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Jim is out on one of his favorite small game hunts, and the one that first brought him to South Africa with an airgun in 2020 Having spent much of my life living abroad, many places have been “home”, but one that has been a constant for me is South Africa. I try to get back every year to hunt, and regardless of whether my primary objective is airgun hunting, big game hunting, or even fishing, I bring along an air rifle. The reason is that no matter what else is on the agenda, I’ll make time to do a Guinea fowl hunt! This is an incredible game bird, and for many years I loved taking them on the wing with my shotgun. But then a friend suggested I bring an air rifle along to use during downtime on a plains game hunt. I took him up on it, and although I bagged a lot of bigger game such as kudu and bushbuck, it was stalking this incredibly wary and smart bird that stands out in my memory. What makes Guinea fowl a superb airgun quarry? It’s the challenge. I mentioned in a previous article that the wild turkey and its domesticated cousin are nothing alike. This is equally true with respect to Guinea fowl. Like turkeys, Guineas have very sharp eyesight, excellent hearing, and they are exceedingly skittish. Now add to this that they often travel in large flocks, which means there are many eyes on watch, and youRead More →

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Jim takes the gauntlet .25 on a hyrax hunt in South Africa! I was visiting a friend’s farm in South Africa, and in addition to hunting plains game intended to do some varminting. I have been hunting this property close to 15 years, and have come to know it quite well. And even though the pest populations are dynamic, I had a pretty good idea of where to star my search. While most of the property is given over to wildlife, it is a working small stock farm so there is always a multitude of nuisance animals coming in to raid his feed lots from the adjacent wild areas. I decided that during my breaks from hunting plains game, I would take one of my small game rifles, and thin out some of the hyrax that were starting to spread into the stock production areas. There is a rugged area with rocky cliffs situated close the agricultural land adjacent to the farm. The cliffs border a lambing yard, and the dassie were spreading into the pastures where they dig large and deep holes precisely where the livestock grazes. The farm owner had told me that it would be helpful to thin some out in this area, but this was the only place he wanted them culled. Many years ago, there had been a bounty on hyrax, but these days most landowners leave them alone unless they start to over populate and move into areas where they are not welcomed. StandingRead More →

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RTI Arms is preparing to release a new bullpup air rifle that has a lot to offer fans of this style of airgun!. It is called the Prophet and is a variation of the companies Priest model line. It is a compact, modular, multi-caliber design that is in vogue these days, and I have to say I really like this one! I met the head of RTI at the Extreme Benchrest Competition in Arizona a couple months ago, and he showed me the gun being used in the competition, where it was shot by the winner of the open class 50-yard BR Competition. I was able to send a few pellets down range and wanted to see more! We arranged through Airguns of Arizona to have the gun shipped to me where I had a few weeks to shoot it. I brought it on a hunting trip to Texas, but got rained out before I could use it. I only had the gun on a short loan, and wanted to at least get it out on a short hunt. It is very cold up here in Minnesota, but squirrel season is open through February so I decided to at least get out for as long I could deal with the frigid conditions. Not much happening in the woods and the frigid conditions and crunchy ice underfoot made it hard to get into shooting range. I’ve got another Prophet from the first production run on it’s way to me, so you’llRead More →

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March 27-30, This is a great hunt! Jim Chapman and Chacho Gonzales will be hosting a hunt on the Huckaby Ranch in Pecos County, Texas for a group of Airgunners. You can bring your own rifles or use one of ours. Join us for a great weekend on a private ranch in West Texas for a long weekend. We have space for 6-8 hunters Dates: Arrive on Friday the 27th and depart Monday morning the 30th You have a choice, take a feral Spanish Goat or Javalina We’ll take you out for night-time Predator Hunts (lots of fox and bobcat). We’ll provides lights, calls, and high rack rigs to shoot from. Small game opportunity (rabbits, collared doves) Bring your own rifle or we can supply one, will have the new Hatsan Piledrivers, AirForce Texans, or Arrow Guns available if you need a loaner! Based in a comfortable lodge on a very large ranch. Jim, Chacho, and Trent will guide spot and stalk hunts, high rack hunts, and we’ll make sure that everyone is guided or settled into a blind depending on how you want to hunt. Price for the hunt is $550.00. You will be asked for a $50.00 deposit that will be used to buy food and supplies. Balance to be paid directly to the property owner on site (cash or check). Neither Chacho or I are taking a cut of the payment, our motivation is to offer our fellow airgunners a chance to enjoy a great hunt. MealsRead More →

