Pulsar scope rail
- Thread starter Stone02
- Start date
Hi all...
New to this forum, but seem to have also fallen victim to the Pulsar scope rail! This is MY personal opinion and I have absolutely no other agenda in posting my experience, other than to find out if others have experienced the same, under similar conditions.
Firstly let me say that I LOVE MY PULSAR. I am a bullpup fan, and grabbed the opportunity with both hands when a Pulsar came up for sale on airrifle.co.za.
Short of a long...
I shoot competitive Field Target. Every now and then I would go through a stage where I had absolutely no idea why I missed a target, and then have a ridiculously erratic run of lanes or a long series of misses. I do believe I am a reasonably good shot, having achieved somewhat over the years in the sport. Certainly not bad enough for what was happening. I am also someone who has NEVER blamed my equipment...ever.
My most recent league shoot, I was two down after 12 lanes. All of a sudden I began missing...easy shots...for instance, a 25mm reducer at 25m, with the wind straight from behind, and barely moving...a 'down the middle' aim point. Shoot... a big fat NOTHING! Unable to see the impact point at all. A few hits and then a series of 5 misses in a row... some easy bread-and-butter stuff.
Luckily, the 5th miss was a 50m target, and this is where the realisation comes in that I have a technical fault.
The wind was blowing steady at around 6km/h directly from the left. Calculation tells me to aim around 4mm outside the KZ for a centre hit on a 40mm target. I execute perfectly, and watched the pellet impact onto virgin paint, around 30mm TO THE LEFT of my PoA!!!! Perfect elevation, but INTO the wind??? I CANNOT shoot that badly, even on a bad day.
My shooting partner says 'There's the problem!... Crank it over to the right!'. 8 clicks later on a 1/4 SIII Sightron - away from the prevailing wind direction - I hit everything remaining on the course!
Thinking back on the day, I realised that I had left my rifle out in the sun, with the LHS facing the heat on a couple of occasions. The ambient temp on the day was probably around 32 deg C, so I would estimate that the scope and rail heated up to around 45 deg, perhaps even a few degrees more.
Now... I have always questioned the design of that rail.
I am a designer myself, and have some training (and quite a bit of practical experience) in industrial design. I have limited knowledge of materials, because that's a real engineer's domain. I am not, and will never claim to be an engineer - just someone who understands how a lot of stuff works!
My perceptions...
Without going on too much more, I did a very quick experiment with a hair dryer on a cold scope rail. I heated the rail DIRECTLY to what must have been about 50-60 degrees. At 30m off an X bag, there was a discernible shift of my grouping, although not as much as what I experienced during the competition. This cannot be claimed as empirical, as I have no control group shot just before heating, only what was shot the previous evening.
I have devised a possible solution, using an off-the-shelf dovetail-to-picatinny rail, which has (in my estimate), QUADRUPLED the stiffness/rigidity of the scope rail, and instilled me with a lot more confidence. The Pulsar’s rail now does not flex at all when pressure is applied to the unsupported front end.
However…This may fail to resolve the issue, so I am also looking into a bespoke-engineered solution as a plan B… before Worlds in England. A far way to travel from South Africa without trusting your rifle 100%.
My possible solution...
New to this forum, but seem to have also fallen victim to the Pulsar scope rail! This is MY personal opinion and I have absolutely no other agenda in posting my experience, other than to find out if others have experienced the same, under similar conditions.
Firstly let me say that I LOVE MY PULSAR. I am a bullpup fan, and grabbed the opportunity with both hands when a Pulsar came up for sale on airrifle.co.za.
Short of a long...
I shoot competitive Field Target. Every now and then I would go through a stage where I had absolutely no idea why I missed a target, and then have a ridiculously erratic run of lanes or a long series of misses. I do believe I am a reasonably good shot, having achieved somewhat over the years in the sport. Certainly not bad enough for what was happening. I am also someone who has NEVER blamed my equipment...ever.
My most recent league shoot, I was two down after 12 lanes. All of a sudden I began missing...easy shots...for instance, a 25mm reducer at 25m, with the wind straight from behind, and barely moving...a 'down the middle' aim point. Shoot... a big fat NOTHING! Unable to see the impact point at all. A few hits and then a series of 5 misses in a row... some easy bread-and-butter stuff.
Luckily, the 5th miss was a 50m target, and this is where the realisation comes in that I have a technical fault.
The wind was blowing steady at around 6km/h directly from the left. Calculation tells me to aim around 4mm outside the KZ for a centre hit on a 40mm target. I execute perfectly, and watched the pellet impact onto virgin paint, around 30mm TO THE LEFT of my PoA!!!! Perfect elevation, but INTO the wind??? I CANNOT shoot that badly, even on a bad day.
My shooting partner says 'There's the problem!... Crank it over to the right!'. 8 clicks later on a 1/4 SIII Sightron - away from the prevailing wind direction - I hit everything remaining on the course!
Thinking back on the day, I realised that I had left my rifle out in the sun, with the LHS facing the heat on a couple of occasions. The ambient temp on the day was probably around 32 deg C, so I would estimate that the scope and rail heated up to around 45 deg, perhaps even a few degrees more.
Now... I have always questioned the design of that rail.
I am a designer myself, and have some training (and quite a bit of practical experience) in industrial design. I have limited knowledge of materials, because that's a real engineer's domain. I am not, and will never claim to be an engineer - just someone who understands how a lot of stuff works!
My perceptions...
- That rail was designed for a 'lightweight' hunting scope...10x up to 24x - NOT a ±900g Sightron 50X monster with all the FT paraphernalia taking it to around a Kilogram.
- With the obvious desire to reduce weight, it was engineered to the absolute borderline of rigidity required for a sporter rifle, without ‘other’ applications considered.
- The 'empty slot' machined out, down the length of it does not allow for even heat transfer - resulting in a 'banana effect' (however insignificant) away from the heat source.
- Steel would have been a better option for such a flimsy rail, considering the difference (almost 50%) in expansion coefficient between it and aluminium, as well as aluminum being 1/3 the stiffness of steel.
- NO scope rail should be 'designed to flex'... esp. when it comes to precision shooting requirements. I have absolute faith in the method of attachment (rail-steel collar-barrel)… more rifles should be designed like this. However - STIFFNESS is king, IMO.
Without going on too much more, I did a very quick experiment with a hair dryer on a cold scope rail. I heated the rail DIRECTLY to what must have been about 50-60 degrees. At 30m off an X bag, there was a discernible shift of my grouping, although not as much as what I experienced during the competition. This cannot be claimed as empirical, as I have no control group shot just before heating, only what was shot the previous evening.
I have devised a possible solution, using an off-the-shelf dovetail-to-picatinny rail, which has (in my estimate), QUADRUPLED the stiffness/rigidity of the scope rail, and instilled me with a lot more confidence. The Pulsar’s rail now does not flex at all when pressure is applied to the unsupported front end.
However…This may fail to resolve the issue, so I am also looking into a bespoke-engineered solution as a plan B… before Worlds in England. A far way to travel from South Africa without trusting your rifle 100%.
My possible solution...
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