Effort to shoot slugs accurately in an air rifle

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The main problem with all of this talk is that it’s all quantified by personal anecdote. One mans “laser” accuracy is another mans “Meh”. Group shooting in small cherry picked samples does not represent accuracy in conditions on average.

The game of score shooting benchrest was designed a long time ago to see who could demonstrate the highest degree of accuracy.

You simply shoot 3 or more BR cards and average the score. The average is a single number that is the same number for everyone.

I wondered a long time ago if anyone was getting similar accuracy from slugs compared to pellets. Enough to start a thread on the GTA asking if there were folks out there getting top pellet accuracy from slugs and many answered yes...both in PM and on the thread. At the time, I was certainly NOT getting similar scores...not even close. I asked each of them if they were willing to shoot a few BR cards to create some comparable data. All agreed and I sent them off BR cards. I told the guys to wait for a day when conditions were optimal so they could take their personal wind reading skill out of the equation as much as possible. They all assured me that it would be a piece of cake to shoot a great card on a nice day...in fact they said they could just point at the middle and collect their easy 10 because that’s how accurate and wind resistant their setup was at 50y. 

This was over 6-7 months ago. None of the guys that were eager to show their performance on the BR cards with slugs ever got back to me, despite my checking in on them periodically. I know what this means and it didn’t surprise me one bit. It’s a common scenario if you run or attend BR matches frequently. Every new shooter drastically overestimates his equipments ability if they come from other genres such as FT, plinking, hunting, or forum display shooting.

Bear in mind, that this is 50y BR....not 100y. Results certainly won’t improve with distance. That’s a 100% guarantee.

Do you really want to know how you stack up to pellet shooters? Shoot a few 50y BR cards, and average the score....you will have a number that directly and fairly corresponds to guys all over the world. Based on long time personal experience in this matter....I know that most on the forums do not want to know...or at least they do not want others to know. Precision range BR is not very popular.

If anyone actually cares to shoot a few cards, I will post a target to print.

Mike
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You should find alot of interesting data from netherlands and their indoor 100m benchrest that they have done for years. Pellet class is most of the time dominated by Bsa lonestars and some raw guns where as bullet category is mostly won with drummen sinners. Bullet class is scoring higher than pellet class but there is no pellet guns shooting slugs. I dont really see why ppl are so eager to shoot slugs out from guns designed around pellets just dosent make sense its like attending WRC stage with family saloon. Surely gets you from place A to B but is far from optimal. 
 
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I would love to see data from there. I’ve had trouble finding the dimensions of the target they use. The scores I see don’t mean a lot to me since I don’t know the ring sizes.

Mike
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I wish I could help but I dont really speak dutch or read it. But il see if I manage to find that info so you can compare their scores. All tho comparing 100yd vs 100m is also bit problematic. 
 
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The effort to shoot slugs accurately has also created an effort to believe what guys are saying on forums about how great their guns shoot with them. This has been eluded to in both topics. My accurate might not be your accurate. Getting a couple good groups on a Tuesday has never been a horrible problem once you find a slug that kinda agrees with your set up. I think a lot of guys finally shoot the magic group and jump online to brag about it. Then Wednesday comes and their groups are poop again. Every slug dude on here knows what I’m talking about. It’s happened to all of us. My goal has always been all day every day out of the safe in the woods out the window hot or cold good groups with slugs. Just like my guns do with pellets. What I’ve learned over the years I think may have helped me finally achieve it. Right now I am utilizing the last two things I learned to maintain it. I won’t brag about my gun and I won’t touch it. Ernest could send me a box full of his latest greatest mods and they would stay in the box. Another key thing is go slow. I think when the UPS guy arrives with a ton of new lead, guys get ahead of themselves jumping from slug to slug looking for that free gift. My best guess is the free gift that you see a guy bragging about online, if it’s true, is probably about 1 out of a thousand guys that stumble onto something that works. But is it all day every day of the week?
 
