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I've had the .22 caliber Cricket II a little over two weeks now and today was really the first calm day that I have had so far. Winds were light at probably 5mph or less (coming from behind me). So today felt right to push out past 50 yards. I set up my bullet box at 70 yards and loaded the first of what would become the 7 magazines (98 shots) I ran through the gun today.
While I'm not going to go through each of these 7 targets, I will mention each target is one magazine worth of shots (14 pellets). And here they all are:
And this is how I shot them:
As we all know, shooting at longer distances tends to amplify things. And while I was really looking forward to testing the few H&N Baracuda Match 5.51mm pellets I had left at this longer distance, it became clear that darn it, I think it's time to clean the barrel. It just didn't feel like these 70 yard groups was representative of what the gun had been showing me at 50.
(Note: I shot this target and all the rest of them in groups of 5, 5, and then 4 shots.)
So before jumping to any conclusions, I wanted to shoot my "baseline pellets" which are JSB 18.1s. They were a bit better, but I still felt they should be grouping tighter than this at 70 yards:
I unscrewed the shroud and pulled 4 ballistol soaked patches through with a patchworm and then pulled one or two dry patches. No major flakes of lead came out but the barrel, but it was pretty dirty. I also noted some lead dust on the outside of the barrel. I'm pretty sure I have between 350 and 400 shots through the gun now at the point of this cleaning.
Sooooo, how's this for an improvement? Not bad grouping for a 27-inch long bullpup at 70 yards!
I shot two more targets/magazines with the JSB 18s to see how it would settle in (they are included in the group photo at the top). But here's the last target shot with FX 18.1 grain pellets. I do have more of these FX pellets which I'm saving for another nice day
Now, one thing I'm still working through - and maybe this is just me not having shot at 70 yards in a while - but I found myself over adjusting my scope more than a few times when shooting these targets. I think the POI danced around more than it should have simply because of me being click happy more than anything else. Next time I need to make my scope adjustments in smaller increments.
Today's takeaways:
No worries about over filling!
The gun shaping up to be a pretty good shooter. AND it is definitely a looker too!
- My previous post about the Cricket II and my initial impressions of it is here.
- Cricket II 70-yard accuracy testing.
- Lord help us, I did a video of my one-month impressions...
- Detailed hammer spring / velocity testing
I've had the .22 caliber Cricket II a little over two weeks now and today was really the first calm day that I have had so far. Winds were light at probably 5mph or less (coming from behind me). So today felt right to push out past 50 yards. I set up my bullet box at 70 yards and loaded the first of what would become the 7 magazines (98 shots) I ran through the gun today.
While I'm not going to go through each of these 7 targets, I will mention each target is one magazine worth of shots (14 pellets). And here they all are:
And this is how I shot them:
As we all know, shooting at longer distances tends to amplify things. And while I was really looking forward to testing the few H&N Baracuda Match 5.51mm pellets I had left at this longer distance, it became clear that darn it, I think it's time to clean the barrel. It just didn't feel like these 70 yard groups was representative of what the gun had been showing me at 50.
(Note: I shot this target and all the rest of them in groups of 5, 5, and then 4 shots.)
So before jumping to any conclusions, I wanted to shoot my "baseline pellets" which are JSB 18.1s. They were a bit better, but I still felt they should be grouping tighter than this at 70 yards:
I unscrewed the shroud and pulled 4 ballistol soaked patches through with a patchworm and then pulled one or two dry patches. No major flakes of lead came out but the barrel, but it was pretty dirty. I also noted some lead dust on the outside of the barrel. I'm pretty sure I have between 350 and 400 shots through the gun now at the point of this cleaning.
Sooooo, how's this for an improvement? Not bad grouping for a 27-inch long bullpup at 70 yards!
I shot two more targets/magazines with the JSB 18s to see how it would settle in (they are included in the group photo at the top). But here's the last target shot with FX 18.1 grain pellets. I do have more of these FX pellets which I'm saving for another nice day
Now, one thing I'm still working through - and maybe this is just me not having shot at 70 yards in a while - but I found myself over adjusting my scope more than a few times when shooting these targets. I think the POI danced around more than it should have simply because of me being click happy more than anything else. Next time I need to make my scope adjustments in smaller increments.
Today's takeaways:
- Shoot the heck out of your guns but listen to that little voice that tells you that it's time to clean the barrel!
- I still have H&N Baracuda Match pellets in 5.53 and 5.53 mm sizes. But I hate that I ran out of the 5.51 mm so I'll be ordering more to run through the gun in the future. I still think these deserve to be tested at longer distances.
- I didn't use my chony at all today. Sometimes it's nice to just shoot! The gun is consistently giving 50 shots but I decided to top off after each 3 magazines (42 shots). Check out my chrony thread on the Cricket II here.
- Speaking of topping off the gun, Originally the 300 bar fill wasn't appealing - and I don't have any plans to use 300 bar as my normal fill pressure - but it is kind of cool to just let my gun fill from my tank and not worry about it... I have a Joe B Tigershark tank and and a Shoebox F10 compressor. I may get one or two 300 bar fills out of my tank, but after that they are all lower. So now I can just open up the valve on my tank and do something else for a minute or two. The tank and the gun just equalize.
No worries about over filling!
The gun shaping up to be a pretty good shooter. AND it is definitely a looker too!
