PCP Expectations w/ Slugs…

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We also have to consider that until recently ( and correct me if I’m wrong) air rifles were rarely used to shoot beyond 50 yards. The use of slugs has caught on in the last couple of years and the power of the PCP rifles has increased significantly. Some one needs to make an air rifle action which allows a relatively heavy threaded QUALITY barrel. Bullets don’t know the difference between powder or air.
 
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We also have to consider that until recently ( and correct me if I’m wrong) air rifles were rarely used to shoot beyond 50 yards. The use of slugs has caught on in the last couple of years and the power of the PCP rifles has increased significantly. Some one needs to make an air rifle action which allows a relatively heavy threaded QUALITY barrel. Bullets don’t know the difference between powder or air.
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I've been shooting 22cal Kodiaks aka Baracudas for 20 years at 35 foot pounds or higher. 50 yards has never been a stopping point. I had a Career 707 that could shoot them over 1000fps and Koreans pellets at over 50 foot pounds. Several guys have made slugs along with way, especially for the high power airguns. Daystate has made 50 foot pounds airguns for as long as I can remember. Popularity has increased over the years, along with the European airgun makers stepping up the power level in their airguns. 
 
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Wait you mean FX Smooth Twist X barrels aren't all the same due to how they're made like Matt Dubber has mentioned before??? Unbelievable.

Lol anyways yeah I give props to all of you who have stuck with the slug game and tuned and modified guns and put in all the time to get them right. I tried multiple guns and a decent amount of time and couldn't get them extremely consistent. I ended giving up and getting a pretty decent .22lr and called it good. 

@bubblerboy64 only guns I personally know that are threaded into the receivers are AAA EVOLs which are extremely robustly threaded. And the Taipan Veteran which arent as big but gets the job done also.
 
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I think many erroneously expect a barrel to just shoot well. Guys work on tunes and consistent fps and toying with regulator pressure and optimal hammer spring tension and tensioning and harmonics and etc, etc, etc and finally see what they want on the chrono screens. Then they're surprised when the gun simply won't group, or won't group as well as they want it to. I personally feel like that's the barrel, or perhaps even the barrel to pellet/slug match. The ole "barrel lottery" comment was often used in reference to Crosman barrels but I think that concept applies more broadly. A particular barrel can be a total dud, or completely exceptional, and that applies even to Lothar barrels. Recrowning, polishing, reworking the leade, etc sometimes cannot turn a ho hum shooting barrel into the magic we all hunt for. Logic would dictate the same applies to FX's liners. 
 
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I finally gave up with telling guys that one mans tune is not another mans tune. When I realized that the M3’s biggest marketing ploy is appealing to the clueless about PCP’s and I need a shortcut consumer, I knew it was a losing battle. Now they can construct their bible of misinformation and it will give them something to do for a while. I’m sure that it will help pellet shooters get close but a slug is a different animal. Just tonight I noticed my M3 was not grouping as good as it was a couple days ago. I immediately checked my two reg gauges and they both were 5b less than when the gun was shooting tiny groups. That 5b difference on the second reg screwed my accuracy up with slugs. On top of that, all of the gauges on the gun are off by at least 5b. I know, I tested them. But I don’t care because I know they are for my reference only. Not for the book of sharing. Now maybe a Newbie might still be impressed with the groups that the gun was shooting when I considered it jacked up but that brings us back to expectations. I know realistically what the gun can do. I did it and I saw it on my range. I recognize some of the names that already posted on this topic. We have realistic expectations because we have achieved them or failed at our own hand. The rest of the guys chasing glory because they believe everything they see and read on the internet and have zero understanding of what makes a PCP tick are in for some interesting times ahead if they chose slugs. Finally a good topic to contribute to instead of answering the same old questions. Good job Centercut.
 
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Centercut, I wish I could have read your post as I was coming into the sport. It would have saved me a lot of time, money and frustration. I'm embarrassed at how long it took me to realize that way too many of the shooters on Youtube are really there to sell rifles. I'm sure they are good at what they do, but I'll never believe again that they just pulled that rifle out of the box and started shooting competition level groups at long distances. As you said so well, there's a lot more to it than that. 

Thanks for a great post. This should be required reading for us newbies and slow learners. 
 
