On a whim I decided to run the FN PS90 through it's paces this weekend on a practice for our monthly club rifle match. This match consists of 5 stages - standing/50 yards, kneeling/100 yards, sitting/100 yards, prone/200 yards, bench/200 yards. It's designed to give people an all around workout for their rifles and not overly favor any particular type of rifle / optics.
Since I own several PS90's (good for training my children), I got the idea to take it out and see how it would do on the course we shoot each month. The 22 Rimfire starts to drop like a meteor at 200 yards and my results with letting kids use 10/22's have been poor - they do well out to 100 yards, but none can manage to put shots on target at 200 yards with it on a calm day, let alone a windy one.
So I figured with 5.7mm ammo becoming available again, I wanted to see if I could substitute in the PS90's I own as rental guns. The big question - could even be competitive on this course? The 200 yard stages are the problem areas for small cartridges, so it concerned me. The low recoil and ease of use lends it well towards children competitors. But I didn't want to hand over a PS90 rental rifle to them to use if it couldn't be competitive on the course!
I shot three repetitions on the course. And .. My opinion over the effectiveness of these little bullpups, with their stock FNH non-magnified sights, has been soundly corrected.
I managed to post a respectable score on this course with this little PS90 - 369/500 (73%). (This would have won this month's match, FWIW - high score was 351 this month).
As expected, the rifle is incredibly stable shooting from standing/sitting/kneeling (there's zero weight in front of your support hand!). The reticle just doesn't move, your arm doesn't get fatigued because it's not supporting any weight. This cuts the variables down to how stable your stance is.
It literally feels like you're shooting a conventional rifle with a loop sling (but without the pain). It's that stable.
But 200 yards is where I really got surprised. Since this was a practice shoot, I ran all 20 shots at 200 yards from prone, instead of doing 10 prone and 10 from the bench with a bag. There were no sighters. Wind was uncertain at best, gusting between 5-15 mph. (Was using puffs of dirt from other shooters on the 200 yard berm as wind indicators).
Here's my 20 shot 200 yard group from prone.
If I'd managed to center that group, it would have been more impressive. With no sighters I was relying solely on guesswork and gut instinct for drop and wind correction. I wasn't too far off the mark. If I'd centered that group on the x ring, it would have been a 180+ score instead of 165.
(There's always next time.)
Ammo was off the shelf, American Eagle 40gr.
Anyway, point of this thread is my attitude towards these little guns has been officially "corrected".
Since I own several PS90's (good for training my children), I got the idea to take it out and see how it would do on the course we shoot each month. The 22 Rimfire starts to drop like a meteor at 200 yards and my results with letting kids use 10/22's have been poor - they do well out to 100 yards, but none can manage to put shots on target at 200 yards with it on a calm day, let alone a windy one.
So I figured with 5.7mm ammo becoming available again, I wanted to see if I could substitute in the PS90's I own as rental guns. The big question - could even be competitive on this course? The 200 yard stages are the problem areas for small cartridges, so it concerned me. The low recoil and ease of use lends it well towards children competitors. But I didn't want to hand over a PS90 rental rifle to them to use if it couldn't be competitive on the course!
I shot three repetitions on the course. And .. My opinion over the effectiveness of these little bullpups, with their stock FNH non-magnified sights, has been soundly corrected.
I managed to post a respectable score on this course with this little PS90 - 369/500 (73%). (This would have won this month's match, FWIW - high score was 351 this month).
As expected, the rifle is incredibly stable shooting from standing/sitting/kneeling (there's zero weight in front of your support hand!). The reticle just doesn't move, your arm doesn't get fatigued because it's not supporting any weight. This cuts the variables down to how stable your stance is.
It literally feels like you're shooting a conventional rifle with a loop sling (but without the pain). It's that stable.
But 200 yards is where I really got surprised. Since this was a practice shoot, I ran all 20 shots at 200 yards from prone, instead of doing 10 prone and 10 from the bench with a bag. There were no sighters. Wind was uncertain at best, gusting between 5-15 mph. (Was using puffs of dirt from other shooters on the 200 yard berm as wind indicators).
Here's my 20 shot 200 yard group from prone.
If I'd managed to center that group, it would have been more impressive. With no sighters I was relying solely on guesswork and gut instinct for drop and wind correction. I wasn't too far off the mark. If I'd centered that group on the x ring, it would have been a 180+ score instead of 165.
(There's always next time.)
Ammo was off the shelf, American Eagle 40gr.
Anyway, point of this thread is my attitude towards these little guns has been officially "corrected".