Airgun development seems to move faster and faster as the years go by, and the gunmakers who embrace change rather than resist it tend to be the ones who come out on top. Brocock is a brand that most definitely isn’t adverse to progress and adaptation, and to emphasise that point the British gunmaker recently announced its decision to rebrand to BRK, on the same day that it unveiled its latest airgun offering – the subject of this review – to assembled shooting journalists on a press day at Oakedge Shooting Ground in Staffordshire.
The BRK Ghost is the first launch under the brand’s snappy new moniker and is a fitting way to mark the business’ next chapter. A highly versatile and adaptable bullpup with variants to cover most airgun shooting scenarios, it sits very comfortably with current tastes for airgun design, whilst accommodating the degree of tuneability that more and more shooters are demanding as airgun and ammo technology progresses.
FUNCTIONAL FRAME
While the Ghost is a brand-new airgun in its own right, anyone familiar with BRK’s sister company, Daystate, will recognise the frame of the Delta Wolf and Alpha Wolf electronic superguns. The synergy between the two brands enables some terrific gains through shared research and development, and the Ghost benefits from the super-rigid, one-piece chassis that was developed for the flagship Daystates, whilst running a fuss-free mechanical action.
The stock has certainly been built more for function than form, yet the overall look remains very kind on the eye – especially in the stubby Carbine option featured here, which is just a touch over 65cm long without a silencer fitted, has a 43cm barrel and tips the scales at 3kg. This model is equipped with a 300cc carbon air bottle, whereas the longer Plus and High Power versions both feature 480cc carbon bottles; the former has a barrel the same length as that on the Carbine, but with a longer shroud, and the latter has a 60cm barrel and can churn out muzzle energy in excess of 100 ft.lbs.
SERIOUS MONEY
Prices start at £1,440 for the Carbine, moving up to £1,500 for the Plus and £1,600 for the High Power. That is serious money but still compares very well with the Ghost’s contemporaries when you take its features, performance and build quality into account.
Starting at the rear of the titanium-coloured stock, the Ghost has a height adjustable butt pad of simple yet effective design. In front of that sits a cheek support with a curved edge, which makes for a comfortable contact point. The support actually sits on a dovetail rail and you can slacken off its fastening screws and slide it back and forth to achieve correct positioning. That rail actually extends the entire length of the top section of the stock and also holds the Picatinny scope rail, which can be adjusted in the same way to ensure perfect eye-relief whichever type of optic you choose to use.
BRK has cleverly incorporated a tiny degree of slope into the rail, which should do away with the need to shim mounts when zeroing scopes at extreme range.
HUGE POTENTIAL
The stock incorporates two side rails for accessory attachment and an underside rail for bipod mounting, plus a very nice pistol grip. Contoured in a way that cradled my hand very well, the grip is steeply angled and delivers good trigger attack. Like the butt pad, it can be swapped out for different designs and the range of PRS accessories already available for the previously mentioned Daystate models result in huge potential for customising the Ghost.
Although simplistic, the ambidextrous stock has been carefully designed to function as an effective handle. As with many airguns of its kind, the carbon bottle serves as the fore end, and even with the small bottle on the Carbine, it provides sufficient room for most holds. I did have to be mindful about keeping my fingers away from the muzzle, which only just clears the bottle – the best solution to that was to fit a 0dB silencer via the thread at the front of the carbon shroud. Apart from really suiting the gun’s styling, the silencer also muted the sub-12 ft.lbs. Ghost’s muzzle report to a whisper.
FULL-ON FEATURES
The Ghost is absolutely rammed with features, and one of the most interesting has to be its huge potential for power adjustment. All models run Huma regulators, and reg pressure – displayed on a gauge on the left-hand side of the stock – can be adjusted by the turn of a knob above the neck of the bottle on FAC models.
Legal restrictions prevent such adjustment on sub-12 versions, but all models feature a power wheel just in front of the top part of the butt pad. This dial tweaks hammer spring tension with no less than 20 settings – that is a lot more tool-free adjustment than most of us are used to on legal limit airguns, and combined with the reg’ adjuster, will facilitate a huge amount of fettling on the high-power variants.
There is another clever trick up the Ghost’s sleeve in the shape of an easily removable barrel, which enables you to swap quickly between calibres. The barrel is held securely in place by an Allen screw at its rear – slacken that off and it pulls straight out. With the barrel out, you then need to swap the pellet probe, which is fastened by an Allen screw accessed via a hole in the side of the breech, for one that corresponds with the calibre of the barrel you are changing to; replace with the correct probe, tighten the screw, slide the barrel back in, tighten its retaining screw and you’re good to go. Expect the whole process to take around five minutes, once you are familiar with it.
