The IZH Baikal 46M
This year a friend gave me an IZH Baikal 46M target pistol. It is a 4.5mm (.177 caliber) Russian built pistol. It’s made of blue steel and wood – the way God intended pistols to be made. 
And I am tickled pink with it – now. At first I was a bit underwhelmed. Accuracy, even from a rest, left a lot to be desired. It’s designed for 10 meter competition and I was unable to get decent groups at that range. Well, I’ve never been one to worry about design limits in my pellet guns. The Gamo CFX had the scope rail removed, the front sight base replaced, the rear sight removed and a Mendoza rear sight fitted to it. A pin sight was fitted to the new aluminum block front sight base and a Charlie Da Tuna trigger replaced the stamped steel factory one. And then it got pressed into service for a 50 meter rifle. So it was natural for me to want to press the 46M into service at 25 meters – but it wouldn’t group right at 10.
Now, to many, pellet guns are “short range” affairs – unable to do anything past the regulation 10 meters used in Olympic competition. But since I was raised far from such things with a Daisy 880 in my hand I didn’t get the news. We hunted with our Daisys, taking small game out to fairly long distances (for a smootbore pellet “rifle”). In fact, my standard reactive target was a small vienna sausage can on a stick at about 20 meters or so. And it got riddled with BB’s quite regularly. Pellets offered both extended range and better penetration on the pests and game that we hunted. Now, with the CFX, I have a pellet gun that is capable of taking game out past 50 meters – as long as I do my part. And the IZH 46M is also capable of taking game out past 30 – if I can hit it. And that was the problem. Patterns rather than groups – and much larger than I hoped to see. Initial “long range” shooting of the pistol showed that it wasn’t giving me better than 8 ring accuracy at 25 meters – using a standard 25 meter slow fire centerfire target.
So today I managed to get up to the range and took a brand new .17 caliber brush and rod with me as well as a new brass jag and some JB’s nonembedding bore cleaning paste. First order of business was to give the barrel a good cleaning. Between the brush with some Hoppes spray cleaner and the jag with tight patches covered with JB’s paste I got a lot of black stuff out. Then I started fiddling with the sights. It seemed to be hitting high and to the left so first I took it 10 clicks right – seemed to have the right windage so 5 clicks down. Then another five, then another two. In between this I was shooting 5 to 10 pellets to check for some general grouping which would indicate where the sights were actually pointing. Once I got it to grouping in the 10 ring I moved to a fresh target. First I cleaned the barrel again finishing with a quick swipe with a patch oiled with “Paul’s Special Gun Lube And AntiOxidant”. Then I took a shot at a hanging bottle to push any excess lube out of the way and then fired 25 rounds of RWS Club pellets on target “for record” so to speak. A look through the spotting scope was followed by a walk down range to take a closer look and a picture.
Not too shabby! This was a DEFINITE improvement over the 8 ring patterns I was getting before. As you can see, most of the pellets are in the 10 ring with a good number in the “X” ring. I followed it up with another 25 rounds shot off hand at another target. (the target above was shot from a sitting position with the pistol rested on my off hand which was resting on my knee). A look through the spotting scope indicated that the shooter definitely needs tightened up. The pistol does fine, as evidenced above, but shooting off hand I had about 8 or so shots in the 9 ring.
Well success, of sorts, was mine. A pistol capable of holding the 10 ring at 25 meters. But, is it repeatable? What if I run out of RWS pellets? A tin of Gamo Match wadcutters was also in the case so I cleaned the pistol again (much less fouling than before) and shot another 25 rounds.
Now we’re talking! This time the group was mostly in the X ring, not just the 10 ring! I can’t account for the fliers at 8 o’clock and 12 o’clock, the sights seemed solid each shot with as uniform a trigger squeeze as I could manage. Perhaps deformed pellets? I’m not sure – but with the majority in the X ring I figure that if I carefully sort the Gamo Match pellets to eliminate deformed skirts and perhaps to sort for weight that this little popper should be capable of holding the X ring consistently. Now if only I can learn to shoot up to the gun. With a gun this accurate it’s just a matter of time and effort as misses are clearly either my fault or due to faulty ammo.
Posted in Firearms
