Benchrest Guns At The 2023 Pyramyd Air Cup

In this post, we take a look at the benchrest guns to be seen down the line at the 2023 Pyramyd Air Cup. There was a big variety, as we’ll see!

The first obvious observation was that there was a large number of FX airguns down the line – as we can see in our heading photograph above. These included many Impacts, but Pantheras, too.

But looking closer, we could see that there were, actually, many brands and models represented among the shooters.

Another clear trend was the proliferation of heavily-customized benchrest guns. This was in the form of accessory chassis and other aftermarket parts – as we see above. But also, bright colors were also “in”, like this blue Skout below…

The days of the relatively standard, “non customized” benchrest guns, look to be rather numbeted. However some were still to be seen, such as the Panthera being fielded by Rick Rehm, below.

One notable new entry was the Red Panda, a purpose-built, .30 caliber benchrest gun that was seen for the first time at The 2023 Pyramyd Air Cup. The benchrest winner – Thayne Simmons – used one. Below we see another example being shot by Donny Du (“better known as Donny FL).

At the other end of the price scale was this .30 caliber Umarex Gauntlet that was being shot by Abby Casey…

John Bakakis was shooting his trusty Daystate Red Wolf, as usual.

While Kevin Sheehan – the “main man” for Hawke Sports Optics in the USA, was competing with his FX Crown (below).

Another newcomer down the line was the SKOUT air rifle which was being fielded by a number of competitors. It, too, was introduced just this year at the 2023 SHOT Show.

Chad Kentner – the “Airgun Advisor” – was shooting a relatively stock BRK Ghost.

While Nik Gregoris had his regular Air Arms S400 – again pretty stock and a very rare bolt action benchrest gun: the overwhelming majority had sidelever actions.

Meanwhile, back to the VERY custom look with this Panthera below!

Chris Turek – the “Upnorth Airgunner” – showed another relatively unusual component. The over bore bipod attached to his Impact.

Relatively few were the traditional walnut stocks, one of which sneaked into this photograph below.

So that’s an overview of the benchrest airguns to be seen at the PA Cup. As we’ll see, there was a very different profile of air rifles to be seen in the Field Target competition…