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I love having a really accurate gun, but for me it’s more about minute of pig or minute of deer. All my big bores will shoot within a couple of inches out to 75 yards and that’s all I need.

It’s fun reading a lot of these threads, but I do have to admit to spending a lot of time and money finding the most accurate slug for hunting, for each of my guns. Sometimes it helps to read about what NSA slugs work good or give Mr. Hollowpoint a call. I’m not into competition shooting but I understand a lot of you guys are.

I chased my tail with an impact .25 and slugs for a while. I finally got it shooting pretty good with a slug a barrel, but after that I lost interest. Bench shooting just doesn’t do it for me. I’m glad this sport has so many different avenues to enjoy it. Shooting steel at 100 yards is still fun though…
 
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I've tried so many guns with slugs. Out of all my work, I still only have to real slug-Shooters: Edgun R5M Long in .22 & AirForce Texan .308. Only 1 in 6 become slug worthy. The other 5 are always better with pellets.

Finding a slug is like FINDING GOLD! The process so expensive and time consuming, but when it is successful, it is a worth the time and effort. 
 
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Thanks for this post , Centercut . Until now I was disapointed , sometimes discouraged , when my guns ( FX Dreamline , FX Crown, Kalibrgun Tactical ...) didn't shoot pellets over pellets at 50 yards , as seen on some videos ....I thought that good guns + good pellets + good scope = accuracy , with some little tuning .Of course .....it didn't go this way.

After reading your post ,I realized it's mainly a matter of sweat , work , trials , a lot of factors to make working them together in harmony.

So .....I'll go to work hard and more methodically now . I know this is the key to success .😉
 
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Wait you mean FX Smooth Twist X barrels aren't all the same due to how they're made like Matt Dubber has mentioned before??? Unbelievable.

Lol anyways yeah I give props to all of you who have stuck with the slug game and tuned and modified guns and put in all the time to get them right. I tried multiple guns and a decent amount of time and couldn't get them extremely consistent. I ended giving up and getting a pretty decent .22lr and called it good. 

@bubblerboy64 only guns I personally know that are threaded into the receivers are AAA EVOLs which are extremely robustly threaded. And the Taipan Veteran which arent as big but gets the job done also.
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Ha, you took the easy way! Reminds me of me sometimes. PCP's can be so frustrating compared to firearms.

Speaking of barrels only, and my reading of many magazine articles and posts on gun forums for the last 40 years, as well as limited personal experience, there can be extremes even with higher quality barrels let alone the cheap ones. The BR champions in the firearms world will source a batch of high quality barrels, I think I read one guy got 7 of them to test, then pick the best one, and a few more of the better ones, then sold the remainder. It could very well be that if say for instance I bought his worst barrel it might blow my mind how good it is, lol, but for him it didn't meet his standards. It might not shoot to my standard either though.

My friend has a Tikka 260 with original barrel that is very precise for a stock barrel but I've had many stock firearm rifles that didn't shoot well, or decent which would be moa, and a few of them dismal even with a bunch of load work done. But with the 12 or so higher quality aftermarket match barrels I've used only one of them didn't shoot well. Three of them were exceptional though!!! The rest were still sub moa, like .75" at 100Y which is good but not great.

I mentioned all that because I highly doubt that most airgun barrels could be considered truly match grade by firearms standards so there is a disadvantage for achieving high precision from the very start. On top of that I doubt the chambers are true enough to the bore, or optimized for an intended projectile, the crowns not cut well, rifling funky and other aspects of the barrel not done to match standards, and the list goes on. Then consistency of the projectile and its balance of CG, etc, etc. Also there is gun tune... And like Centercut mentioned "bad batches of barrels" can exist.

I lucked out with my Uragan King in 25 cal using NSA 29gr slugs, only ones I've tried in it, and I haven't changed a thing as far as tune, these shoot decent too.

All the work was done before I got my slug barrel from Mike N for SURELY which was such a relief to me because it shoots excellent, though I use custom swaged slugs fit to a match grade barrel which is chambered and crowned to a high standard. All helps to ensure success.

^^^ fortunate for me because I have no patience for a dismal start especially after spending a lot of $ and effort to find dissatisfactory results. Ouch, Mike I've been there so many times before so I can certainly have empathy !!!$$$$!@#$%

Good post and a lot of truth in here!


