) I was surprised how much louder this one was than my .30 caliber. Even though shooting sub-sonic velocities, I added a moderator (suppressor) to mine. This is one of the best features of these high power airguns, that they don't require ear protection to shoot, and don't seem to spook game near as much. Once you start getting into the Big Bores (.357/9mm) and above, you may want to consider ear protection if not using a quality moderator.
So, for today's shooting fun, once sighting in, I targeted an Apple, a can of Coke Zero, and a 3/4 inch (20mm) thick pine board at 50 yards. The pics are nice, but be sure to watch the video with the slow motion!
The Apple was first. I was thinking there would be more damage, but the pellet really just kind of sailed right through it, splitting it in half of course, but not the vaporizing I was hoping for. Still a pretty good wound channel.
The Coke can was more impressive, not only did it give a spectacular slow motion explosion, but the damage to both the front and back of the can was quite impressive! It also knocked the can about 8-10 feet past the target.
Then came the 3/4 inch (20mm) thick pine board. While I was certain that it would be penetrated easily at close range, I wasn't sure how it would do at distance. My older childhood pellet rifles would have been easily stopped by this, even at point blank range.
Wow, it blew right through the board at 50 yards. Nice clean hole in the front, then expanded and split out the back. I would have loved to recover the pellet afterwards to see the expansion, but it was off into the woods.
I will do some other testing later with water jugs and see if I can recover.
Of course, you may know by now that I am a bit of an accuracy fanatic, so here are a couple of the targets for the day after a couple of sighting in practice boards.
The first is at 30 yards, 10 shots in the center and then 8 shots on the left side. Both are under a half inch (12mm) group. This was a good start.
Then I pushed it out a bit to 50 yards. I did a bit of adjustments here, actually reducing my velocity from 870-880 fps down a bit to 866fps. This seemed to be more stable for the pellet. Pellets tend to tumble if too much air turbulence, they are not as aerodynamic as most modern hunting bullets. Maybe the tuning just made the harmonics better. Either way, the tuning reduced 10 shot groups from an inch and a half to under an inch (25mm) at 50 yards. So Yes, I'm a happy camper today :)
For those technical shooters, here are the ballistic details from the LabRadar Chronograph. I shot numerous strings while tuning, but best so far seems to be with reg set at 150 bar, then tuning down to 866 fps with 81 grain pellet. This resulted in a 10 shot string with only 1.88 fps Standard Deviation, and only 6.32 Extreme Spread between 10 shots.
I can't wait until the weather breaks again and I can get out to try some longer distance, and some more reactive targets. Enjoy the video!
All photos and video original work copyright 2020 by the author of this post.
