Newbie disappointed with stock Discovery performance

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Alan_Gage

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May 19, 2015
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Still new to air guns and target shooting in general, took it up about a month ago. Have shot sporadically through my 37 years but never anything serious. Started with a springer and wanted more accuracy. Thought about splurging on a $1500 gun since I know that's where I'll end up in a year anyway but decided for now I'd go with the popular Discovery for the same reasons every one else starts there. Cheap and easy to hand pump. Accuracy sounded like it could be hit and miss but everyone seemed to say, "at least it will be more accurate than a springer." That would have been enough to make me happy for a while but so far it looks like I was a better shot with my springer. I've been getting very poor groups from my Discovery. I shot these the other evening at 23 yards.

I pumped the gun up to 1800 psi according to the gauge on the pump (gun showed closer to 2000) and then shot 4 groups (20 shots total) at 23 yards. Makeshift shooting table with front rest and rear sand bag that seems quite stable. It was fairly breezy but the shooting lane was well protected and any wind that did reach would have been almost directly behind me. Hawke Sport 3-9x40 scope set on 6x if I remember correctly. Checked paralax before shooting.

First sheet is 14.3 grain Crossman Premier Domes and the second is JSB Exact 18.1

20150526_002 by Alan, on Flickr

20150526_001 by Alan, on Flickr

On the 2nd sheet ignore the X'd out pellets. Had to re-sight after switching to the heavier JSBs (I pumped it back up to 1800 psi after the sight-in shots).

As a control I then shot some groups with my springer, RWS 34 .177, with open sights, and got these results at the same yardage:

20150526_004 by Alan, on Flickr

I actually shot 4 groups with the RWS 34 but I only uploaded one of the sheets. The other two were comparable. When I still had a scope on my RWS 34 I was shooting 45 yard groups similar in size to what I'm getting at 23 yards with the Discovery and I had a few groups 3/4" and under at 45 yards.

A couple days later I went out shooting my .22 rimfire with not very good target ammo (only thing available was high velocity) and at 47 yards was averaging just over 1" groups from a rest that wasn't as steady. I realize those aren't great groups but at least it made me feel somewhat capable as a shooter in comparison with the Discovery which made me feel like an incompetent boob with much larger groups at half the yardage.

Have I rambled enough yet? Just a bit more....

The purpose of the post wasn't just to complain about my Discovery (even though I am) or to ask you to fix my shooting techniques (though I'd love any pointers) but also to introduce myself to the group (first real post) and to see how much improvement is to be gained by the replacement barrel for my Discovery that should be arriving later this week from MAC 1. In addition to touching up the lead in and crown there are some other components that will be sent along that I'll be installing (like a trigger spring) but first I'll install the barrel and re-shoot the groups to see how much improvement, if any, there is. Then I'll do the same after installing the other components and shoot groups again. Hopefully I'll be posting results this weekend if not sooner.

If still no improvement I guess I'll have to buy myself an expensive gun. Maybe then, if I still have large groups, I'll finally have to start blaming myself. ;)

Alan



 
+2 on cleaning a new barrel. I bought a new Discovery .22 that had the last 3/4" of rifling screwed up. Looked almost like a pilot or something was spun in the muzzle end and rifling was flattened out. Gun shot similar to your results. Cut the barrel back to remove the bad rifling and groups were pretty good from then on. Not sure if mine was an isolated issue or not, but might be worth inspecting the bore after a thorough cleaning.
 
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Hang in there they can be great (well decent at least) little rifles. Try more pellets? Have chrony numbers? The newer ones don't even get a good 20 shots since crosman changed the hammer spring and??????? That is something to look at and an easy striker spring change might help. Also if new Crosman would likely either swap it out, or, sometimes just send you a new barrel.
Keep us posted.
John
 
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I also had the same problem with my Discovery. I used to be able to get almost one hole groups at 20 yards and then every thing opened up. Then i remembered to clean my barrel. And after seasoning my barrel with some led the groups shrunk back up again. For the Discovery I would recommend trying the Crosman Premiers Hollow Point's they seem to be proving the best in my gun write now but I've never tried the Crosman Domes before either. Well good luck and I hope those groups shrink up, my stock Disco is doing better than that at fifty. :D
 
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The damaged rifling at the tip of the barrel was one of the complaints I came across many times when doing my research before buying the gun. Sounded like it was part of the manufacturing process and people were ordering replacement barrels from Crossman and getting the same thing back in return. I haven't inspected mine good enough to see what it looks like yet.

My original plan was to contact Crossman and send the gun in for repairs but when I found the barrels available from MAC 1 I decided it would be worth the $50 to get a barrel I had confidence in. This way I can swap barrels and keep shooting rather than sending in the gun and waiting. If his barrel still won't shoot straight I'll be running out of external causes to blame.

I did run it over the Chrony but don't have the numbers in front of me. I wasn't real impressed with the consistency or shot count before it really started dropping but I don't have enough experience to say how XX fps variation will translate to a target at 20/50/75 yards.

Alan
 
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I think your disappointment s justified. You should be getting better groups than that. It does look like it likes the JSB's better than the Premiers. A agree with everyone else, clean the barrel. Hopefully you see a dramatic improvement by doing that alone. I would also recommend doing a quick double check on your scope and mounts just to take that possibility out of the equation. "Barrel issue" was the first thing that came to mind when I saw those pics. 
Nice Springer group! :) 
Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.
 
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Cleaned the barrel tonight, rattled off about 25 quick shots to clean out any cleaner left in the bore and re-shot the same groups as the other night. An improvement but still not very good.