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I shot every one of these groups on Sunday. Almost everyone of them is under MOA. One of them is a 10 shot group, nine of the 10 shots are under MOA. All were shot at 187 lasered yds. 

all of them were shot with my 22 red wolf shooting various sizes of NSA slugs. With each type of a slug, I tried many different settings until I found the one I liked.

One of them was significantly under 1/2 MOA, at 187 yards. That was right before dusk when conditions were calm.

Is this an MOA rifle? I believe so. Is every group I shoot with it under MOA? Not at 187 yards. This probably represented about 2/3 of the groups I shot.

Is it minute of varmint? Heck yeah! I think I could hit a Popcaan just about every shot, unless it was quite windy.

this is absolutely not possible with pellets, In any conditions. I would love to have someone prove me wrong. I would literally laugh out loud. And buy one of their rifles.

For those of you who look at that tiny group as incredulous...I agree. The moon and the stars the the shooter the scope the projectiles the rifle, the music in the background and the dog all had to align.

But think about this. With a good centerfire rifle I could do smaller groups than that all day long. A big deal was getting under a half an inch at 200 yards. A screamer was considered less than a 1/4 inch center to center. It’s not all that hard to accurately hold the rifle. It is hard to judge of the wind.

With slugs when I see that flag lift up and move or worse yet switch directions, we are talking multiple inches of miss....I’m holding off my target on almost every shot. I’m also hitting what I’m aiming at which seems crazy.

To me this is great fun. Shooting a card at 50 yards, not so much. That’s why we all do different things.

Without a red wolf in my hand I would be doing none of the above or below. I believe Mike’s rifles are in the exact same boat, and maybe better.

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thomasair-"Bear in mind, that this is 50y BR….not 100y. Results certainly won’t improve with distance. That’s a 100% guarantee. "

jiikuu-"Bullet class is scoring higher than pellet class but there is no pellet guns shooting slugs. I dont really see why ppl are so eager to shoot slugs out from guns designed around pellets just dosent make sense its like attending WRC stage with family saloon. Surely gets you from place A to B but is far from optimal."

The above 4 posts seem to sum this up pretty well. I don't disagree with thomasair about pellet performance. AT 50 YARDS. But as ranges increase (which they certainly SEEM to be doing with many shooters these days), the RELATIVE slug performance increases in comparison to the pellet. It ISN'T that the slug IMPROVES from 50 to 100 yards, but it IS that the SLUG DOESN'T LOSE performance at those longer ranges as rapidly as does the pellet. jiikuu suggests this noting the shooting results he reports showing slug shooters out performing pellet shooters at longer distances. But he still is focused entirely on COMPETITION. DON'T FOCUS ON JUST 50 YARDS because not everyone shoots only that way. DON'T FOCUS ON JUST COMPETITION because not everyone is shooting competitively. Much like another topic here, an egocentric view of how shooting "is" limits the broader application of the possibility-that SOME shooters may have SOME "PELLET" GUNS that shoot SLUGS as well as PELLETS. If that isn't the case, DON'T SHOOT SLUGS. Seems pretty simple and logical. But SOME have stated THEIR guns shoot SLUGS well enough IN RELATION to pellets that they can justify using them for some gains in THEIR shooting. As some have facetiously stated recently, ALL RELATIVE, both to the projectile and the shooter.
 
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Mike...we are surely cut from different cloth. 😀 Nothing wrong with that.

Just as you find boredom in a nice 25 shot 50y BR card....I can’t even bear to look at groups shot at any distance on random shards of paper. The lack of structure is something I cannot absorb into my brain. I’m very structure based.

Thus far, I have not witnessed any factory slugs shoot better scores at 100y than the best pellet scores. Maybe at even further distances slugs would outperform pellets simply based on the drastic decay of pellets.

I think it’s much easier to find a gun that shoots pellets well than a gun that shoots slugs well at 100y or less. I actually don’t even find 100y interesting due to the enormous number of wind variables beyond our control and comprehension.

