So, I had plans to tear one of my .25's apart and make some changes for the sake of experimentation. Prior to teardown, I shot a number of pellets at 30, 50, 75, and 100 yards. This started as a simple plinking session and ended as a bit of an experiment in hunting accuracy.
We all shoot for uber small extreme spreads(ES) for our airguns both regulated and unregulated. I have always lived by nothing more than 4% for an unregged gun and 2% for regged. When I shoot groups at any range, I fill to a pressure and fire only a number of shots that fall into 1% max and less ES. I have always done it this way and for the sake of BR accuracy I will continue this practice. However, I am looking at hunting accuracy in this instance. Make no mistake we want the best possible accuracy for game, but what wins BR matches is much smaller groups than what is a minimum requirement for hunting game.
For no reason, I shot well past what I have always considered a useable ES. Not sure why, but I did. These last shots were in the 6-10% range. Oddly enough, as I repeated this exercise many times, the end results were basically the same. Yes, the 75 and 100 yard targets were much harder to hit as the ES climbed past 4%, but at 50 yards and under(my typical small game range I prefer to shoot)even an ES as high as 10% would have been kill shots on game as small as a squirrel. I was able to replicate these results out to 50 yards time and time again shooting to an ES of 10%. 10% was surely pushing the limits and I would not go that far, but found that 6-8% was more than acceptable and 10% will easily do the job at 25 yards and less. After finishing up the modifications to this particular .25, I once again returned to the thoughts of ES and what is really usable for hunting.
I haven't done any .22LR shooting in a very long time. Actually, I have shot my centerfires a few times over the past few years, but my rimfires have not been touched in atleast 3 years if not longer. So, my recollection of .22LR ES is not very good. Upon doing some research as a bit of a refresher, most .22LR including some of the known precision match ammo has extreme spreads much higher than what we feel is acceptable for our airguns. Most having ES's of 3-10%. This helped to make my results shooting to an ES as high as 10% make more sense as the 0-50 yard distances that I feel is my standard squirrel range is the same regardless of air or powder being used. I feel the much lower BC's of our pellets is a factor in what we deem to be acceptable for an extreme spread?
Thought this was rather interesting from a hunting perspective and am curious what others think?
We all shoot for uber small extreme spreads(ES) for our airguns both regulated and unregulated. I have always lived by nothing more than 4% for an unregged gun and 2% for regged. When I shoot groups at any range, I fill to a pressure and fire only a number of shots that fall into 1% max and less ES. I have always done it this way and for the sake of BR accuracy I will continue this practice. However, I am looking at hunting accuracy in this instance. Make no mistake we want the best possible accuracy for game, but what wins BR matches is much smaller groups than what is a minimum requirement for hunting game.
For no reason, I shot well past what I have always considered a useable ES. Not sure why, but I did. These last shots were in the 6-10% range. Oddly enough, as I repeated this exercise many times, the end results were basically the same. Yes, the 75 and 100 yard targets were much harder to hit as the ES climbed past 4%, but at 50 yards and under(my typical small game range I prefer to shoot)even an ES as high as 10% would have been kill shots on game as small as a squirrel. I was able to replicate these results out to 50 yards time and time again shooting to an ES of 10%. 10% was surely pushing the limits and I would not go that far, but found that 6-8% was more than acceptable and 10% will easily do the job at 25 yards and less. After finishing up the modifications to this particular .25, I once again returned to the thoughts of ES and what is really usable for hunting.
I haven't done any .22LR shooting in a very long time. Actually, I have shot my centerfires a few times over the past few years, but my rimfires have not been touched in atleast 3 years if not longer. So, my recollection of .22LR ES is not very good. Upon doing some research as a bit of a refresher, most .22LR including some of the known precision match ammo has extreme spreads much higher than what we feel is acceptable for our airguns. Most having ES's of 3-10%. This helped to make my results shooting to an ES as high as 10% make more sense as the 0-50 yard distances that I feel is my standard squirrel range is the same regardless of air or powder being used. I feel the much lower BC's of our pellets is a factor in what we deem to be acceptable for an extreme spread?
Thought this was rather interesting from a hunting perspective and am curious what others think?
