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Magnum springer grouping

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Very good shooting. That 350 is a very fine rifle. I've got one in .177 that shoots Kodiaks pretty well. I should drag that one out and see what it can do. I don't think it will be as good as your group though.
 
Thanks guys. For the record I never was able to reproduce that same group... Here's a more representative target showing the average (center @30 yards), good (bottom left @ 30 yards) and decent (top right @ 50 yards):



The dots in the above target are 3/4 of an inch. 

While it's not easy eliminating variables when shooting a springer, the two interesting trends I found were related to barrel prep (clean vs. dirty) and temperature/humidity. It *seemed* like H&Ns shot better out of a seasoned (dirty?) barrel while JSBs did well after I gave the bore some attention. I have had both great and terrible groups with these FTT as well as Baracuda Match. The same goes for JSB 18...

The other thing that seemed to be conspiring against me was heat and oppressive humidity we had in Central New York this summer. I have a harder time drawing a direct connection between group size and temp/humidity but cooler and dryer air seems to correspond to smaller groups (weird I know...).

Here's one more showing poor groups with JSBs and then good grops with JSBs:

 




And yes, of course it could also just be ME!
 
oldspookAt the bottom of the edit page you should see a checkbox which will let you opt in for email notifications of replies.

Very good shooting. That 350 is a very fine rifle. I've got one in .177 that shoots Kodiaks pretty well. I should drag that one out and see what it can do. I don't think it will be as good as your group though.
Thanks, I did have that checked. It did not work before, but I did get email alerts to your most recent replies.
 
Coulter try something that Marksman is big on and I'm starting to feel same way . When you change pellets give it a dozen or maybe more shots of the barrel to ki da warm up to the new pellet and then make a decision. He calls it seasoning which is a s good a word as any .
I do know after shooting some lubed pellets out my rifle a week or two back it was a full card ( 25shots) before my gun settled back down . Might be worth looking into . These guys know a hell of a lot more about this stuff than I do so hopefully on of them will chime in ?
 
Something that often gets over looked is shooting different brands of pellets and what can happen inside a bore.

I can only assume every pellet maker uses there own proprietary lead mix. They also probably all use different lubes, cleaners, etc on the swaging equipment including the dies that probably gets transfered to the pellets during the manufacturing process. Some probably even use a wax or lube on the pellets after they are swaged to prevent oxidation. All these things can cause a bit of an issue inside your barrel.

What I mean is this... if you are shooting jsb pellets in a freshly cleaned barrel, the type of lead and any associated lubes or wax passing thru that barrel are the same because we'll, you are using the same brand of pellet. If you all the sudden run out of jsb's and only have H&N pellets, I would thoroughly clean the bore prior to switching pellets as the different lead and possibility of different lubes or waxes on the H&N pellets might not jive with the JSB's and could take a while for the H&N's to settle in a barrel fouled up with jsb's.

Same goes for shooting lubed pellets then switching back to unlubed pellets. If you don't clean the bore after shooting the lubed pellets, it will take awhile for the unlubed pellets to settle in.

In my mind all that is happening is the new pellets you are shooting have to get enough of their own lead and lube deposited within the lands and grooves for them to settle in or "season" (I like that phrase btw!!) When mixing pellet brands, it just takes longer for the new brand you are shooting to over come the deposits left by the previous brand of pellets. I hope I didn't confuse anyone trying to get my point across?? Lol!!

Kind of like just adding tar, grease, or oil, to the internals of a springer without removing all the previous lubes that are already applied. 2 different lubes may fight each other for awhile or maybe never compatible. No one does that though. We fully degrease and clean then apply a new lube. Why?? Because it makes sense.
 
"JoeWayneRhea"Coulter try something that Marksman is big on and I'm starting to feel same way . When you change pellets give it a dozen or maybe more shots of the barrel to ki da warm up to the new pellet and then make a decision. He calls it seasoning which is a s good a word as any .
I do know after shooting some lubed pellets out my rifle a week or two back it was a full card ( 25shots) before my gun settled back down . Might be worth looking into . These guys know a hell of a lot more about this stuff than I do so hopefully on of them will chime in ?
Hi Joe,

Yes, thanks for that. I tend to ignore the 1st target or two after changing pellets. :)
 
"ajshoots"Something that often gets over looked is shooting different brands of pellets and what can happen inside a bore.

I can only assume every pellet maker uses there own proprietary lead mix. They also probably all use different lubes, cleaners, etc on the swaging equipment including the dies that probably gets transfered to the pellets during the manufacturing process. Some probably even use a wax or lube on the pellets after they are swaged to prevent oxidation. All these things can cause a bit of an issue inside your barrel.

What I mean is this... if you are shooting jsb pellets in a freshly cleaned barrel, the type of lead and any associated lubes or wax passing thru that barrel are the same because we'll, you are using the same brand of pellet. If you all the sudden run out of jsb's and only have H&N pellets, I would thoroughly clean the bore prior to switching pellets as the different lead and possibility of different lubes or waxes on the H&N pellets might not jive with the JSB's and could take a while for the H&N's to settle in a barrel fouled up with jsb's.

Same goes for shooting lubed pellets then switching back to unlubed pellets. If you don't clean the bore after shooting the lubed pellets, it will take awhile for the unlubed pellets to settle in.

In my mind all that is happening is the new pellets you are shooting have to get enough of their own lead and lube deposited within the lands and grooves for them to settle in or "season" (I like that phrase btw!!) When mixing pellet brands, it just takes longer for the new brand you are shooting to over come the deposits left by the previous brand of pellets. I hope I didn't confuse anyone trying to get my point across?? Lol!!

Kind of like just adding tar, grease, or oil, to the internals of a springer without removing all the previous lubes that are already applied. 2 different lubes may fight each other for awhile or maybe never compatible. No one does that though. We fully degrease and clean then apply a new lube. Why?? Because it makes sense.


ajshoots, thanks for the thoughtful reply. Back when I had a high-end PCP (AA s510) was pushing ballistol patches down the bore between switching brands of pellets. I guess I have become a bit more lazy now that I'm shooting springers only (D34, 350 and now 48). Like I mentioned above in my reply to Joe, I'm just shooting a couple of targets after switching brands. Maybe I should take the extra 5 minutes to push the soaked patches through again!