20 yards this time (23 before), otherwise the same scenario. Filled to 1800 psi and did four 5 shot groups

20150527_003 by Alan, on Flickr

20150527_002 by Alan, on Flickr

After the first couple groups with the JSB's I thought I was onto something but then they opened up again. I thought it was interesting that on the 4th group of the Crossman Premiers the group went up and to the right both today and a few days ago. When I shot it over the Chronograph last week there was no rise in FPS around that shot count. After shot 10 (from a 2000psi fill) the speed only went down.

The JSB's seem to be more consistent in placement overall with generally more vertical than horizontal spread. The Crossmans seem to be all over the place. Groups 3 and 4 from today (with the JSB's) are almost identical in shape. What this all means, if anything, I don't know.

I also had my .22 rimfire with me so I shot a sheet of groups with that as well.

20150527_001 by Alan, on Flickr

That was with not very good ammo. I shot one group with match ammo on another sheet and it was .23"

I know it's not exactly apples to oranges as the rimfire has a nicer trigger and is a higher quality gun, but it also has a scope that won't focus closer than 50 yards.

Not saying I still might not be a large part of the problem but I feel very comfortable behind and gun and don't feel like I'm jerking it when squeezing the trigger.

Anxiously awaiting my new barrel.....

Alan
 
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New barrel arrived today! As I was disassembling the gun I paid attention in case any screws were loose but they all felt tight. I really wanted to only replace the barrel before re-shooting for a direct comparison but I installed the extended barrel probe at the same time to save myself the trouble of tearing it all down again. Due to time constraints I was shooting in my backyard so I installed my TKO muzzle break, which also showed up today. Next time I'm shooting away from home I'll take the break off and see if it changes the performance at all. It certainly made it quiet.

Same drill at 20 yards.

First up with Crossman Premier domes:

20150528_002 by Alan, on Flickr

And then the JSB heavies:

20150528_001 by Alan, on Flickr

Then I backed up and shot two groups with each pellet at 42 yards. Crossman on the left and JSB on the right:

20150528_003 by Alan, on Flickr

Now I'm a happy boy. I'd still like the groups to be tighter, especially at 20 yards, but at least I feel like progress can me made by working on technique and trying different pellets. Before it just seemed hopeless. Sure is easier to zero the scope now that they aren't flying all over the place.

Added bonus is that the Crossmans now seem to be the more accurate pellet at 1/2 the price!

Alan
 
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Congrats on the improvement! When mine came I disassembled it to clean the barrel. I found a large burr inside the "chamber" where the port had been drilled. This burr would have gouged the pellets badly, if it let them load at all. After removing that, I decided to re crown while it was apart, and removed an imperfection or two from the bolt. After that, the gun shoots really well. Also, mine seemed to improve (both accuracy and shot count) after I put a couple hundred rounds through it. Maybe as stuff breaks in and settles you see even more improvement? Best of luck!
 
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Last night I opened the gun up again and attacked the trigger. Did the 3 screw mod (much easier than I expected), replaced the rear trigger spring with one from a ball point pen, and gave the main spring a slight tweak. Trigger pull is at 1lb 12oz. with virtually no creep and feels oh so much better. Then this afternoon I built myself a nice shooting bench and this evening tried out both the bench and the modified trigger.

Crossman Premier domes are still shooting better than the JSBs. Except for the occasional flyer groups are under .5" with the Crossman and right around .5" with the JSB's at 20 yards. Best Crossman group was .34" and I had a real nice .23" 4 shot group if you ignore the flyer (probably my fault).

Things start to open up at 42 yards but the Crossmans yielded a 1.03" 5 shot group and a .96" 4 shot group (flyer made it 1.94"). JSB's were 1.5-2". Was a bit windy today and although my back yard is pretty protected it could have been affecting the 40 yard shots.

Fun to see some improvement!

Alan
 
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Was shooting my Disco today for the first time in a couple months. Accuracy was off by a lot, so I ran some dry patches through the barrel. I also rotated the TKO Muzzlebreak 180 degrees (I had it off anyway to clean the barrel). Accuracy back to where it was. That said, I think the TKO has had at least somewhat of a negative effect on my Disco. Pellets aren't hitting the break, they're just not grouping as tightly as they did with the stock barrel weight. I'll confirm next time I go to the range. Just thought I'd mention it in case you are looking at a TKO. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this? Also, my Disco seems to prefer JSB 15.89 domes above all else. Even Brown Box Premiers don't group as well. You may want to try them if you haven't yet.
 
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I've given up on shooting paper and getting consistently tight groups at 40 yards. Since I made that decision I've been having a lot more fun with the Disco just shooting targets in the backyard. I've got some scrap sticks of wood stuck in the ground, a spinning target, pop cans, etc laid out around the 40 yard mark. The gun is accurate enough to hit even the narrow (3/4") pieces of wood nearly every time and on the larger targets, like cans or bottles, I can hit specific spots without a problem. So now I can just relax and plink away and when a shot goes errant I reload and take another rather than getting agitated because it ruined an otherwise good group.

If I hunted the accuracy of the gun wouldn't be an issue at all. Anything out to 45 yards, which is as far as I've been able to shoot since putting on the new barrel, would be dead. That would not have been the case with the factory barrel that came with my gun.

At some point I'll buy a pellet sampler and see if there's something out there that does better than the Crossman domes but for now I'm happy with those and will leave the paper punching to my rimfire until I decide to make a serious investment into airguns.

Alan
 
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Still shooting the Discovery most every day and still getting along pretty good with the new barrel. I shot some more paper targets the other night and was, again, a little disappointed in the group size. But then I setup shotgun shells at 38 yards and had a blast picking them off. A miss here and there but got one nearly every shot. Tried shooting empty .22 shells for the first time tonight. At 20 yards it was too easy. Moved them back to 28 yards and that was pretty challenging. Really enjoying the gun as long as I don't shoot 5 shot groups at paper.

Alan
 
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