Slofyr: Back to haunt you

[Rover]

Dragged out your quote in which you actually agree with me:

"Being active in the game back when FWB springers ruled, I observed the decline in their popularity which, IMO, was prompted by their large size, excessive weight and top-heavy balance. The superb SSP's that followed were quickly overrun by aggressive marketing structured to sell PCP's. Curiously, PCP's require numerous additional expenditures for paraphernalia necessary to operate them. As well, the sales potential from continuously pimped upgrades is enormous. No doubt manufacturers were/are grinning all the way to the bank. From a business perspective, the PCP is a brilliant con job.

The load~fire laziness of a PCP does not guarantee that you will be a champion, you'll still need to invest the 10K hours* of practice. You can't buy the ten-ring. It would be a safe bet that only a handful of people who pursue AP have the skill level to out-shoot an IZH46, K58, or any of the FWB SSP's."

And while I'm bestowing kisses on the oldies: Gerard, you did a beautiful job on that 46M potato digger. Did your scores improve with your newer toys?

[Andre]

Shoot a IZH 46 for an hour then go to a PCP, lower center of gravity and better balance make a world of difference. Also keeps your heart rate down and your position more solid. Plus no pump seals to replace every two years.

[shaky hands]

"It would be a safe bet that only a handful of people who pursue AP have the skill level to out-shoot an IZH46, K58, or any of the FWB SSP's."

It would be a safe bet that no cliche is used more often than "you can't outshoot [enter you favorite piece here]," which as devoid of the actual meaning as an empty statement could be. Sure, no human being can outshoot any gun with a fixed barrel whose bore was not designed and manufactured by a baboon. So what? A gun is so much more than the size of a group it shoots when held in a vice. There are many women in the world one cannot outscrew. You would still be wise to look for one who performs better in your particular hands.

[Rover]

Andre, so you're saying a Pardini K58 or Walther LPM1 will outshoot a 46M and is capable of shooting with the best of the PCPs?

[Andre]

Andre, so you're saying a Pardini K58 or Walther LPM1 will outshoot a 46M and is capable of shooting with the best of the PCPs?

No. Where did you find that claim? Never spoke of the Pardini or Walther.

The IZH is a very top heavy air pistol. If you prefer that balance IT COULD outshoot a LPM1 or K58 in your hands. It depends on fit, balance, and honestly if you like that gun or not.

[Rover]

That's what I meant....the Pardini and Walther have the conformation of the newer PCPs.

[Andre]

That's what I meant....the Pardini and Walther have the conformation of the newer PCPs.

Ah okay. In that case.....Possibly. Given that the charge is as even as a regulated PCP. But I honestly have no idea.

[spektr]

There seems to be a battle of semantics going on here. Yes, out of a machine rest, my 777 will put everything in a super small group capable of shooting a 600. It is just as accurate as my P44 which also is capable of cleaning the target from a machine rest.

We aren't discussing the ergonomics of each pistol. That is the real issue. The unfortunate thing about that discussion is that it is so terribly subjective, and therefore virtually impossible to discuss with any sense of a common starting point. You cant be wrong if you like the feel of an Izzy better than a Steyr. I shoot my 777 well, I shoot my P44 a bit better because I like the feel of it and it is more friendly to me. Is it worth the money? To me yes, because I'm just anal enough to justify a whole pile of money to make myself feel better while drilling little holes in sheets of paper and getting smoked by little people with x-boxes and falcon like vision.....

[slofyr]

Rover quoted me saying.... The superb SSP's that followed were quickly overrun by aggressive marketing structured to sell PCP's.

The vintage SSPs in mind when I said that were the Airmatch 600, Pardini P-10, and FAS 604.

Shoot a IZH 46 for an hour then go to a PCP, lower center of gravity and better balance make a world of difference. Also keeps your heart rate down and your position more solid. Plus no pump seals to replace every two years.

Shoot a K58 for an hour and be pleasantly surprised.

