Mat talks about FX designing their barrels to shoot better at 100+ yards and Daystate, focussing more towards the 25-yard mark for their barrels. I don't understand that a barrel that will shoot better at long range, won't out-shoot one that has been rifled to shoot at closer ranges, at those distances. For the long range barrel to be accurate at long range, it must also be super accurate up close. I know this is over-simplified but you won't shoot sub inch groups at 100 if you aren't getting well under 1/4 inch at 25.
It follows centerfire in a lot of ways, I was confused many many years ago by long range shooters giving an MOA value for a gun, but at a distance.
What I mean by this (and I have owned and shot most calibers) is that super accurate up close and at long range with the same gun sometimes aren't the case.
Some very average shooting custom .308 rifles at 100 yards, particularly when shot with VLD bullets don't shoot one hole groups, however once past the 600 yard mark the dispersion of the bullets is much lower, hence a 1MOA GUN @ 1000 yards is of much greater value to a long range shooter than a gun that only shoots 1 MOA @ 100? HOWEVER they can actually be the same gun, does that make sense?
Where I first learned this was when I took up the 6mm calibers, 6PPC in a Stolle Panda, then 6BR in a Nesika, both would shoot one hole groups with the light bullets 14 twist at 100 yards, but shoot them at 300 and accuraccy was horrible!
Put an 8 twist on the 6BR and shoot 105-107 match bullets and groups at 100 were good but not like the PPC, however go to 600 and 1" 5 shot groups were common.
This has a lot to do with the stability of the projectile and it is believed that some of the longer bullets that require a fast twist dont actually spin or fully gyroscopically stabilise at short distances, much the same as the .308 going through the transonic barrier at around 800 yards with certain bullets where wobble starts to be induced due to the bullet loosing velocity and hence stability.
If you watch some of Teds videos he shows pellets in slow-mo flying almost like a corkscrew or badminton shuttlecock, not straight, velocity was deemed to be the major factor for this, but hang on! gyroscopic stability is a factor of both speed and barrel twist rate combined! so perhaps FX/RAW etc. know that .25 cal shooters will expect accuracy at longer distances and therefore design barrels to perform in this way and almost sacrifice short range groups to achieve it? almost certainly with the same pellet used for both duties anyway?
Daystates roots are in England, with power levels of 12FT velocities are much lower and distances are shorter, all UK shooters would expect good groups at 25 yards and this would probably be the benchmark for UK airgun accuraccy and .177 is king, with limited power longer distances become unrealistic due to projectile stability? but hang on, as above in Ted's video as I said, slowing down the pellet in the HW100 gave markedly better results at longer distances as shown in the slow-mo videos.
Daystate understands the USA market is way more valuable than the UK market because of volumes and the UK restrictions, so maybe there is a move in the point at which a gun is designed to perform at?
If you arent asleep by now it's food for thought anyway.