 
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Yes , for sure it's very easy to shoot tight groups at 100 -200 yards with a firearm . A lot more energy in the bullet , much higher speed too. I get a Remington with heavy barrel in 22-250 cal . This is a .22 bullet with a Laaarge amount of powder behind . The result was a 3000 Ft/s speed at the muzzle , 3 times the speed of sound . The trajectory was so flat up to 400 yards that there was very little correction needed to shoot a can at 300-400 yards. Wind drift was also very small , due to the high speed . No need to say : this gun was NOT backyard friendly 😄 .

Airguns are more challenging , and so is the fun .
 
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You remind me of my competition archery days and years (sorry, I am still young with airguns). I was shooting 90 meters FITA and Field = training and practising and training and practising like thousand arrows a week, for many many years days and nights and rain or shine.

Then comes a new fella all dressed up with latest and greatest 3-4-5 thousand dollars worth of equipment stands right beside me and want to shoot my 90 meters / 80 yards targets :) .

After a month or so you can see all he's $$$$ equipment in Classifieds. Yes, You can have a daddy to buy you a Ferrari, but no drivers license will ditch you in a very first corner.

Keyword = practice and train and practice and train. or vice reverse can't really remember the sequence how it goes ;)

sorry for hijacking if irrelevant
 
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You remind me of my competition archery days and years (sorry, I am still young with airguns). I was shooting 90 meters FITA and Field = training and practising and training and practising like thousand arrows a week, for many many years days and nights and rain or shine.

Then comes a new fella all dressed up with latest and greatest 3-4-5 thousand dollars worth of equipment stands right beside me and want to shoot my 90 meters / 80 yards targets :) .

After a month or so you can see all he's $$$$ equipment in Classifieds. Yes, You can have a daddy to buy you a Ferrari, but no drivers license will ditch you in a very first corner.

Keyword = practice and train and practice and train. or vice reverse can't really remember the sequence how it goes ;)

sorry for hijacking if irrelevant
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Exactly, good point. I sold a .22 Daystate Renegade about 3 1/2 years ago. I met the guy where I shoot, and I had the targets set up at 50 yards. I got there early, made sure everything was good to go, and shot some shots at the target, almost no wind, and at 50 yards the 18.1s were pretty much stacking, well inside a dime diameter. So he gets there, we talk, I show him the gun, go over everything, and sit him down to shoot off a bipod on a metal picnic table. So he shoots about a magazine (ten shots) and then looks up at me and says "I don't think this gun is nearly as accurate as you told me." So I took the gun, handed him my binoculars and told him to watch the upper right target, which hadn't been shot yet. I then shot five shots into a group the size of the end of my pinky finger. He looked down at me and said "or maybe I just need to become a better shot. Here's your money, thanks for the gun".

 
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My biggest complaint about the airgun-tubers is that I have yet to see one that seriously goes into discussing what it took to get slugs to shoot in their gun. How many slugs did they have to try? Different barrels? Did speed have a big effect or not? I know this would help a lot of people out to set their expectations and inform their tuning strategy. I have seen some tune specifics given, which is helpful, but mainly to understand what they had to do to the gun to shoot at that speed.

I have exactly one slug gun tuning example under my belt: 700mm .30 M3. I tried 12 different slugs from various makers and had only one winner that shot 1 MOA - FX Hybrids, and they shoot great out to 200yds. One runner up that shot 1.5 MOA - Varmint Knocker 50gr. No other slugs including various NSAs were close to that. Velocity seemed to matter very little in my case. Either the barrel liked the slug or it didn't. I wasted a lot of time changing velocity hoping for miracles. I also didn't see evidence of significant harmonic influence, but that may be because I am not running my gun on the ragged edge like some. 

Having experienced accurate slugs, I don't want to shoot pellets any more, and I consider it worth the effort to find a good slug.

I agree with the comments on the M3 quick tune system. It is EXCELLENT for switching between YOUR tunes, but in no way allows for a turn-key tune you can give to someone else. It will give you a ballpark of what is required to achieve similar speeds, but that is about it. I also think it is confusing that everyone keeps referencing the Macro wheel settings when it is irrelevant. I may have even included Macro settings in one of my posts, probably because it was easier than explaining why I didn't include it when everyone else is!
 
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