I'm a retired old fart these days and still do not increase my pulse rate shooting a SSP [604 and Izzy]. Even as a young man shooting the side-lever Airmatch, it was no strain. Seriously, I just don't get that argument. As said before, people who claim such challenges with SSPs must be in very poor physical condition, or they are just repeating malicious bullshit.

As far as maintaining position and replacing seals, I guess the older SSP generation were simply more capable when they shot good scores, and serviced their gear.

Rehashing the SSP discussion is futile because the best gems are no longer made. From what has been posted here at TT, apparently the new FAS 6004 is not what the 604 was, and the Izzy has been accurately described as a "farm implement". If you're old enough to have experienced the fine SSPs, then you're lucky indeed.

[David Levene]

As said before, people who claim such challenges with SSPs must be in very poor physical condition, or they are just repeating malicious bullshit.

Which is easier during a match? Opening and closing a small lever or having to pump the gun (however easy it might be).

If you really want to make things more difficult during a match then put your pellets on the chair behind you. It's not difficult to reach behind you to pick up a pellet for each shot, but why would you want the extra thing to do.

If you really want to have the added complication during a match then fine, good luck to you, but don't criticize anyone who wants to make match shooting as easy and less complicated as they can.

[william]

"If you're old enough to have experienced the fine SSPs, then you're lucky indeed." Really?

Nostalgia is a lovely distorting mirror:
If you're old enough to have experienced getting kicked back while kick starting your motorcycle...
If you're old enough to have experienced reaching across the passenger's seat to crank up the window during a sudden rain...
If you're old enough to have experienced the joy of cleaning up spilled ink after filling your fountain pen...
If you're old enough to have experienced the sheer pleasure of emptying the chamber pot...
Do we think slofyr (or Rover) dutifully winds his pocket watch every night before retiring and keeps a small vial of whale oil around to make sure it's properly lubricated?

Things go obsolete; and as somebody old enough to have experienced gapping points & spark plugs and entrusting my life to drum brakes & non-radial tires I say "good riddance" to much of it.

[shaky hands]

If you're old enough to have experienced the joy of cleaning up spilled ink after filling your fountain pen...

Hmm... I have to actually write a lot daily and still use those. Nothing to this day beats a smooth ride of a well-made fountain pen.

[slofyr]

[Rover]

I blew beer and snot into my keyboard!!!

Unfortunate, but oh so true.

[Gerard]

And while I'm bestowing kisses on the oldies: Gerard, you did a beautiful job on that 46M potato digger. Did your scores improve with your newer toys?

Nope. Because I injured my shoulder quite badly while lifting weights within a couple of months of buying a PCP pistol. My consistency during those couple of months certainly improved, as I did not see any more practice matches scoring below 545. 547 to 553, a 6 point spread, was a big first step in improvement over using the Baikal 46m which saw me shooting anywhere from 528 to 553 in practice, depending on my energy level. How much of that difference was attributable to the extra effort involved in cocking the SSP is a matter of assumption, since a pool of 1 shooter is hardly a scientific sample, but my experience pre-injury was that my physical state from day to day, hour to hour, was much less a factor in my results with the PCP.

Over the next year I took a lot of rest, as is generally recommended for rotator cuff injuries, then gradually built up strength in the small muscles which I'd torn until I felt more or less back on track. Then I injured my elbow. 'Tennis elbow' they say. I haven't played tennis since I was a kid, but you know how it is, they need a name for these things... apparently I'd been training too hard. Again. So holding the right arm straight became more and more painful, holding the pistol stable became virtually impossible, and exhausting after some 30 shots. Then the shoulder would start giving sympathetic pain as I over-compensated using other muscles to try and find stability. I shot 1 match with that elbow injury, a 3 round weekend with about 240 shots including sighters, 180 scored. I took a silver in this provincial match but suffered a lot for it, couldn't even hold the pistol for a week, even had trouble holding a drinking glass or a fork. Typing was painful.

