USING A DOT SIGHT ON A BIG BORE AIRGUN

This past Morning I showed up to Johns at 3:00 am to pick him up to hunt but he was feeling under the weather so he gave me the AAA Big Bore .357 along with a 50 round box of his precision made 125 gr pellets. I set out to the high desert on a solo mission to try and get a Jackrabbit, it was 61 degrees and had just rained the day before.

The time of arrival was 4:45 am, I filled the gun to the 3600 psi and loaded the 6 massive pellets along with water and food for the day. The gun was equipped with a very small dot sight that was sighted at 90 yards along with a Magpul forend grip for comfort. I too was carrying my binoculars around my neck as I was going to be glassing the Jackrabbits.

The morning was a bit slow as I’m guessing the Jackrabbits may have still been held up from the recent rainstorm. Within about 20 minutes I sprung a young juvenile out from behind a set of Joshua trees and he was gone, making his large 1 mile loop back to the same spot. The hiking was a bit rough and I was tired, by 9:00 am it was already in the mid 80’s and getting hotter by the minute. I had taken a break around that time under some shade hoping to spot some ears in the distance, no such luck even with binoculars.

The day was just plain slow with action so I hiked some more, my GPS said I had ventured 6 miles by this time. The slayer is very lightweight and at this point was happy it didn’t have the extra weight of a scope. I was a bit skeptical on the use of a dot sight on a gun that’s capable of 300 yard shots. Everything becomes heavy when your hiking in the desert at these distances, my feet were sore and I was frustrated in not seeing anything but Juveniles all day. I started making my way back and soon came into a large valley with Joshua trees on one side, I thought to myself there has to be a Jackrabbit in here. I used my binoculars and sure enough there was, at 100+yards I could barley make out his ears so I stalked in staying very low to the ground. As I slowly made my way into a 60 yard range using the bushes as my cover, making sure he had no view of me.

The Jackrabbit was a medium sized one but still the only good opportunity I had seen all day so I went for it in the kneeling position. After a few moments I raised the gun, aligned the dot a bit below his head and squeezed the trigger,”THWACK” instant poof of fur and blood.

To me it looked like I had shot a can of red spray paint is best I can describe. The Jackrabbit actually got flung backwards around 5 feet from the impact.

The Slayer is just plain devastating and I was shocked by the damage the 125 gr pellet did, the impact went into the neck and came close to decapitating the head completely. I can honestly say its been a long time since I’ve had to put that much work into making a kill but it was well worth it just to see what that guns capable of. The use of a dot sight on a Big Bore such as the Slayer actually surprised me on how well it functioned. Aquisitioning the rifle to target was much faster than with a scope and too was much easier to see in low light conditions along with loosing the weight of the overall rifle. The dot sight is a great system for someone looking to hunt at closer ranges out to 100 yards such as predator hunting and even deer. The obvious downside of a dot sight is lack of magnification and reliance on batteries to function. Anyone looking for a Bull-pup with loads of power in a lightweight, easy handling with reliability and good looks,this is it.