Marginal gains and barrel/projectile choice

[JW.]

Thanks LD!!!

1/2" at 55 yards or death!!! I'm getting too old to sit still and need that extra accuracy so I can slack off...

LOL

 

[Motorhead]

Thanks LD!!!

1/2" at 55 yards or death!!! I'm getting too old to sit still and need that extra accuracy so I can slack off...

LOL

So says the young/er guy

 

[Franklink]

Thanks LD!!!

1/2" at 55 yards or death!!! I'm getting too old to sit still and need that extra accuracy so I can slack off...

LOL

Lol, on that "1/2" @ 55 yards comment....

Shot this last night, right that before dark. The groups are not cherry picked, but the conditions sure were. Absolutely still air, and that simply magical humid air that makes pellets fly so straight.

Above the line was sighters.
3, 5 shot groups at 55 yards from three different guns.
Stool and sticks.

Middle right was the recently resealed USFT with the 12 land and groove barrel that I think is an HW. 10.34s @ 890

Bottom left is the Veteran .20 with a very special Sterling LW barrel, 13.73s @ 805

Bottom right is my personal USFT, with the slow twist poly and 10.34s @ an average of 920-925fps. (Need a few clicks right).

Without any wind, they're pretty much neck and neck. And about as good as it gets for field target.

 

[Bramezy]

Lol, on that "1/2" @ 55 yards comment....

Shot this last night, right that before dark. The groups are not cherry picked, but the conditions sure were. Absolutely still air, and that simply magical humid air that makes pellets fly so straight.

Above the line was sighters.
3, 5 shot groups at 55 yards from three different guns.
Stool and sticks.

Middle right was the recently resealed USFT with the 12 land and groove barrel that I think is an HW. 10.34s @ 890

Bottom left is the Veteran .20 with a very special Sterling LW barrel, 13.73s @ 805

Bottom right is my personal USFT, with the slow twist poly and 10.34s @ an average of 920-925fps. (Need a few clicks right).

View attachment 584473View attachment 584474

Without any wind, they're pretty much neck and neck. And about as good as it gets for field target.

Thats what I expect from all of my guns! Sadly I dont get that though.

 

[thane]

Superior hold to maintain those groupings across multiple rifles.

Outstanding!

 

[Franklink]

Superior hold to maintain those groupings across multiple rifles.

Outstanding!

Thanks Thane. I'm big on ten shot groups, but the first rifles five shot group made me decide to stop @ 5 . And I got lucky and held solid for ten more shots and two gun swaps.

Really good conditions and super accurate guns are the primary factors here. And having shot most of two tins from ft position in the last ten-ish days is part of it as well. All that tinkering on the reseal of USFt #95, and then the barrel testing and comparisons equated to lots of stool/sticks shots.

Still, it's not likely that I could repeat the results.

 

[JW.]

And about as good as it gets for field target.

You can say that again!!

Going to try a 1:17 twist poly this weekend, tweak the 1:36 poly and reshoot the 22 Benchmark barrel and then I have to make a decision of which barrel to run for SOFT (weekend after this one is a local match so I can test it in real air prior to the GP).

 

[Conical_diabolo]

Over the years (decades actually), I have tested literally hundreds of barrels, most of which were .177, followed by .22, and maybe a dozen .25cal, and only a handful of larger ones. Nearly all testing was for reliable precision with the best commonly available diabolo style pellets (not much testing with slugs). A large percentage of my testing during the last 20 plus years consisted of benchtesting in my 51yd tunnel, followed by outdoor testing of good candidates from both bench and field target positions.

Prior to the introduction of the JSB pellets, The best pellets were a few offerings from H&N, and the brown folding boxed Crosman Premier pellets. Of all calibers when used in Korean 707 barrels, BSA airgun barrels, and Weihrauch barrel blanks as made for HW35 export rifles .

My fave for consistent accuracy for field target use was the HW .177 blank shooting lubed 10.5 Crosman Premiers at around 880fps until the entry of the fine 8.4gr JSB pellets (thankfully introduced about the time “Good lots” of Crosman premiers were nearly gone). I was never really happy with HW barrels for 12fpe shooting in my USFT guns, though they did well in HW breakbarreled rifles with 7.9 premiers for sure.

As I tested the JSB more thoroughly, it seemed they bucked wind better than (good) Crossmans, but were not more accurate at under 50yds in my guns, but either could deliver sub-moa results with consistency in my guns with no wind.

But back to barrels! I soon learned barrels must be prepped properly to give good results, and there was normally a broad range of performance from factory prepped barrels of the same brand and model, especially in precharged guns! I my experience MOST factory precharged guns deliver between 2 and 5 moa groupings from fifty yards. I also learned that I could improve grouping of all but the very best barrels with a bit of rework, but that even new never used barrel blanks from the same batch vary enough that careful, identical prepping still shows at least one in ten to be great and one in ten to be somewhat mediocre.

