This will eventually get around to long range accuracy/Extreme Field Target....
I've never been a believer in sorting (and I'm still not completely sure that I am). The majority of my competitive airgunning (I was recently told that it doesn't really count as competition since it's just local FT matches and not REAL matches, so grain of salt if you're in that camp I guess) has been regular, sub 20fpe, 10-55 yards field target. Perhaps I've just lucked into a couple of really good batches of JSB 10.34s but in that realm I've just not experienced flyers with shooting pellets straight out of the tins. And maybe even the less than 55 yards is simply not enough distance for flyers to become a nuisance? And with the reviews that I was doing, I made it a point to see how guns would perform with straight from the tin conditions.
So, back to long range accuracy/Extreme Field Target. I've not had much daylight hours to practice lately, but I've been trying to get the most out of the little time that I've had. In that regard, it has been somewhat easier to see trends since my volume of shooting has been so small. We have an Extreme FT match tomorrow and I was able to shoot 3 fills through my Veteran Long since the January match. At around 45 shots/fill, that is only 135ish shots (not counting shots, just refilling when I get down to around 140 bar, which was good for about 45 shots when I did the fun chrono thing months ago).
First practice session fill last week: shot 3, 10 shot groups at 52 yards. Here's that one: (all of these are bucket and sticks)
(white inner circles are maybe 3/8 inch and I believe the black circles are about 1 inch at their largest). Really windy cold day, wind coming in from the left and gusting pretty bad. Each of the 3 pellet strikes to the right of the groups coincided with gusts BUT that highest pellet strike did not match a gust, nor anything that I could tell I did as the trigger puller. Flyer? I though to myself at the time. From that small little sample size I figured, okay, maybe 1 flyer in 30 shots, not too bad. That got me to analyzing the last EFT match and I remember one pellet hitting quite a bit lower than it should have on a target that was probably 60-80 yards out there. I've not been able to see many pellet strikes on the EFT targets lately but THAT one was visible because it was off in no man's land. At the time I figured a rogue breeze pushed it down, but the 1/30 what the H in the above practice session had me thinking about the one in the last match......flyer perhaps?
Second practice session earlier this week:
4, 5 shot groups at 92 yards (20 consecutive shots, cold barrel, no warm ups or sighters)
That high and right one circled in green is supposed to be down where the red arrow is pointing. The other less than stellar impact points here were me, or the wind, or me reading the wind wrong, but that one, sure reeked of a flyer when it happened. So, 1/20 was a flyer.
Third practice session, just this evening:
I shot about 10 shots from 25-75 yards and then shot at one of Centercut's EBR practice cards at 101 yards. No sighter's for the 101 yards. Top left was where I started, 5 per target. Wind was pushing me right just a bit and I had an extra couple clicks of elevation, lowered it for 5th shot (too much) but then had it right one for the other 20 shots. This is 25 consecutive shots.
Not great but not horrible. No flyers in these 25 shots, but there was one in that first 10 shots, it was probably around the 75 yarders I was shooting. A complete, no doubt about it, why did that pellet do that situation. (thought I had a pic of the flyer but dang sure can't find it now). It hit a good 2.5 inches lower than it should have, and a bit to the right.
So, it appears that I'm having flyers with this otherwise accurate batch of MRDs, to the tune of 1 in about every 25-30 shots.
With the match tomorrow, I decided that I'd do a little look see at the pellets and maybe even sort some out. I have a scale, sigh. So I weighed them as I went.
Here are the results.
Left pileis about 45 "good ones" no divots in head, nice round skirt, weight of 25.3 or 25.4grains.
Middle pile is minor dents in head, maybe a slightly out of round or thicker on one side skirt, weight of 25.2, 25.5 and two that weighed 25.6grains. Didn't count these, but maybe twice or 2.5 as many as the pile on the left that is a known 45, so, call it 100-125ish.
Right pile is really bad divots in head of pellet, didn't even weigh these. 14 here.
This was the worst of the bunch.
So, total of about 185 that I looked at, maybe even 200 (came from two partial tins from the same sleeve, with lot number of sleeve box so can't say for sure that I started with a full 200)
If 8 of my 14 bad dimpled heads were serious enough to cause that flyer issue, that'd work out to roughly 1/25.
No way to know for sure if the dimple is the culprit but maybe something more conclusive will come of this with how it goes at the match tomorrow.
