Breakin' Fifty....

I'd like to draw your attention to Noli's latest project gun. Seems after our blood pressure raising export order run, he needed to do something to relax.

This Caiman started out with a standard tank and a 17 inch shrouded barrel. It now sports an extended Mid tank and reworked internals that help propel 21 grain .22 caliber Kodiak pellets at 1,050 ft/sec, giving it more than 50 Ft-Lbs. The 600cc, 3,000psi reservoir supplies enough air for 40 balanced shots. The new 24 inch HW barrel is still wrapped in a T3 aluminum shroud, and the black/pepper laminate stock was redone to take the medium tank. I believe the proud owner will be using it to compete in the local airgun benchrest competitions that are growing in popularity lately.



Here it is compared to a standard length shrouded Tornado.


A closer look at the butt plate...


The Mid tank it uses is 40.5mm in diameter, which puts it squarely between the standard (32mm) and the Bigboy (48.25mm). This new size reservoir looks promising as it offers a compromise between the size of the standard tank and the capacity of the Bigboy.

The local benchresters better watch out, this monster is the one to beat =)

Double Vision

Congratulations to the proud parents of our two latest shrouded Caimans. One sports a T3 aluminum shroud that will be offered as our standard shroud in the future. The other one has the optional carbon fiber shroud, very nice eye candy!



More pictures to come later...UPDATED!

Thanks to proud new owners Robert and Tim, here are a few more pics. Notice also that one has the ambidextrous thumbhole stock.

Jetlag and Silhouettes

So I hopped on a 17hr plane ride to Manila to help Noli take care of the shop and our export orders. Rough, but I had to do it. He mentioned in passing that I will be just on time to make the trip to the 1st Calaca Batangas Metallic Silhouette Mayor's Cup. What I wasn't expecting was it was the day right after I arrived in Manila hehe.

Turns out, the MS competitions around here are really fun and exciting events. There was a big turn out by some of the best shooters in the country. It was nice to see families show up to support their own. There was even a whole family of shooters too! It was also exciting seeing the different rifles brought by the competitors, there were side lever co2 rifles, custom compressed airguns and air pistols, the works! I had with me a .20 cal Caiman in a sporter stock that was assembled the day before hehe. To digress, when I was telling my dad about this event afterwards, he reminded me about the movie, The Ghost and the Darkness, where the protagonist took an untried rifle to hunt a lion, which eventually misfired, almost causing him to be a lion's lunch. That was just my dad's nice way of calling me "stupid" for competing with a brand new rifle with a brand new barrel. Hehe. I told him I just had a lot of faith in our guns...but yea, note to self, PRACTICE.


The shoot went off well, according to Mayor Nas Ona, they had a preliminary round for beginners the day before, and they had 60 shooters turn up with their foot pump pcps hehe. It's a great way to get people into the sport. The next day it was our turn as about 40 - 45 shooters showed up to compete. We sorta ran out of daylight near the end, as the re-fires piled up, but all in all, it was a great experience. Especially when you have to pass by picturesque Tagaytay on the way home and eat that special bulalo ... yum!

On to the pics:

Noli and Calaca Mayor Nas Ona


I had to squeeze in there hehe...




One of our clients, Rowell, with his Tornado dressed in royal jacaranda laminate...


Randelli with his Caiman in black/pepper laminate, in a new gloss finish, verry nice!


Rico Laurel and his custom sporter stocked Caiman, one of the lightest rifles we have. Note the cool pellet holder/dispenser.


That's me gettin' ready to shoot. In my hands is a walther .20 cal barreled Caiman flinging 14 grain Crosman Premiers at 970 - 980 fps. Its trajectory was almost laser straight, dead on from the chicken all the way to the boar, and a pellet's width hold over on the ram's back. Scope is an Elite 4200 6-24 with target dots.






Our "automatic" sillywet resetters ... they automatically reset the sillywets when Mr. R.O. Kit Ello tells them to go.


Maaaaaaster Kit Ello and his weapon of choice...


Our official Re-Fire King, Wilson Katanus, who is going to go on to win 4 trophies before the day is done. He's using our totally beat up Tornado prototype.


The Bigboy Caiman Carbine that Noli was using ... also newly assembled hehe. We should call ourselves Team No Practice.




The firing line, note the active wind flags...



Some shots on the practice range. That's a Caiman rifle with a Bigboy tank in the foreground, and a Tornado in Royal Jacaranda Laminate in the back.








A nice side lever c02 rifle ...


A handsome stock, called "Kamagong", or ebony wood...


Some of the nice hardware present ...


A Filarms Trio on the firing line...


Mayor Nas Ona giving out the trophies. He graciously purchased a Caiman to be raffled off at the end of the event.


The lucky winner of the Caiman...


Wilson and some of his trophies...hehe.


Kudos goes to Richard Fernandez and crew, Sir Kit Ello and most especially Mayor Nas Ona for hosting this event, it was a blast and I can't wait for the next one.

Some pics to get caught up....

I've had several rounds of pics that Noli had sent me and not had time to upload, so I'll be posting a lot of pics just to catch up on things before I move on to my 2nd runner-up win at my first ever major sillywet event in the Philippines. Did I mention I got 2nd runner up? Heheh....

First up is the new Big Boy Caiman Carbine ... shorter barrel and shorter tank, but still a helluva shooter that gets a huge amount of consistent shots.




Note the nice stippling ...



Next are pics from the Pampanga Shoot where the Bigboy Tornado in multishot configuration made its first appearance. Also in attendance were a couple of other Tornados and the prototype Tornado pistol. This was also where Filarms competed in their first Benchrest Competition. Congratulations to our HW barrel promotion winner, the first shooters to use a Filarms rifle to garner wins in a major MS event.

A Bigboy Caiman




The prototype Tornado pistol




A multishot Tornado with a bigboy tank.










Then we have pics from the Armscor Invitational that I posted about earlier

A trio of Caimans: A Bigboy rifle, the Bigboy Carbine, and the regular tank with a custom stock.