Mike 
 
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We need to widen the picture here. Alot of you guys are talking about the top guns here you know the Daystates, FX guns, Kalibrgun, Airgun Technology, Edgun, Taipan yada yada yada. There's others to that list but generally regarded as some of the best airguns one can buy. What about all the lower end guns Gauntlets, Mrods, Avengers (benefit they have unchoked barrels which makes it much easier) and such. 

Also what do the majority of airgun shooters shoot at? Can bet most people its probably not much more than 50yds if that on average. Are there people that shoot farther? Absolutely. But as a general rule of thumb it's not many when compared to the majority of airgun shooters. Heck many people think a .22lr is maxed out at 100yds if even that far. Let alone shoot an airgun that far or farther. 

Gotta remember we're the Elite airgunners in this country shooting some of the best airguns money can buy. And it takes more effort on most guns to find a slug that shoots just as accurate as a pellet at MOST airgun ranges. To compare shooting a pellet and slug at distances at and even well over 100yds as pellets were never designed for that purpose isnt the way to look at it either. 

Let's take .22 for example here. Most airguns we shoot these days do very very well with say 18gr JSBs and 15.89gr JSBs and all there various variants. And most guns have a fairly wide range of FPS that they will shoot very well at. I've owned many many different guns and never had one of the higher end guns that werent capable MOA or better in good conditions at 50yds. Now slugs is a different story. Not only does one need different weights usually but different diameters and different speeds to likely get the same accuracy out of. 

This thread is about effort BTW not saying that pellets are better than slugs but the effort one puts in to get slugs to shoot as accurate as pellets if they find that magic slug at normal airgun distances is usually more.
 
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"I think it’s much easier to find a gun that shoots pellets well than a gun that shoots slugs well at 100y or less. I actually don’t even find 100y interesting due to the enormous number of wind variables beyond our control and comprehension."

I agree COMPLETELY with the first part of that statement. Seems at this point in the game, that should be viewed as very accurate. But there are variations, as your "much easier" alludes to. As to the second part of the statement, THAT is a personal point of view. Relates directly to "scores"-a competition point of view probably based on shooting competition rifles. It's neither right nor wrong, just personal. I'm just the opposite. I view the paper shooting as a tool to get to the "other" shooting, which I enjoy more. ??ALL RELATIVE??
 
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............

Also what do the majority of airgun shooters shoot at? Can bet most people its probably not much more than 50yds if that on average. Are there people that shoot farther? Absolutely. But as a general rule of thumb it's not many when compared to the majority of airgun shooters.
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Agree.

I think a large factor influencing how this discussion has gone is that there are many people sharing their opinions, with very little (or even none) actual long-range (say out to 100 yards) airgun shooting experience.

Look at the comments from guys like Mtnghost, Thomasair, Centercut, and even Flintsack. Those guys have actually shot airguns at long range.

It seems there are two main camps expressing their opinions here: those who know what they're talking about, and those that dont. 

Reality sucks. 
 
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I won’t brag about my gun and I won’t touch it. Ernest could send me a box full of his latest greatest mods and they would stay in the box. Another key thing is go slow. I think when the UPS guy arrives with a ton of new lead, guys get ahead of themselves jumping from slug to slug looking for that free gift.
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That’s one of the hardest things to do for those of us that like to tweak their guns. When you get to the point that the accuracy is really good with a certain slug at a certain speed, how hard is it to leave it alone? To NOT fix what isn’t broken. I’ve been playing that game with .25 Impact slugger shooting NSA 43.5 at 890 FPS for many months now. At over 100 yards it’s the most accurate gun I own. But do I jack up the speed? Do I shoot a different NSA slug that others are having success with in the same Slug A liner? It’s very hard to leave an excellent shooting gun as is. Good post @vetmx
 
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Depends on the airgun, airgun barrel, and airgun tune. Some brands have the parts to convert the airgun over from pellets to slug shooting. Some brands have the right barrel and power adjustments from factory which allows the airgun to shoot slugs with success with as little effort as loading up the slugs, selecting the velocity, and zeroing the scope in for the slug. Some brands just don’t have the ability.. Whether from the barrel, power output, or just that no slug ammo tried will give satisfactory accuracy results.


