Lasers?

[sharp_shooter]

I have almost decided whether or not to buy a laser but i still have 2 questions

1)Will it fit in a gunbag ok or will it need lining up once i get to my shooting spot?

2)Will the recoil of the gun cause any problems? It is an AAtx200hc so a springer and will be mounted on top of the scope.

[1 of 5]

1. Depends on location. A high laser may well cause problems. A double ended zipped bag allows it to simply poke out.

2. Recoil will cause no problems on a Corsak or Beamshot but Crosman lasers will give up due to battery contacts.

 

Review here

 

Using a Laser with an Airgun

 

Much has been written about lasers, a lot of it by folk who've not persevered enough with the system to fully understand it. I hope that this review will clarify some of the murky areas.

 

Laser type

You need a laser that has a good bright dot. To achieve brightness that means a tight dot at distance. The poorer lasers have a beam that diverges at distance and thus the available light is diffused over a larger area. As ALL lasers are limited by international agreements in terms of the power output you are not looking for a more powerful unit but a better-made unit. As well as of a good bright small dot you want a unit that is easy to mount (more of which later) and easy to aim in the required direction. Ignoring the cheap Asian units (these are simply awful with dot sizes of 2 inches or so at 10 yards) there are three main players in the airgun laser department:-

 

Crosman

Claim to be the world’s most powerful etc etc... As I said they are all the same power. The Crosman unit is one of the worst for dot size so leave them alone.

 

Beamshot

Make a range of different models and prices. They are similar looking to the Crosman but much better in terms of dot size. As a rule, the more you pay the better they are. Like the Crosman unit they have a simply awful zeroing system so unless you enjoy hours of frustration attempting to zero the thing you'd do well to leave these too. If money is tight then the basic Beamshot will do but be prepared for the zeroing problems and bright sunlight will prevent you seeing the dot!

 

Corsak

By far the best of the bunch for both dot size / brightness and a zeroing system that makes the other two obsolete. There are two types of zeroing systems on offer from Corsak and both are easy to use when compared with the competition. This unit has a dovetail for mounting. These are available at £68 from Soviet Bazaar and are far and away the best bet unless you've got £500 for a green laser! (I'll ignore the mega expensive units for this review.)

 

Where to mount it

Now the bad news. There are no commercially available mounts that I consider to be worth a monkeys! Why? Well to be of most use to an airgunner the laser should ideally be mounted at least 4 inches above the scope. There are differences of opinion here as to what's the best height but the experts’ opinions all fall somewhere between 4 and 7 inches. See my home brewed mount as to how to construct one. A pair of high mounts and some M10 threaded bar are all you need.

 

 

 

Why so high? If you get one of the pellet trajectory programs such as Ian Pellant’s Airgun 7.5 or Chairgun (they are free to download so you have no excuse) you will see that by putting the laser up high and with careful choosing of the zero for the laser (not necessarily the zero of the scope) you can create an additional tangent to the pellet’s flight-path. In other words as your pellet falls away from your crosshairs beyond your chosen zero the laser can pick up the flight-path for another 20 yards or so (dependant upon many factors) giving you an aim-point accurate to half an inch or less if required out beyond 55 yards in .177 or approx 45 yards in .22 at 12 ft/lbs. It is useful to have a multi-aim-point reticle so you can dab the laser on the target to see where the dot intersects the reticle, then use that part of the reticle to aim at the target. A zoom scope is useful too. At some point the pellet is going to arc away from the laser beam (around 58 yards for my set-up) so I set the scope magnification so that the laser coincides with a certain point on the reticle at 55 yds - this then tells me when I am out of range as the laser will appear below this mark to indicate this.

 

If you want to mount your laser elsewhere (under the barrel for instance) you need to create the maximum distance from the scope centreline to the laser centreline as with a laser below the scope you are going to use the laser as a rangefinder rather than an aim-point. This is because with a laser lower than the scope the dot is going to appear above the crosshairs at distances above the zero. You should zero the laser at the scopes zero and then spend time on the range working out what the different divergences of crosshair-to-laser mean in terms of pellet drop to work out your holdovers. As you can see this system is of less use but does have the advantage that the combo will still fit in your gun bag. A larger version may be needed for the high laser.

 

Anywhere offset to the side of the vertical from the crosshairs is a compromise and should really be avoided if at all possible.

 

When you have got your laser set up as you want it you'll find that it's every bit as accurate as a big mag. FT scope for telling you the distance to your target but is MUCH faster and cheaper than that system. I can range-find and aim at any target within 8-58 yards in the time it takes just to aim. This is invaluable out in the field whilst hunting rabbits. A rabbit will happily sit there and have a laser pointed at it without running whereas birds will usually fly off at the first sight of the dot so you have to range-find quickly behind them. I can honestly say that the high laser has NEVER been a problem in the field for me in terms of catching the unit.

 

I think this covers most aspects of laser use for those likely to be interested enough to have got this far. There are other ways such as high scope / low laser for a bullpup or laser on top of barrel for ratting but what's written will cover the majority of users. So to summarise, get a Corsak, download a trajectory program and spend a few minutes playing around with different heights of laser and different zero ranges then make yourself a mount and hit what you aim at more often.

 

 

[sharp_shooter]

Cheers! That was a better reply than i expected. What's the website with the pellet trajectory downloads on?

[sharp_shooter]

Another question, Shall i buy the £68 laser or the £98 laser with the turrets similar to that of a scope?

[1 of 5]

The one I use is the £68 one. The turrets feature is nice but not really necessary. The corsak zeroing system is fairly easy and so long as your mount is a decent one it'll rarely need re-setting.

Chairgun can be downloaded from here and is the best trajectory program about.

http://www.fotosoft.co.uk/chairgun/

[sharp_shooter]

Cheers that really helped. What mounts do you use?

[1 of 5]

A pair of high double clamp mounts. The one to the scope is sawn off at the dovetail and the laser end has the cradle cut off. Both then drilled and tapped for M10 bar. I sed to have an all aluminium one but found that if this got knocked in the field it stayed knocked. The steel bar has a bit of spring in it and loss of zero is no longer a problem. The mounts from Soviet Bazaar for the corsak are fairly poor but as the laser has a std dovetail it's no problem.