Yes, My Parents Liked Me!

Yes my name is Dirt E. Harry… Some have asked if my parents did not like me to give me a name like “Dirt.” Actually they did like me- they were just down to earth people.

Liars May Use Jigs, but Jigs Don’t Lie!

Before I was re-incarnated as Dirt E. Harry, I was a jouneyman body and fender man and I owned and operated a body and paint shop in Springfield, Oregon for 15 years. The shop specialized in hard hit 5 years and newer high end automobiles like Mercedes, Porsche and BMW. Fixtures (jigs) were used to blueprint the collision damaged vehicle back to factory specifications. These jigs totally eliminate guess work and are the same as those used by the car manufacturers to build cars on the assembly line.

My First Bench in 1980 was a BlackHawk Bench. When I Found Out that BlackHawk Only Had a Few Jig Sets (no Mercedes, BWW nor Porsche) I Engineered Adapters so the BlackHawk Would Accept Celette (Established in 1954) Jigs.Pictured are a set of Celette Jigs for a 1981 Chevrolet Citation. Little did I know that 27 years later I would be engineering a Jig to lock down an air gun to find the best air gun pellets for hunting with repeatable results.

The Engineering Paid Off- the Collision Damaged Citation was Blueprinted Back to Factory Specifications with Celette Jigs on a BlackHawk Bench!

Since the Celette Bench was the Only Bench Endorsed by Mercedes-Benz, I Found Myself Swamped with Work, so I Purchased Three Celette Benches. Also, Celette had a Yuuuuge Inventory of Jig Sets Including a Set of 1956 Porsche 356 Jigs!

A Typical Shop Scene of a Mercedes being BluePrinted on a Celette Bench.

Liars May Use a Jig, But a Jig Doesn’t Lie!

After I started TopAirGun.com in 2006, I soon discovered that I knew very little about the air guns that were on my site. I saw videos that showed the air gun being hand held and resting on a soft sand or lead shot filled bag known as a monkey bag. The target was sighted through a scope. I thought to myself: “how can a shooter get repeatable results hand holding an air gun; it is humanly impossible to put an air gun back in exactly the same place for the next shot. If you breathe, if you cock the air gun and with recoil things change. Trying to hand-hold an air gun is the same as trying to blueprint a collision damaged automobile by eye-ball and a tape measure. Pure guess work.

Human Factor Eliminated!

There had to be a way to remove the human factor and replace it with precision and eliminate guess work. I tried a gun vise, but a gun vise sits on a table and as soon as the trigger is pulled, the recoil will move the air gun and the vise. Then I realized that I had to fabricate a jig- a jig that would lock down the air gun, but would move straight back with recoil and then be able to be put back in exactly the same position time after time for the next shot. And, the jig had to be fastened to the earth to insure precision repeatability. So, I bought square steel tubing, dusted off my CO2 wire welder and went to work. The result?… a sliding gun vise riding on precision ball bearing drawer slides that would let the jigged air gun move straight back and a solenoid that would pull the trigger with the flip of a switch. The human factor was eliminated and now I would be able to find the best .177 pellet for accuracy, the best 22 air rifle pellets for hunting or the best air gun pellets for hunting regardless of caliber. Now, the air gun would be able to do all of the talking untouched by human hands.

Any Air Gun with a Rifled Barrel Can Be Accurate!

As an interesting aside, no one, and I mean no one has ever asked if I would make a sliding gun vise for them. I know my competition has seen the sliding gun vise but I have never heard from them either- they probably don’t even know what they are looking at. Believe it or not, there are a multitude of people out there selling air guns that have no clue about what is going on. Any air gun with a rifled barrel can be accurate if a person knows what to do. To discover how to find the “magic pellet” for any caliber air gun, I invite you to read and memorize FAQ#9