SELF-INDEXING MAG
Slick sidelever cocking, with a chunky drop-down handle positioned just above the pistol grip, runs a very reliable magazine which holds 13 shots in .177 calibre, 11 in .22, 10 in .25 and eight in .30. Like the Alpha and Delta Wolf, it also features a magnetic ‘double-up’ system, enabling you to load two magazines at once and shunt the loaded one across when the first one runs empty.
The magazine is a gate-loading, self-indexing model. To load it, you simply flip open the gate and turn the interior drum clockwise until is stops. Drop a pellet nose-first into the bottom chamber to hold it under spring tension, and then it’s just a matter of popping pellets into the remaining chambers. When it’s fully loaded, snap the gate back over and it’s held in place by a magnet, ready for you to push the magazine back into its slot beneath the cheek support and get on with the shooting. The pellet-friendly magazine and positive sidelever mechanism, which can be swapped over for left-handers, work brilliantly together for fast and reliable reloading.
CRISP TRIGGER
Trigger mechanisms on bullpup airguns can feel a bit spongy as a result of the extended linkage necessitated by their configuration. That is not the case with the trigger on the Ghost, which is actually very crisp. Out of the box, the two-stage unit on the review gun had a fairly short first stage, followed by an obvious stop, and a clean, predictable and creep-free second stage let-off. It is adjustable, but I am not one to tinker with trigger mechanisms unless I have to, and would expect any airgun costing over £500 to leave the factory with its trigger properly set up – the Ghost certainly meets that requirement.
The trigger blade is of a match-type style with a very gentle curve and a wide, flat face – a design I really like because it transmits plenty of feel. It also boasts adjustment of a type that I do like to take advantage of because it enables you to tweak not only the height and angle of the blade, but also the length of pull forward and backward from its standard setting of around 37cm. Just above the trigger blade sits a discreet crossbolt safety catch. It is in the ‘safe’ position when pushed across from the left to raise the button out on the right – push it back in from the right and it’s ready to shoot.
POWER AND PRECISION
Although the Ghost’s bottle is removable, filling is by means of a supplied Foster connector via the inlet that sits beneath a magnetic cap just in front of the trigger guard. Maximum fill pressure is 250 bar and the number of shots you manage to glean from that will depend entirely on your chosen power output, but expect around 300 at sub-12 ft.lbs. with the smaller bottle, and about 500 with the bigger one. Air capacity is displayed on a gauge on the right-hand side of stock, so it’s easy to see when it’s time for a top-up.
At maximum output on the power wheel, the .22 calibre review gun was producing a very healthy 11.6 ft.lbs. with 16-grain Rangemaster Sovereign pellets. Huma regulators have a great reputation, and the one on this gun was certainly doing its job because shot-to-shot consistency remained within five feet per second over a string of 10 shots.
Although many shooters obsess over squeezing maximum power from their airguns, it isn’t always the best way to go for consistent accuracy, and that is where the Ghost’s power wheel comes into play. Maxed out, I was landing Sovereigns one on top of the other at 20m and printing cloverleaf groups at 30m. There’s nothing wrong with that, but by winding the power down by a couple of stops to achieve a velocity at which the Sovereigns were clearly a little more stable, the groups tightened up significantly and cloverleafs became the norm at 40m. These results were achieved shooting from the support of a bench in relatively calm conditions. I also found the Ghost very comfortable to shoot from kneeling and standing positions, but unsurprisingly, shortfalls in my technique meant groups from these stances weren’t as impressive as those shot from the bench.
One thing worth mentioning is that the Ghost’s regulated firing cycle felt like it was cruising even when output was very close to the legal limit. That’s a great thing about using a gun that’s been designed to produce extremely high power – everything feels very smooth and unlaboured at sub-12.
ALL BASES COVERED
As for which type of shooter the BRK Ghost is going to chime with, I think it has very broad appeal. This airgun is well up to tackling live quarry, and the Carbine is a neat-looking gun with super-compact proportions that will make it a great choice whether you want a gun for stalking around the fields, or sniping from a hide.
The high-power models remain relatively compact yet boast the potential to knock down pests at long range and tackle inanimate targets at extreme distance, and all models appeared to be very at home on the range when along with other journalists I was let loose on them at the recent press day. Add in the remarkable potential for tweaking and modification, and the BRK Ghost appears to have more or less all bases covered – and it even comes supplied with a hard case.
Tech specs
Manufacturer: BRK Brocock
Model: Ghost Carbine
Type: Multi-shot bullpup with variable power
Stock Type: Tactical
Cocking: Sidelever
Trigger: Two-stage adjustable
Safety: Manual crossbolt
Calibres: .177, .22, (.25 and .30 High Power FAC)
Overall Length: 655mm (26in)
Barrel Length: 430mm (17in)
Weight: 3kg (6.6lb) without scope
Fill Pressure: 250 bar
Shots Per Fill: Up to 500
Energy Of Test Rifle: Avg 11.6 ft.lbs. over 10 shots
Variation (10 shots): 5fps
Website: www.brocock.co.uk
RRP: £1,440 for model tested