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The Hatsan Piledriver .457 PCP Air Rifle is putting out over 700 fpe, and over 800 fps in .50! About 2 months ago I had a call from Hatsan USA asking if I’d like to try out their new big bore airgun. As we talked it came out that this gun could generate over 700 fpe and had been set up to shoot a 525 grain slug. Of course I wanted to use it, and as it happened I was just getting ready to leave for a multi-day hunt in Texas. The rifle was expedited and I arrived the morning of my departure, my only concern was they only had a small number of bullets to ship with it, and I was pressed for time to order more. As it turned out more arrived, unfortunately they made it to me just before I left to return home….. this limited my range time, and then I needed to return the gun. Hope to have another go with it soon! At any rate, I took my deer and javalina while hunting down in Texas at the Huckaby Ranch, home of Lone Star Trails Outfitters. Trent (the owner) has become a good friend over the last few years, and has a great property loaded with game. He has high fence, but all my hunting was in outside of this and it has some great deer, javalina, and feral goat populations! I’ll be setting up a javalina hunt there in March 2020. so keepRead More →

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I was out in Texas on a multi-day hunt, and at the end had been invited to the TM Exotics and Whitetail Ranch to hunt Aoudad, also known as Barbary Sheep. TM Exotics along with Operation Pay It Forward had set up a hunt for veterans, and the opportunity to hunt with this group was one I looked forward to. Come along and check this hunt out, it was a really good hunt, and my AirForce Texan saved the day for me. I had a prototype custom .457 that had a technical problem right before the hunt, and had to switch from a 700 fpe .457 to a 170 fpe .308 at the last minute….. you need to check out the result!Read More →

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Today was my first day of hunting in Arizona, and my first objective was to wrap up my grand slam with an Abert’s. The limit is 5 per day, and I bagged 3 in what was one of the toughest small game hunts I’ve done. Not may squirrels, I saw 4, got shots at 3, and dropped all with one shot each. All were high up in the trees, I was using the Seneca Eagle Claw .25 cal with JSB Exacts, and man this combo makes an impact. The last squirrel was about 45 yards away and about 40 fee up, and the pellets blew right through side to side on a chest shot. I really liked this lever action rifle and will give more details in the video.Read More →

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I am going through my photo archives….. 175k airgun hunting photos in no particular order…. and came across this from a segment of American Airgunner that Rossi and I did several years ago. We’ve done some great hunts together over the years, but this was one of my favorites for a few reasons, not the least of which is we got two really nice hogs within 15 minutes. I hit mine and laid him directly over, Rossi’s took a hard hit but made it into the bush. The shots came in the last minutes of light, and we had to go after this pig in the dark, which is always interesting. After all my years of hunting, I still get the shakes from the adrenaline rush, some times before and some time after the shot. I’ve had it so bad, that I can’t climb down from a tree stand until I stop shaking, and it doesn’t have to be a huge trophy to induce it. The reason I mention it, was that not before or since have I seen Rossi with such a case of buck fever. On the first hog I told him to take it, nothing happened…….. then I heard a clattering and looked over to see him shaking so hard the gun was jumping off the sticks! I took the shot and we sat there high fiving, when we saw a second pig come in and challenge my downed hog. Rossi sucked in a breath, lined upRead More →

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As many of you know, a few years ago I wrote about a hunt I wanted to do, and called it the North American Grand Slam, which was to take a gray squirrel, a fox squirrel, and Abert’s squirrel, and a black color phase of any of them. This is an infrequent natural color phase to all three, though not common in any. However, the likelihood of finding one is higher in some areas where there seem to be population pockets. I’ve found them in areas of Michigan, but nowhere else with such a high prevalence. I was getting ready to do the 14 hour drive to Michigan, think I mentioned I like squirrel hunting, to try to get this one off my grand slam list early. I mentioned the upcoming trip for a black squirrel when one of my channels subscribers Jonathan sent me a message and said, we have the all over in N. Wisconsin….. only a 3.5 hour drive from home. Ironically, I’d plan to hunt my way across WI on my way to MI, calling a halt when I got my squirrel. Jonathan sent me a map with a couple places to try, so off I went. I will release a video from the trip, but I have to apologize in advance that the hunting footage is limited. My gun mounted camera failed on me, and I hadn’t realized until arriving home today. However there is some good travel footage and I hope you will enjoy.Read More →

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If you follow my videos or writing you know that I love squirrel season. I’ve been gearing up for the first hunt, and this morning was day. I’d been planning a 2-3 day hunt, however family plans required a change, and I needed to postpone departure on that trip until later in the week. But I wasn’t bummed, I figured I could still get out for a couple hours in the early morning, and be home by 10:00….. so everybody would be happy! I rolled up to a public land wildlife management area (WMA). It’s great that we have these available to us, but finding access without trespassing on private land can be a task. I lost about a half hour trying to figure this out, but finally after a 20 minute hike managed to get into the woods. My plan was to hike in, find some hardwoods with cuttings on the ground, and set up at the base of a tree and wait. I give myself about 20 minutes before moving on. The first set nothing happened. The second set nothing happened…until I was getting ready to move when I hear some noise. I stayed put an a minute later a fox squirrel came running by with a little red squirrel nipping at his heels. I’ve never seen this, and watched as the two squirrels raced by. Turning slowly, I saw the fox squirrel up a tree less than ten feet behind staring right at me. I slowly mountedRead More →