But for now, my goto combo is the .177 slow twist poly barrel (esp in stainless) used with 10.34 jsb Pellets. I much prefer the slow twist, esp at lower speeds, but I have also seen equally good results with a couple standard twist poly barrels as well, esp at above 18fpe.

I have never personally seen a 5mm barrel deliver better accuracy indoors or out in a precharged rifle.

The above said, really extreme precision isnt really a prerequisite for Field Target, although many judge use of certain rifle or barrel makers as proof of superiority. I still feel that any barrel/pellet combo that can deliver sub moa 10 shot groups as often as not at 50yds can win any FT match if used by a great shooter, and MOST events can be won with 1.5 moa level precision.

Sincerely,
L.D.

Mr L.D.
I am sure you have been asked multiple times and by me more than once probably.
If you would be so kind. How much of an effect would indexing at 55 yards have in this equation?

 

[cavedweller]

You can say that again!!

Going to try a 1:17 twist poly this weekend, tweak the 1:36 poly and reshoot the 22 Benchmark barrel and then I have to make a decision of which barrel to run for SOFT (weekend after this one is a local match so I can test it in real air prior to the GP).

@JW. well sir? Don’t leave us hanging.

 

[cavedweller]

@Solo1, I did try some of the 13.4s in this experiment.

There were 8 barrels involved. I tried the 13.4s from 4 of them. Pretty poor accuracy from all four. Not even good enough to get to worrying about what kind of wind drift they've got. These were the RD 13.4s though, and I believe most of the ft crowd that prefers that weight uses the originals. The original 13.4s gotta shoot a heck of a lot better than these RDs I was experimenting with, cuz these were absolute crap.

Exactly what I have learned regarding the 13.4’s …. I only use my RD‘s to practice/throw lead/establish better routines/habits…. Especially for standing shots.

 

[Motorhead]

@JW. well sir? Don’t leave us hanging.

JW is heading to or is already in Oregon for the weekend shooting the S.O.F.T. GP event.

FYI

 

[Franklink]

Since the collective shooting sessions that created this post was mostly the build-up/practice for the Arizona State FT match....here's a bit of a follow-up.....

The comparison testing mentioned here influenced me to put the .177, 1:36 polygonal barrel back in my prime-time ft rig, the black on black USFT in the first photo in the original post here.

The AZ State match was a Grand Prix, and so the Troyer was maximized to that currently sought-after 36 for GPs this year. I never saw the exact number, but heard the match director say "35 plus" Troyer multiple times.

This was a two day match, and I only shot on Saturday. I was assigned to what they were calling the red course. The red course included the cinder pit, with shots much below the shooter. The red course also is in the more open, more wind-swept area of the match site. The white course (the one I didn't shoot) was in the thicker wooded area. Friends that shot both told me the red was the harder of the two courses.

The 1:36 poly, the 10.3s, and the USFT combined for a 51/54 on Saturday on the red course. The three misses were: two kneeling shots, and a rogue gust got me at the time of trigger break on one of the long shots from stool/sticks. The next highest score on the red course was a 49, over both days.

My impression of the course I shot was that there were a lot of targets in the 48+ yardage range. And hardly any in the 13 yards and less range. I was glad to have the wind-resisting slow poly on all those long shots, because the wind was certainly a factor that had to be accounted for.

 

[Motorhead]

The last several months I too am using a .177 Stainless ST poly with 10.3 AA's. Its weird after 10+ years using a .20 cal to re-calibrate the old brain for the different wind hold requirements.

 

[JW.]

well sir? Don’t leave us hanging.

All I can say is: WOW (because I can't swear here....)

I have FINALLY found a LW barrel that shoots absolutely lights out.

Last year (or the one before) I bought three 20 cal LW barrels and could not find one that met my criteria. About eight years ago I bought four LW barrels, none of them worked at all. About ten years ago I bought two custom barrels that were supposed to be special, they were junk. I'd probably tested and rejected six before that.

Tried five barrels last week, one met the criteria.

12 groove choked was the spec for all but two. One of the two was a slow twist ploy, the other a normal twist poly. The slow twist was the winner, the normal twist poly was ok (basically the same as what I had been shooting/wanting to replace).

Franklink, LD and a few others got me thinking about this slow twist thing (the five I tested, which included the ST poly I grabbed after Franklink's posting), then the ST in the batch of five convinced me to get the same barrel but in stainless steel.

It was a good call.