I converted a FX Dream-pup .22, Wildcat MKII .25, Wildcat MKIII .25, and a first generation Crown .25. To shoot slugs very well. But.. This involved the easily swapped out smooth twist X system barrels and power increasing parts available on the market. Not to mention a individual’s mechanical knowledge of PCP’s in general. All brands of airguns differ and the effort to make a pellet gun shoot slugs like some of the best guys out there on videos depends on several factors. May take very little.. May take a whole lot.. May be virtually impossible..





JKool




 
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I won’t brag about my gun and I won’t touch it. Ernest could send me a box full of his latest greatest mods and they would stay in the box. Another key thing is go slow. I think when the UPS guy arrives with a ton of new lead, guys get ahead of themselves jumping from slug to slug looking for that free gift.
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That’s one of the hardest things to do for those of us that like to tweak their guns. When you get to the point that the accuracy is really good with a certain slug at a certain speed, how hard is it to leave it alone? To NOT fix what isn’t broken. I’ve been playing that game with .25 Impact slugger shooting NSA 43.5 at 890 FPS for many months now. At over 100 yards it’s the most accurate gun I own. But do I jack up the speed? Do I shoot a different NSA slug that others are having success with in the same Slug A liner? It’s very hard to leave an excellent shooting gun as is. Good post @vetmx
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Yes, I fight that demon every time I read about how great this transfer port is or how awesome that slug power kit is. But I’ve been bitten enough times chasing the slug dragon to appreciate where I’m at and leave the gun alone. Even my barrel cleaning involves a notebook full of torque settings for everything involved. I remind myself of all this paranoia and obsessiveness when I get the itch to do a mod. I want at least one gun that is always a grab and shoot. Fortunately I have two now. I can’t go back to a gun that only does good on Monday and Friday or gives me that one good group right when I’m ready to give up and causes me to spend more money on more experimental slugs. For us guys who are compelled to constantly experiment, having extra guns helps but it’s not the cure. My safe is getting full of pellet and slug guns that I won’t touch. Coming back up the rabbit hole might be just as bad as going down it. It for sure is just as expensive.
 
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"Others seems to think that it takes no more effort to shoot slugs accurately from their pellet gun than it did for pellets."

"No more effort."

Feel free in providing a quote of the above. I'll be waiting.
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He may be reffering to me in his other post. The first time I tried the .22 JSB knockouts, in my impact with a 700mm superior liner, I did go from pellets to slugs, with same reg pressure. I did however increased my hammer preset on the wheel, and measured the max available speed of the gun, and turned it back a litle, so I could start shooting for groups by lowering speed with powerwheel. I did also swapped out my standar pellet probe, with a pin probe (nothing else), which gave +10 fps compered the the original probe. The tuning prosses was the same as I use for pellets. The slugs would offcorse shoot slower as they are heavier. I did note down my max speed, and the lower speed where groups did thighten up. Did also note my hammer preset, and what wheel setting I used. So my first attempt was 86 bar reg, max speed 870 fps, accurate speed 830-840. Did all my tuning on 25m, and got a ragged hole at that distance. I then wanted to up the speed some, and repeated. So it went next 100bar reg, max speed 905, accurate speed 860. Next 106-108 bar reg, max speed 940, accuratre speed 885. Since my home bench range is 25m, I had to test the longrange accuracy another place. The last tune at 885 fps, gave me theese 5 shots at 100m 
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Did not have a caliper with me, and ok, might be 1.5-2 inches, not moa. Also was able to hit a 40mm spinner 5 times in a row at 110m. Not gonna brag it is supper accurate, but I can hit the same targets easier at 100m as with pellets, as the slugs are not as sensitive to wind. My 100m shooting is just plinking area not a range, I usually put up small rocks and see them fly away when I hit them, so if I am able to hit 4-5 in a row, I know the gun is accurate. So for me so far it has been rather easy to get decent accuracy with the JSB knockouts, without to much hassle.
 
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