After winning the Airgun Depot Long Ranger Challenge, I wanted to find out if there was an official Guinness World Record longest air rifle shot. And there was. It was just 100 Meters!
Drum roll please… 150 yards is now the official Guinness World Record longest air rifle shot and the record is mine!
When I say it out loud, I have to chuckle a bit after spending an entire year shooting golf balls at 300+ yards over and over and over again.
150 yards for the Guinness World Record – really?
But there is a story behind this shot…
You see, the conditions under which I was required to attempt this shot were very stringent – and peculiar. Guinness World Records will only recognize open sights (no scope) and you must use a 7.7 Grain or less pellet in .177 caliber only!
Really? Yes really!
The Guinness World Records people approved my application. But they didn’t approve my 600 yard Long Ranger winning golf ball shot. Nor did they approve any of my other shots attempted with my big bore airgun.
And then my self-made YouTube videos for the Long Ranger Challenge didn’t cut it. Guinness required that I have a nationally recognized shooting organization judge this attempt. They also required that I could have no personal or professional connection to the judges.
I went into this thinking it was going to be a very simple shot after learning from Guinness that the baseline World Record was only 100 meters. I actually laughed when I first heard that as 100 meters was roughly the distance I zeroed my rifle at for long range airgun shooting for shots over 300 yards.
But the biggest hurdle for me was that I had to give up my dream of shooting over 1000 yards with my big bore airgun for this record attempt. They made me not only use a .177 caliber pea shooter, but one of the smallest and lightest pellets available for that caliber.
They made me use a pellet that is basically only good for a 10 meter pistol shooting competition. Ughhh!
Furthermore – I couldn’t use any magnified optics (no scope) and I couldn’t use any wind measuring instruments or visual wind indicators during the shot attempt. DOUBLE UGHHH!!!!
The target size was only 6.25 inches so that was at least an easy target to hit.
Shooting at a 6.25 inch target, the pellet Guinness World Records made me use has an approximate ballistic coefficient (BC) of 0.014 which basically means that for my final 150 yard Guinness World Record longest air rifle shot, the pellet had over 12 feet of drop.
Furthermore, with a straight right to left slight wind at a mild 2-3 MPH – I had to hold for wind by over 4 feet!
In the end, I was able to successfully hit the 6.25 inch target at 110, 130, and 150 yards. I was able to hit the 110 yard shot in 6
shots – the 130 yard shot in 2 shots – and the 150 yard shot in 10 shots.
The vertical stringing with such a light pellet from an unregulated airgun was pretty bad and even the slightest wind was pushing the pellet by feet – not inches.
So there it is airgunners – the bar has been set. Records are made to be broken.
And if you think I am going to stop at 150 yards – you haven’t been paying attention to how addicted I am to pushing things as far as I can!
And if you want to know more, check out the video I made about the Guinness World Record longest air rifle shot…
The post Making The Guinness World Record Longest Air Rifle Shot appeared first on Hard Air Magazine.