I've never been a believer in sorting (and I'm still not completely sure that I am). The majority of my competitive airgunning (I was recently told that it doesn't really count as competition since it's just local FT matches and not REAL matches, so grain of salt if you're in that camp I guess) has been regular, sub 20fpe, 10-55 yards field target. Perhaps I've just lucked into a couple of really good batches of JSB 10.34s but in that realm I've just not experienced flyers with shooting pellets straight out of the tins. And maybe even the less than 55 yards is simply not enough distance for flyers to become a nuisance? And with the reviews that I was doing, I made it a point to see how guns would perform with straight from the tin conditions.
So, back to long range accuracy/Extreme Field Target. I've not had much daylight hours to practice lately, but I've been trying to get the most out of the little time that I've had. In that regard, it has been somewhat easier to see trends since my volume of shooting has been so small. We have an Extreme FT match tomorrow and I was able to shoot 3 fills through my Veteran Long since the January match. At around 45 shots/fill, that is only 135ish shots (not counting shots, just refilling when I get down to around 140 bar, which was good for about 45 shots when I did the fun chrono thing months ago).
First practice session fill last week: shot 3, 10 shot groups at 52 yards. Here's that one: (all of these are bucket and sticks)
(white inner circles are maybe 3/8 inch and I believe the black circles are about 1 inch at their largest). Really windy cold day, wind coming in from the left and gusting pretty bad. Each of the 3 pellet strikes to the right of the groups coincided with gusts BUT that highest pellet strike did not match a gust, nor anything that I could tell I did as the trigger puller. Flyer? I though to myself at the time. From that small little sample size I figured, okay, maybe 1 flyer in 30 shots, not too bad. That got me to analyzing the last EFT match and I remember one pellet hitting quite a bit lower than it should have on a target that was probably 60-80 yards out there. I've not been able to see many pellet strikes on the EFT targets lately but THAT one was visible because it was off in no man's land. At the time I figured a rogue breeze pushed it down, but the 1/30 what the H in the above practice session had me thinking about the one in the last match......flyer perhaps?
Second practice session earlier this week:
4, 5 shot groups at 92 yards (20 consecutive shots, cold barrel, no warm ups or sighters)
That high and right one circled in green is supposed to be down where the red arrow is pointing. The other less than stellar impact points here were me, or the wind, or me reading the wind wrong, but that one, sure reeked of a flyer when it happened. So, 1/20 was a flyer.
Third practice session, just this evening:
I shot about 10 shots from 25-75 yards and then shot at one of Centercut's EBR practice cards at 101 yards. No sighter's for the 101 yards. Top left was where I started, 5 per target. Wind was pushing me right just a bit and I had an extra couple clicks of elevation, lowered it for 5th shot (too much) but then had it right one for the other 20 shots. This is 25 consecutive shots.
Not great but not horrible. No flyers in these 25 shots, but there was one in that first 10 shots, it was probably around the 75 yarders I was shooting. A complete, no doubt about it, why did that pellet do that situation. (thought I had a pic of the flyer but dang sure can't find it now). It hit a good 2.5 inches lower than it should have, and a bit to the right.
So, it appears that I'm having flyers with this otherwise accurate batch of MRDs, to the tune of 1 in about every 25-30 shots.
With the match tomorrow, I decided that I'd do a little look see at the pellets and maybe even sort some out. I have a scale, sigh. So I weighed them as I went.
Here are the results.
Left pileis about 45 "good ones" no divots in head, nice round skirt, weight of 25.3 or 25.4grains.
Middle pile is minor dents in head, maybe a slightly out of round or thicker on one side skirt, weight of 25.2, 25.5 and two that weighed 25.6grains. Didn't count these, but maybe twice or 2.5 as many as the pile on the left that is a known 45, so, call it 100-125ish.
Right pile is really bad divots in head of pellet, didn't even weigh these. 14 here.
This was the worst of the bunch.
So, total of about 185 that I looked at, maybe even 200 (came from two partial tins from the same sleeve, with lot number of sleeve box so can't say for sure that I started with a full 200)
If 8 of my 14 bad dimpled heads were serious enough to cause that flyer issue, that'd work out to roughly 1/25.
No way to know for sure if the dimple is the culprit but maybe something more conclusive will come of this with how it goes at the match tomorrow.