I had it cut down to 21.25" for two reasons, travel case size and I wanted a barrel where I could shoot 13's and 10's at the same power settings. I get 815 and 890 respectively so oddly enough aesthetics and function sync'd up on this one.

Had one batch of JSB 13.4's shoot exceptionally well outdoors.

I did a lot of things at this match that you are not supposed to do, change a bunch of equipment (barrel, scope rings, butt pad/thigh rest setup), used a FT cart I made, new pellet and timer holder and to make things extra sweaty we were shooting three targets in four minutes.

It was a make or break situation and not everything went as expected. Sunday morning I had a four click difference from Saturday (it rained earlier on Sunday morning), but it appeared to be only from 35 to 55 yards so I didn't add it to the scope, velocity was good and I had about 450 pellets through it by then so I tried something different.

I cleaned the barrel right before the match on Sunday and managed to get five pellets down the pipe before the shooter's meeting. This is not what you do at a GP match...and I did it on purpose, I need to be completely confident in this barrel if I am going to use it for 2026, I need to know everything it does.

No POI or velocity change at all (another first for me). My last barrel would lose 50 to 100fps after a cleaning (I clean and then wax the bore) which was a decent POI change, it took between 100 and 250 pellets before the velocity and accuracy would come back, a very tricky situation if I had to clean during a match weekend.

I have a Benchmark barrel that does the exact same thing but its recovery process was a bit easier to predict and apply to get back to the correct velocity (using wax cut the velocity loss in half on this barrel).

After the match I did another test and found that my close distances were four click off as well. Not sure why I did not see this during sight in on Sunday but at the end of the day everything was back in line with those four clicks added to the scope.

It is so nice to be back in a set up where I know the miss was me and to have targets fall when it feels like you shank the shot on the trigger press. About a third of my shots felt like misses (not the best position hold, shaky, etc.) but the target fell.

At the start of the match I had less than 30 seconds left at the end of the lane (the new cart was so different) by the end of the match on Sunday I had two minutes remaining out of four with most often three for three on the hit card. My offhand was bad and is now the issue really.

I tried out the 10.34's on Friday in the wind to see if I wanted to shoot them, the 13's were more 'comfortable' and had a slightly better group at 55 so I went with them for the match.

One batch of JSB was amazing, the next really good, only one pellet batch was not great (FX), I have a decent array of batches going back to 2017 (with varying skirt depths), some of the 17 & 19 batches were doing well outdoors. For the one JSB batch I was getting almost a pure horizontal waterline 'group' at 55 yards (very little vertical deviation), its been a while since i've seen this out of a rifle I am shooting.

I grabbed another slow twist from the estate batch that I got the five other barrels from so i'll potentially have three match barrels. For now this SS ST poly is my go to match barrel.

 

[JW.]

My impression of the course I shot was that there were a lot of targets in the 48+ yardage range. And hardly any in the 13 yards and less range.

This is part of what has pushed me to look for a better barrel. With the 36T for 100% GP points rule we are seeing a lot of 3/4" to 1" targets at long distances (40-45 yards) in a decent wind this becomes a very difficult target. If you have a wobble, mis-range or have a large group size this target is going to get you almost every time.

Thanks for the inspiration via your tests here, gave me some confidence i'd lost in LW back, the barrel has definitely lived up to expectations and amazingly enough shoots 10's and 13's nearly the same in terms of accuracy. I feel like I need to be pinched so I can confirm its not a dream. lol

 

[Franklink]

This is part of what has pushed me to look for a better barrel. With the 36T for 100% GP points rule we are seeing a lot of 3/4" to 1" targets at long distances (40-45 yards) in a decent wind this becomes a very difficult target. If you have a wobble, mis-range or have a large group size this target is going to get you almost every time.

Thanks for the inspiration via your tests here, gave me some confidence i'd lost in LW back, the barrel has definitely lived up to expectations and amazingly enough shoots 10's and 13's nearly the same in terms of accuracy. I feel like I need to be pinched so I can confirm its not a dream. lol

Works for my barrel, can't promise anything beyond my n of 1....

Your mention for cleaning frequency and regimen made me think of mine....

My slow twist poly gets fed Slick50 One lubed pellets. Sometime after 1 tin and before finishing a second tin, I push a couple of qtips through the barrel, saturated with ....Slick50 One lube. The first 2 or 3 have a little color on them, then they're clean. First shot after cleaning is always exactly the correct fps and poi.

Qtips are the perfect size for .177 barrels. Some brands need fluffed up a bit to be nice and tight, others are tight as-is. I usually load them all into the barrel together, 3-5 or whatever I feel like, and them push them out (breech to muzzle) with one push of a cleaning rod. I only saturate the front end of each qtip, and the back of that same qtip absorbs the excess so I don't have a mess runninh out my muzzle. Easy peasy.