50 at 50 on the N50

Thanks…it’s fun when stuff comes together. 

Lou…you misplace a lot of things.

Mike 

Since it’s my thread….I should have mentioned that I believe sorting is for the birds. The only way I believe the group could have been any smaller is if I had not over held for the left to right wind and come up short on the two pimples that are messing up an otherwise, beautiful, round group.

Mike 

Cole, I will throw this out there for anyone that wants to bite. Come to my place and sort a few tins of RD Monsters. Use whatever method you want as long as you do it in my presence. 

We will shoot 6 cards at 50y on side by side benches. I will use only the pellets you reject, and you can use all the “good” sorted pellets. Of course there will obviously need to be enough of your culls for me to shoot all my cards plus at least 30 sighters each card. Based on some of the elaborate sorting methods I have heard of which cull 80% of the pellets from a tin…that should not be problematic.

If you beat me, I’ll shake your hand, give you 1000$ for your trouble, treat you to a good home cooked meal, and type up a report of the event for the folks here at AGN. If I win…you shake my hand, we’ll still go enjoy a good home cooked meal, but you do the match report. If you don’t like the idea of shooting at 50y…we can modify the deal and shoot 6 cards at 75y or 100y.

The only other stipulation is that I need a little time to make sure I have a gun to use. I don’t have a pellet gun of my own…but often have a customer gun I can use.

Mike 

Cole….I only have 2 different lots of pellets that were both purchased from Zan. The first lot is beat to poop. At least 50% of the pellets have skirts that are in no way round. The second lot from Zan are pretty clean looking.

I did a post a while back where I did 25 shot groups with the hammered pellets to show that there were no big fliers at 100y. Actually the groups rivaled anything I’ve actually seen posted here on AGN for a 25 shot group at 100y with pellets.

My offer is not a direct challenge to you. It’s open to anyone that believes that sorting is a necessary procedure to win BR matches. I’ve heard reports that one out of 10 or more monsters are unfit for shooting and will produce massive flyers. If that’s true…then that would leave me with nothing but pellets that cannot be shot accurately and the 6 card match would clearly show that. My premise is that if the pellets are good enough for someone to find what they want by sorting them…then the throwaways will be good enough for me.

Mike 

Thanks guys.

Dave, those pellets are absolutely mangled. The defects that are causing guys to discard pellets are only minute fractions of what you show. Good for you actually testing it out.

I’ve said this before, and it will be true to the end of time…..the credulous masses will find great significance in someone winning a match after sorting….but no significance whatsoever when someone wins without sorting.

Mike 

My main point is that sorting won’t get you to the top. If your gun throws wild flyers…you absolutely will not fix it by sorting. It’s something in the barrel. This is 100% derived from what I see with the competition guns I build. Can the barrel be fixed? Maybe, but that would require someone to actually define the exact problem….and I don’t know anyone that can do that reliably. Barrel cleaning procedure and interval has a profound impact on performance…probably more than any other single element. Learn how to do what you need to do in an environment that is predictable. Nobody will ever figure out a cleaning routine in any reasonable amount of time shooting at 100y. It’s an unpredictable distance for a pellet gun. Even one that is completely predictable at 50. 

Im also not saying that one pellet lot won’t outshoot another. What I’m saying is that nobody has the ability to determine what is a good pellet and what is a bad one by examining it individually.

There is way to much to say about this…but it should be a very significant observation that some guns can shoot unsorted pellets reliably at the highest levels. It happens all the time…but most ignore it.

Grab a tin of pellets and if they shoot well, get all you can. Don’t fool yourself into believing that you know what to look for in crummy shooting pellets to make them better. 

Mike 

When I say “get to shoot” it means that I would be personally satisfied using the gun in a National match. I almost never have a gun of my own more than 1 match. Usually someone buys it and I end up putting another together before the next match. In 2017….for FT I shot 7 different rifles throughout the season. Some of which were customer rifles that were in process when the time of the match came up. In 2019….the number was pretty close to that too. That’s actually very comforting for my customers to know that I’m not at all worried about selling a gun I just won a match with. If I couldn’t produce another of same quality….I would be in trouble.

So….no, I don’t sort barrels. My 22 cal barrels for the RD monsters are pretty fussy, though. If you don’t get your cleaning routine down they will hurt you. Even though the barrels may come from the same batch…they won’t all do the best with the exact same treatment. That’s a big issue for a lot of shooters because if they have ever developed a solid cleaning strategy for another barrel it’s like pulling teeth to get them to change gears if a particular barrel doesn’t respond favorably to their current routine. They immediately want to just replace the barrel. You have to be fluid and don’t get stuck in a rut. If a barrel can shoot 1000 shots without needing attention….you better leave it alone. If it needs to be cleaned every 50….you better do that.