I know a lot of you folks have great luck with the R9/HW95, but it has not gone as well for me. I have had two. The first caused me so much frustration I sold it. The second I was determined to learn to shoot well. At some point I cut 4" off the end of the barrel and added a muzzle weight which did seem to help with my offhand shooting, but sitting I still wasn't able to obtain the kind of consistency I was hoping for. The basic problem has been unpredictable fliers, by that I mean fliers with no apparent cause that destroy confidence that you will hit what you are aiming at. A couple years back the spring finally broke, so I installed a 12 ft-lb Vortek kit and seal, which did make the gun a much more pleasant shooter, but didn't solve my problem with fliers.
After letting it sit for a year or two, I decided to try again. I had recently bought some AA Express pellets to try in my TX, and decided to give them a try in the R9. Well they fit nice and tight in the breach, which this gun likes, and groups seemed tighter than the previous best pellet, the JSB 8.44/4.53. So a lot of good groups, gun was holding zero, but still those aggravating fliers, usually left or right. I remembered that left/right fliers can be caused by too much shoulder pressure, at least from sitting, so I backed way off on the shoulder pressure and that did the trick.
Here are tonight's groups from 35 yards sitting with sticks. Nothing dramatic, but only one shot that might be considered a flier in group 3. The one problem that remains is a tendency for the rifle to shoot high for the first 10 shots. The movement of group center from right to left I attribute to the wind having died down for groups 4 and 5. At this point I looks like the rifle will be a solid 2 MOA shooter. I am okay with that. Not every rifle needs to be 1 MOA capable. As long as its behavior is predicable, you can learn to work within its capabilities.
After letting it sit for a year or two, I decided to try again. I had recently bought some AA Express pellets to try in my TX, and decided to give them a try in the R9. Well they fit nice and tight in the breach, which this gun likes, and groups seemed tighter than the previous best pellet, the JSB 8.44/4.53. So a lot of good groups, gun was holding zero, but still those aggravating fliers, usually left or right. I remembered that left/right fliers can be caused by too much shoulder pressure, at least from sitting, so I backed way off on the shoulder pressure and that did the trick.
Here are tonight's groups from 35 yards sitting with sticks. Nothing dramatic, but only one shot that might be considered a flier in group 3. The one problem that remains is a tendency for the rifle to shoot high for the first 10 shots. The movement of group center from right to left I attribute to the wind having died down for groups 4 and 5. At this point I looks like the rifle will be a solid 2 MOA shooter. I am okay with that. Not every rifle needs to be 1 MOA capable. As long as its behavior is predicable, you can learn to work within its capabilities.
