Rail Gun For Unlimited Class

By John Babic

I love shooting the rail gun. It is very different to shooting a bag gun and can be a lot of fun if you have a good and well tuned gun.

In the Unlimited, or as it’s also known, the Experimental class, we shoot 10 shot groups which can be challenging. As the name suggests, this class is unlimited in most things like weight, stock shape, platform, caliber and other rules that apply to the bag gun classes. Over the years people have experimented with various concepts and designs, from extra heavy bag guns with 5” for ends to some weird and wonderful looking rail guns. These days the railguns are very prominent in an Unlimited match. Shooting one of these things will bring your wind reading skills to the fore. I got a tip from fellow shooter Murray Hicks to not look through the scope once I start my group string if possible. Just keep your head up, watch the flags across the whole range, keep loading and shoot. To shoot like this, your gun must be able to return to battery in the exact same spot after every shot, meaning your cross hairs must return to the previous aiming point every time. I stop the string if the condition changes and wait for it come back. If the condition doesn’t come back, I will go to the sighter, adjust my point of aim and go back to the business target and finish the group. However, this is rarely the case. It is amazing how quickly you can put 10 shots down with a rail gun. I do it as quick as shooting 5 shots with a bag gun if not quicker. Shooting a rail gun is an eye opener which every BR shooter should try.

A well set up rail gun will take away 90% of the “gun handling” problem which may be an issue with a bag gun, thus allowing you to concentrate on conditions alone. Some years back, I brought my 13 year old son to try shooting. He shot a couple of groups with a bag gun and that went as expected with both groups being fairly large. He then shot a 10 shot group with the rail gun. I measured that group and it was a mid teen group (0.170″ or so). Granted, he probably got lucky with a steady wind condition but it goes to show how much easier it is to shoot when you don’t have to factor in gun handling.

The rail gun should ideally be set up so it tracks in perfect line with the target. That is, the gun should be pointing at the same aim point regardless of which position during recoil the top part of the rail gun is at. Some rail guns are designed with an option for adjusting the tracking and others are made non adjustable and should track perfectly “straight out of the box”.  A rail gun will have some method of vertical and horizontal adjustment and usually a way to quickly drop to the sighter target when needed.

There have been a few standout Railgun shooters in Australia. The West Australians have consistently done well over the last decade and a bit. Shooters like Craig Whittleton, Ron Sinclair, David Kerr and Graham Keppie have all won plenty of HoF points with a rail gun. I have watched them shoot and shot against them at various times and they are hard to beat. Must be something in the water over west. My good friend, the late Steve Sori was also prolific with the rail gun. He got many HoF points with it and still holds some records.

100 yd group 0.142″
100 yd agg 0.2098″
100-200 agg 0.2435″

It’s always fun to watch someone’s expression when they see a rail gun for the first time. They certainly don’t look like a gun at first glance, rather more like a high tech piece of machinery of some sort until you notice the scope, barrel etc…

I had a safe inspection carried out by the local constabulary and the look on the faces of the two coppers when they saw the rail gun was one of confusion, they thought I was taking the piss out of them.

There are many “home made” railguns around and that’s part of the fun. If you have a lathe and a mill it’s not that hard to make a good rail gun. There is also a number of “branded” railguns like the Young, Kensler and a few others.