EBR Target Challenge at 75 yards

Tommy....you have not gotten lucky and shot over 225 because you are at the limit of your equipment. If your combo was capable of doing better, you would have done so by now.

The difference between combos (gun, barrel, pellets) that shoot high scores and ones than don’t is the high scoring combos don’t throw fliers. The ones that don’t will shoot low number group counts very well, but can’t shoot high number groups to match because they do something unexpected....then go back to shooting well...then do something unexpected again.

I’ve been in competitive BR for a while now and see guys struggle and struggle to keep up. They keep forging ahead with combos that will never give them success because their gun shoots great 5-10 shot groups as good as anyone else’s. If Benchrest was only 5 bulls....most any gun would be sporadically competitive. It’s night and day difference between a combo that shoots great 5 shot groups and one that shoots great 100 shot groups.

Mike 

Tommy....you have not gotten lucky and shot over 225 because you are at the limit of your equipment. If your combo was capable of doing better, you would have done so by now.

The difference between combos (gun, barrel, pellets) that shoot high scores and ones than don’t is the high scoring combos don’t throw fliers. The ones that don’t will shoot low number group counts very well, but can’t shoot high number groups to match because they do something unexpected....then go back to shooting well...then do something unexpected again.

I’ve been in competitive BR for a while now and see guys struggle and struggle to keep up. They keep forging ahead with combos that will never give them success because their gun shoots great 5-10 shot groups as good as anyone else’s. If Benchrest was only 5 bulls....most any gun would be sporadically competitive. It’s night and day difference between a combo that shoots great 5 shot groups and one that shoots great 100 shot groups.

Mike

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Mike

I don’t doubt for a second that the right combination of gun, barrel, and pellets will make a difference at 100 yard BR. But, I’m also seeing others on both the 75 and 100 yard EBR target threads posting some consistently higher scores. Some are very new to 100 yard BR and still posting some 225+++ scores, All you have to do is go back and look at some of the gun/combinations used and scores posted. 

I have a high end RAW .22 HP shooting the MRDs at 935 FPS and it does throw fliers and same for the Red Wolf HP .22 with ART barrel. Maybe what you are saying is that I may not yet have the right 100 yard BR gun and combination that is capable.

Mike, you make a good case but even if my combination is not capable of very tight groups and scores, I will keep at it. I’m just puzzled as to what brand or combination will get me there. 

It’s not about the brand. It’s ultimately about the time put in to achieve as close to perfection as possible. Simple economics dictate that companies that sell rifles for half the cost and employ 10x (or way more)the staff are not able to spend much time on each piece. Do good rifles come from these places? Sure they do...but the percentage is very low and even those have a lot of extra time put into them by the end user. A good rifle requires a lot of things to come together...that only happens by chance on a production line. No large or even medium scale manufacturer that I know of can afford to spend the time to make that happen. That’s also assuming that they actually know how to make every gun perfect. It’s really that simple.

It would be extremely naive to think that the shooting representatives of the major companies just grab a gun off the shelf before they head to a competition. If you want something exceptional, you will have to pay for it somehow. That could be your own time or someone else’s. Unless you are massively lucky, it won’t come free. Go ask one of the gun reps if you can buy their barrel after they have done well at a match. They will look at you like you have 2 heads. The guys that post good scores consistently have a lot of time into their equipment.

I don’t work on other brands of guns, and I don’t know who to tell you to send off your equipment to so it can be made competitive. It costs money for the best, because it takes a lot of time to produce the best and very few are capable of it. That’s the bottom line.

Trying to shoot 240s with 215 equipment will prove to be very frustrating.

Mike 

well said. ab

All good points Mike and I thoroughly understand your points of view. I have been following your posts for quite a while. This is why I love this forum; many diverse experiences and knowledge to digest and learn about.

But for me, if high end guns like the RAW or Red Wolf ( with good tuning and using good ammo) can’t help me “eventually” shoot higher scores, then I will have to be OK with that. I’m just not 100% convinced my occasional fliers are due to my gun/pellet combination. It is more than likely me making some unintentional mistakes in my shooting technique. It could be a bad pellet. My hold on the gun might be wrong. I may be missing wind calls. I need a lot more practice and time on the bench; and will continue to optimize my tuning and gun’s capabilities hoping that these high end guns can get me there.

