Building a Unlimited Any Sight Air Pistol

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Building a Unlimited Any Sight Air Pistol

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Building an Unlimited Any Sight Air Pistol
By Steve Mooney

“Mooney, you’re as cheap as a free lunch,” my buddy from work would say to me. I would usually hear this after telling him about an idea that was a little different from the norm, but would still work and save a few bucks in the process. With the current economic situation and being retired now on a fixed income, that description of one of my personality traits has become quite an asset. Having caught the air pistol bug several years ago I have acquired a few guns for shooting production and unlimited class for IHMSA. I have the ever popular Daisy 747 for Production class and the highly accurate (but reasonably priced) Baikal IZH46 for the Unlimited class. After attending many Air Pistol matches, the Oregon State Air Pistol Championship and a couple of the West Coast Championships, I was beginning to be intrigued by the UAS category. Watching these guys and gals mowing down 1/10 scale targets (some places even shoot ½ size air targets) with scope mounted guns in creedmore position was too much, I had to try it.
So I decided the best way to learn this aspect of the game was to talk with the person who not only was my “Air Pistol Svengali”, but a good friend and mentor, Mr. Steve Ware. Steve is one of the “pioneers” of air pistol game for IHMSA and has won several Championships in air pistol categories at all levels, including the IHMSA Internationals. I refer to him as my “Svengali” because he was responsible for getting me hooked on air pistols in the first place. So for the years of fun and for the cost of several more guns I had to buy, I have Steve to blame and to thank for my air pistol addiction.
But back to the task at hand; I started asking lots of questions and came to the conclusion that the Baikal IZH46 would be my best choice. All of my open sight pistols are single pump, piston style guns and I wanted to stay with the same type of gun for UAS. This way I wouldn’t have to buy CO2 cartridges or an expensive tank set up. Then it occurred to me, what if I could use the same gun for Unlimited and Unlimited Any Sight? I have seen some Big Bore and Small Bore Unlimited guns with removable scopes used for both, why not Air. I looked at some of the custom scope mounts and at the stock B-Square mount. The B-Square mount looked to be low enough to remain on the barrel and still allow the use of the factory iron sights. I could mount the scope in removable rings and leave the base on the gun. One of my local shooting buddies was using a B-Square mount on his Baikal for Unlimited Standing. A few quick measurements confirmed that the sights could be used with the mount in place. Now I had to decide on a scope. Steve Ware let me shoot his UAS pistol, a MAC 1 custom gun with a 4X Leupold scope. The gun was definitely out of my price range but the 4X Leupold could be found used for a fair price. It has enough eye relief for a comfortable creedmore position and Steve informed me that Leupold could adjust the parallax for shorter distances used in air pistol. Once I acquired my scope, I sent it off to the factory for modification. The factory informed me that the shortest distance they could set it for would be 20yds, but that the targets should still be relatively clear at the 10, 12.5, 15, and 18yd distances used for Air. The cost for this service was only $15. While I was waiting for my scope to be modified I starting working on mounting my B-Square base to my IZH.
The B-Square base is a two piece unit that clamps on the barrel of the pistol with two allen head screws. When assembled it forms a weaver style rail about 5” long. After I mounted the base to my gun’s barrel, I noticed that the bottom edge of the mount rested on the top of the piston housing. This is great for making sure your base is level and centered on the barrel axis but I was concerned that this would push the mount upwards against the barrel and decrease accuracy, or at the very least, change the point of impact. Having a bow in the barrel, no matter how slight couldn’t be a good thing. To test my fears of barrel movement I set up the pistol in a vise with a test indicator on top of the barrel. My suspicions were correct. As I slowly tightened the two piece mount, the indicator showed a total of .020 worth of travel on the middle portion of the barrel. I disassembled the mount and removed about .030 worth of material from the bottom of both pieces. When I repeated the test, the indicator showed no movement at all. The mount had to be centered by eye because it now could rotate on the barrel slightly left or right before the screws are fully tightened.
My scope was returned from Leupold in about a week and I was anxious to test it out. I mounted the scope in a set of Leupold “Rifleman” see thru rings. These helped to give me a comfortable creedmore position and to keep the loading gate from hitting the scope when cocking the pistol. While I was waiting for the scope to be returned I had shot the pistol with the mount attached several times at the four distances to make sure it repeated and I had confidence in my sight settings. I now mounted the scope and dialed it in at 18yds, the IHMSA distance for Rams. On a bench with sand bags it shot an impressive five shot group of one ragged hole. I took the scope off and shot a few rounds through it with the iron sights, then remounted the scope on the base. Back on the sand bags I took another five shots at the same sighting dot. The second group was basically in the same place as the first, slightly off to the left. It only enlarged the original hole by about a quarter of an inch. Needless to say I was pleased. Now for some real world testing. After all, this is a silhouette pistol and I like to shoot steel, not paper off of sand bags. I set up 5 rams and 10 pigs all at 18yds. With the scope on the gun I laid down in creedmore and shot at 5 of the pigs, hitting them all. Then took the scope off and clicked in my ram setting. Laid back down and cleaned the rams. After mounting the scope back on the gun; down went the other 5 pigs. When I shoot this set up for a match I will most likely have verified the gun with the scope on and then on match day shoot UAS first. Then remove the scope and fire my Unlimited category. I might even get brave enough to try out those itty bitty ½ size air pistol targets. Time will tell.


Contact info:

Baikal IZH46; EAA Corp. P.O.Box 560746 Rockledge, FL 32956-0746
Eaacorp.com
(321) 639-4842

Daisy Outdoor Products P.O.Box 220 Rogers, Arkansas 72757-0220
Daisy.com
(800) 643-3458

B-Square 13386 International Parkway Jacksonville, FL 32218
b-square.com
(800) 433-2909

Leupold 14400 NW Greenbrier Parkway Beaverton, OR 97006-5790
Leupold.com
(800) 538-7653
Regards,
Bob

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