Long story to get to the point but I'm kinda long-winded by nature....
About a week ago my little family replaced a tired old worn out frying pan that was a cheapy when new. I was headed to the dumpster with it when almost 6 year old Cabe, got excited and said we "should shoot it! Him and I often find targets of opportunity. We've done everything from cutting rotten cantaloupe from the garden in half with pellets, to shooting paintballs and waterbeads...... and in this case, shooting worn-out frying pans.
Since the thing was roughly 10 inches across I decided we needed it out there a ways.....so we hung it on the back fence stretcher of the property next to mine. My corner post is 135 yards, and this was off at a diagonal to that about 8 feet, so maybe 136-137 yards?
And then we got out our regular field target guns and set up to shoot "hunter" style, me and the 10 year old from stool and sticks, and the 6 year old from yoked tripod, but also sitting on a stool. Many will scoff at the possibility of stretching a 19-20fpe gun out to 136 yards, and many would be surprised to find out that they hold accuracy that far, it just becomes a game of figuring out the wind.
So, 10 year old Colben used a .20, shooting the 13.73 @ a muzzle speed of 810fps for 20.01fpe. I used a different .20, also shooting the 13.73 but at 805fps for a starting fpe of 19.76. And 6 year old Cabe used a .177, with the 10.34s @ 920fps for 19.44fpe. All three guns have a starting fpe within about 0.5fpe, pretty dang similar.
We were all able to connect, Cabe needed some guidance on holding 2-3mils to the left for the wind, but even he was connecting pretty easily after given that info. Much less of an audible ding from Cabe's .177 when he'd hit the pan......We walked out to the target to check it out.
And this is where it gets interesting, the .177/10.34 usually have a BC in the 0.029-0.032 range, while the BC of the .20/13.73 is more like 0.042. Strelok says the .20/13.73 has about 9.3fpe left at 136 yards, and that the .177/10.34 has about 6.8fpe left at 136 yards. The less audible ding from the .177 somewhat confirmed that, but this visual REALLY did. The hits from the .177 resulted in much smaller dents. And I could correlate the hits from Cabe's gun from when I was watching in the scope to the smaller dents when we walked out.
I added a small green dot just to the right of the .177 hits. The deeper/larger dents (without the green dot next to them) are from the .20s.
Simply put, a pretty good visual of what a better BC does for a pellet's ability to retain speed longer, and thereby energy.
Colben decided we should try to shoot the handle and make it fall and then thought he was pretty hot stuff when he got it on his 3rd shot. I'd already taken at least that many shots trying to get the handle and had missed them all. Handle was probably about 3/4 inch across. I was surprised he got it.
We also set up some empty spray cans. Colben was, again, able to connect before me and Cabe.
All in all, a fun little shooting session, but the learning moment for me was SEEING the difference in energy imparted on that pan from the better BC projectile, despite having started at the muzzle at essentially the same fpe.
About a week ago my little family replaced a tired old worn out frying pan that was a cheapy when new. I was headed to the dumpster with it when almost 6 year old Cabe, got excited and said we "should shoot it! Him and I often find targets of opportunity. We've done everything from cutting rotten cantaloupe from the garden in half with pellets, to shooting paintballs and waterbeads...... and in this case, shooting worn-out frying pans.
Since the thing was roughly 10 inches across I decided we needed it out there a ways.....so we hung it on the back fence stretcher of the property next to mine. My corner post is 135 yards, and this was off at a diagonal to that about 8 feet, so maybe 136-137 yards?
And then we got out our regular field target guns and set up to shoot "hunter" style, me and the 10 year old from stool and sticks, and the 6 year old from yoked tripod, but also sitting on a stool. Many will scoff at the possibility of stretching a 19-20fpe gun out to 136 yards, and many would be surprised to find out that they hold accuracy that far, it just becomes a game of figuring out the wind.
So, 10 year old Colben used a .20, shooting the 13.73 @ a muzzle speed of 810fps for 20.01fpe. I used a different .20, also shooting the 13.73 but at 805fps for a starting fpe of 19.76. And 6 year old Cabe used a .177, with the 10.34s @ 920fps for 19.44fpe. All three guns have a starting fpe within about 0.5fpe, pretty dang similar.
We were all able to connect, Cabe needed some guidance on holding 2-3mils to the left for the wind, but even he was connecting pretty easily after given that info. Much less of an audible ding from Cabe's .177 when he'd hit the pan......We walked out to the target to check it out.
And this is where it gets interesting, the .177/10.34 usually have a BC in the 0.029-0.032 range, while the BC of the .20/13.73 is more like 0.042. Strelok says the .20/13.73 has about 9.3fpe left at 136 yards, and that the .177/10.34 has about 6.8fpe left at 136 yards. The less audible ding from the .177 somewhat confirmed that, but this visual REALLY did. The hits from the .177 resulted in much smaller dents. And I could correlate the hits from Cabe's gun from when I was watching in the scope to the smaller dents when we walked out.
I added a small green dot just to the right of the .177 hits. The deeper/larger dents (without the green dot next to them) are from the .20s.
Simply put, a pretty good visual of what a better BC does for a pellet's ability to retain speed longer, and thereby energy.
Colben decided we should try to shoot the handle and make it fall and then thought he was pretty hot stuff when he got it on his 3rd shot. I'd already taken at least that many shots trying to get the handle and had missed them all. Handle was probably about 3/4 inch across. I was surprised he got it.
We also set up some empty spray cans. Colben was, again, able to connect before me and Cabe.
All in all, a fun little shooting session, but the learning moment for me was SEEING the difference in energy imparted on that pan from the better BC projectile, despite having started at the muzzle at essentially the same fpe.