Stated another way, at $3K for each of these guns that I purchased with some minor accessories, I will have to either improve with skills over time; or accept the limitations of my equipment. I’m glued into some really smart people helping me with tuning on both platforms, and I’m confident in their capabilities and also in both brands and their associated quality. Martin personally built my RAW and it didn’t come off a production line. I waited about six months or more for the RAW. He and I have worked closely for over a year tuning, fixing and trying things to try and optimize accuracy. Same with the Red Wolf but different people helping on that platform. 

There is also a dollar threshold for me to spend on an air rifle, but I DO understand others spend more, tune better, etc. 

Good discussion and thanks for your insights! 

Tom

Tom, has anyone else shot well with either of your rifles? That seems like an easy way to determine if it’s you or not.

Mike 

Tom, has anyone else shot well with either of your rifles? That seems like an easy way to determine if it’s you or not.

Mike

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You should have been a Prosecutor, as you are now incriminating the culprit in this saga; and unfortunately it is me! I’m just having fun with you Mike! Read on.

Yes, Bobby C and AoA have both tuned, fixed and shot my RW at distance. Bobby posted several 230+ 100 yard scores and there was a brand new ART .22 HP barrel that replaced my original ART .25 barrel. Safe to say the gun was returned to me and I did shoot the .22 with MRDs better, but not at the gun’s full potential because of me presumably. So, I think I need more time at the bench and practice; and definitely need to start using wind flags. 

RAW - Here again, I swapped out a .30 cal Barrel for a HP .22 Poly with MRDs tuned by Martin at 935 FPS. I did this because I was not getting the 100 yard accuracy I expected. Since switching, I am doing better and posting several 230+ 75 yard cards. At 100, I managed a 221 and 222 card recently and posted on a Mike’s 100 yard EBR Target Challenge thread. Martin has shot the rifle a few times insuring the accuracy at 100 yards, so again I think it’s still me if I want to consistently shoot in the 225-230 range. 

You asked the exact right question, and actually you have a really good idea here for others too. If someone wants to validate their optimum accuracy and tune, and is having some concerns about a gun’s full potential and/or accuracy, it might be well worth having an experienced competition shooter try it out. This way, the owner knows if it’s gun or them.

Yes, definitely Bob!

I need flags and a whole lotta luck in reading them and knowing how to adjust. It’s one thing having the flags, but it’s a whole different thing knowing how to adjust your hold based on a specific condition!

Ahhh... therein lies the skill, experience and know how of how to apply that learning. 

Ok...well that means a lot that you say that, Bobby. I didn’t realize you had shot it. That’s good to know. I kind of remember something about that now.

Well, I guess that rules out the easier solution to your troubles, Tommy.

I’m a big believer in flags. I cannot possibly see how someone could read wind without them.

Mike 

TommyB, Just an FYI, both Mike and Bob can put 10's of thousands of pellets down range within a years time, and good on them! That would represent 6-7 years for me to get that many pellets down range. Their experience level is very HIGH. I feel like a fledgling when I attempt to shoot side by side with them. Basically they and others with this level of experience kind of "KNOW" where to aim, whereas I'm doing a "well I hope I'm guessing right" wind call. What happens is their 10's are my 9's, their 9's are my 8's, etc. I'm more prone to get more hits out past the 7 ring that's for sure. And this is with flags!

I know for me I need to order pellets by the case then get busy like these guys have. But yes, the gun, the tune, and the rest of the equipment, make getting good scores easier too.

All I can say is when I get my Rocket Booster HPX, I'm GOING - FOR - IT and getting busy!!!!! 

Not that you haven't striven but I think it's the needed step to get flags and find a place to use them if at all possible. Actually I think you've done quite well without the use of flags!

Steve, thanks much! Excellent analogy.

Yes, the years of experience and total number of shots down range do matter. Flags are a must!

We are all kidding ourselves if we think we can guess what’s happening at 50-100 yards without them. 

Hey guys, thanks for caring enough to respond.

Tom 

I would agree with Steve. You DO seem to have done pretty well for no wind indicators , Tom. It'll be good to see how you do with flags. It can seriously be an art to reading flags but if you pay close attention after the shot, it will make sense pretty quickly. The harder part is being consistent about when NOT to shoot. Also, you always have to keep in mind.... flags show history.... not current conditions. There will always be a little lag time in what they show... so use your other senses to try to determine if what you're seeing will stay long enough to get the shot off.

Bob

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Very well said Bob.

I re-read this entire thread again to digest a lot of good suggestions that were made by all.

Tx Tom