Since I got my impact M3 in it has been a struggle to get it to shoot slugs. I bought it with the superior linear and no matter what I did it just didn’t really like NSA 33, 36, or 38 grains slugs. Last week I installed the superior heavy though hoping my troubles would be over. I was wrong, it still didn’t like the 36 or 38 grain slugs at the speed I was shooting them at. I spent all week trying everything between 970-1100 but nothing worked. Until today when I was working. I was listening to Steve from AEAC talk about his time with the maverick and how it shot slugs best around 950. So I thought i’d give it a try.
I tuned my gun to 950 with the 36 grain slugs and shot a group at 100 yards… It was about 4” in diameter, so that was a no go and I went back to playing with high speed for an hour or two when I finally gave up. I thought why not try something even lower just to see and tuned it to 900. To my surprise, I got the best group of the day at about 2”. I was onto something.
I then tried the 38 grain slugs with the same tune and it was even better. I decided to play around with the valve adjuster and then got a group that was promising. 3 Shots were probably withen .5” then two went somewhat flying. I decided to check my speed and to my surprise I was at 790 fps. It was simply to low for what I wanted, so I thought let’s try the 38 grain slugs at 900. I shot 4 shots and made a group about 2.5”. I then changed my grip on the rifle(wanting to make sure I tried everything) and got a group about 1.5-2”. I knew I was getting closer. so decided to open up the valve adjuster a tiny bit and see what happened and this was my next group.
It was my first sub moa group at 100 yards with slugs since I’d purchased the gun and I was super excited. I’m not sure of the exact fps it’s shooting at as in my excitement I forgot to check but if I had to guess it’s probably around 920. The gun also feels a lot better to shoot at the lower fps and I’m getting a couple more shots per fil so i’m actually liking it quite a bit more down at this fps compared to 990 or so. Thought I would share what worked for me so others might me able to pick up on something that might help them.
I tuned my gun to 950 with the 36 grain slugs and shot a group at 100 yards… It was about 4” in diameter, so that was a no go and I went back to playing with high speed for an hour or two when I finally gave up. I thought why not try something even lower just to see and tuned it to 900. To my surprise, I got the best group of the day at about 2”. I was onto something.
I then tried the 38 grain slugs with the same tune and it was even better. I decided to play around with the valve adjuster and then got a group that was promising. 3 Shots were probably withen .5” then two went somewhat flying. I decided to check my speed and to my surprise I was at 790 fps. It was simply to low for what I wanted, so I thought let’s try the 38 grain slugs at 900. I shot 4 shots and made a group about 2.5”. I then changed my grip on the rifle(wanting to make sure I tried everything) and got a group about 1.5-2”. I knew I was getting closer. so decided to open up the valve adjuster a tiny bit and see what happened and this was my next group.