Since then (fall of 2013) I haven't competed and haven't really trained. I've taken up informal hunting field target shooting with a couple of PCP rifles. Casual plinking at steel knock-down targets once per month for the past few months. Different muscles involved, no serious training required, just fun shooting with some good guys. I've been tinkering with airguns, re-configuring air pistols into carbines (I only own one actual air rifle but it's a cheap Chinese spring-piston thing, a QB57, bought because it was a fun platform to tinker with mechanically, and I've changed the layout again recently turning it into a wire-stocked collapsible rifle, doing away with the bullpup trigger) and when not doing that nonsense I work on instruments for a living. I take maybe 15 minutes per day to practice with reduced targets in the house so that I don't make too big a fool of myself at the HFT meetings. I'm in the upper third of the group score-wise, working on getting a bit better but not too worried about it.

Last month we got out pistols and used those for knock-down targets, and I did that for half an hour with the Pardini K12. Hit more often than I missed. But after half an hour the arm started sending small signals telling me to back off, so I did. I'm not keen on pain, and a disabling injury costs me a lot of income as I work with wood for a living, and can't really do that with one hand, especially not with just my left. My customers expect a very high standard of work on their valuable instruments and that's my priority, not air pistol shooting. Should I manage to get my arm strength up to the point where I can train again, I shall. I do enjoy shooting the odd time with the K12. It's every bit as much fun as it was the first time I used it, more so actually as I carved a grip for it which makes the thing like part of my hand. It's absurdly accurate, so I don't really have to try very hard to hit what I want to hit. It's not rotting or anything, so if I'm ready, it'll be ready.

As for the nicely re-worked 'potato digger' I gave it to my youngest brother for his birthday last month. He'd used it once when we went out plinking on a logging site and was so enamoured of it that I felt like it should get some use and he was probably the guy to do that. Sure enough he took it out shortly after with his two sons and a Webley Tempest, Crosman 1377, and Gamo Center (all of which I've given him and his boys) and they had a great afternoon knocking holes in pop cans. He loves that he doesn't have to do much besides one pump per shot and a drop of oil now and then to keep the 46m happy. The lower weight thanks to my modifications is nice for him as he too has an old shoulder injury. I'm glad it's in use again, as I only got it out of its case about once per month to put a drop of oil through it and fire a few shots to keep it happy. It's nice enough, but doesn't hold a candle to the ease of use and lighter weight of the Pardini. It's no contest; I enjoy shooting the PCP much more. Pumping it up with my Gehmann FX pump has never bothered me, and provides a bit of upper body exercise into the bargain.

So is that what you were looking for, Rover? You go right ahead and carry on your crusade of the SSP of course, don't let my experience and opinions bother you. I know that if you try, really really hard, some day one of the major manufacturers or someone new will come to realise just how wrong the industry was to abandon SSP manufacture and they'll ramp up production, get tens of thousands of them out there for would-be competitive shooters, so we can once again enjoy pump/tank-free pistol shooting like humans were meant to do. Until then of course it's still rather challenging to find a used SSP in good condition for a reasonable price. One comes along in the classifieds every month or so... but hardly sufficient to fill the demand you imagine there is for these pistols. Enough for the actual demand perhaps, but that's not the important thing, is it? It's all about Rover.

[Rover]

"It's all about Rover."

Damn right! And don't you forget it!!!

[shaky hands]

I blew beer and snot into my keyboard!!!

Unfortunate, but oh so true.

At 10:08am?

[Gerard]

I blew beer and snot into my keyboard!!!

Unfortunate, but oh so true.

At 10:08am?

That would explain quite a lot about Rover...

[Rover]

What do you have against the "Breakfast of Champions"?

[william]

What do you have against the "Breakfast of Champions"?

Breakfast of Champions? Beer and snot?

Maybe after enough of the beer, Rover doesn't even notice the snot.