My Crown GRS Ultra Compact!

Thanks guy, I'm super excited about it. Can't believe I did this but I "walked" right pass the M3 and bought this instead for a few more coins even. 


Like @TMH said the GRS ergonomics is simply superb! It's hard to explain and you really got to try it, it's like those ergo keyboard and mouse the offset pistol grip just feels right! With the adjustable cheek rise and shoulder pad and very natural pistol grip the speed of getting right cheek weld and eye in position and have the cross hair on target is much faster. No wiggling or looking for the right eye position, it's just there and I barely started getting it adjusted. To the other @TMH's point the gun does feel more more steady, it just feels like it takes a lot less effort to hold the gun steady, I attribute it to the more natural position of the grip again. The only downside of the stock so far is the finger reach, thank goodness the reach is adjustable but I moved it almost all the way back and it's not quite how I like it. I'll move it as far back as possible tomorrow and hope it's good enough, it obviously is made for much larger Norwegian hands!!! It's not bad as it is but could use a bit less reach. 


As far as how it shoots.....well it's a FX and it shoots pretty damn good out of the box. My use case is probably opposite of most people, my target power is 7 FPE on lowest setting. This is to safely shoot in my suburban backyard without alerting any neighbors(I hope) and still enough send roof eaters to sleep, especially it seems like ever single home sold around here now and days are bought by bay area people. I am making every effort to be as covert as possible.



The barrel is from dreamline compact 177 Gen2, I have been searching for a Gen1 177 compact barrel for 6 months now. My goal for the tune: 7.4 grain @ around 650-670FPS on lowest power and 12.5 grain slugs @760 FPS(where the little 380mm barrel taps out without wasting a ton of air) at higher setting somewhere. HS is as low as the adjustment screw would go and regulator at 130 and transfer port on medium. I'm still playing around with it and the different between low and medium is over 200 FPS compared to the MK1's 100 FPS. Right now it shoots 7.9 CPHP @ 675 range and will see tomorrow how fast it pushes the slugs, I might increase the regulator a bit more a long with HS to get the slugs shoot in the right speed range. MK2 definitely has more power and tuning it down will be a little bit of challenge.



Just realized the picture got washed out a bit with the sun in the lens, I'll take a better picture tomorrow. It certainly is a looker! 

Forgot to mention why or how I came about buying it in the first place.



I bought my Impact .25 exactly a year ago when the pandemic first hit, I spend a lot of time tuning and learning during the 1 year I owned it and really enjoyed it. With some know how and a few upgrades it's OMG good, so good it out shoots me. Knowing me being the accuracy problem and I can't be shooting that canon in my little yard I started down the road of 177 caliber so I can get more trigger time. I got a few crosman guns and absolutely love them too, learning a ton on how to shoot and not surprisingly they out shoot me too. Long story short, I bought and sold many guns and realized the airguns of today are simply phenomenal, just about every good brand have many guns that will out shoot the shooter so the quest is on to improve me the shooter.



What I have learned is ergonomics and balance makes all the difference in my ability to shoot. I have my Dream-Tac Compact which I was able to get it under 7lbs scoped, it's pretty darn comfortable but compare to the crown I can't seem to hold it stead at all. It's great for quick shots from tight spaces but I can't seem to shoot descent groups with it. Impact is better and the balance is also better but the crown or more traditional stock simply feel better. Then I got hooked on Vernon Austin's grips for my crosman and I can't believe how much a simple set of grips really transform how the gun feel and shoot! So when the GRS got released it really caught my eye, the more I read about GRS and it's offset grip the more I'm intrigued by it because it really makes sense. Thanks to the M3 the GRS inventory didn't get completely ransacked so I was able to get Tony at Talon Tunes to send me mine. 



Of course having our very own Bob_O showing the result of just changing the stock/ergonomic certainly helped with my decision:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuyeVZF302k





BTW the reason I didn't get the dreamline GRS is the dreamline version doesn't have the powerwheel. 

In case anyone wonder why I insist on using cheap crosman pellets besides me being cheap:

low power is obviously for safety and low noise level but also to increase difficulty when wind picks up so I can learn to read and practice in the wind. The crosman pellets are cheapest consistent quality pellets available with horrible BC of .012!!! Thanks to the horrible BC they drift a ton more compared to the JSB pellets with BC of .026. Since I don’t have the property to shoot 100 yards everyday I am going out of my way to emulate the difficulty of long range shots by worse possible configuration at my 34 yard range. 


these pellets’ BC is so bad that with just about any wind the POI will shift. With 2-3 MPH head wind the POI will drop by about 1/2 inch, over 5mph crosswind the POI will drift over an inch! Also learned that what I feel doesn’t mirror down range wind, I have watched the pellet drift and then a second later feel the wind in my face. With low speed and poor BC the pellets really get pushed around after 20 yards so down range wind is more important than what I feel close by.


For comparison purposes in the same 3-4 MPH wind where the crosman pellets would drift almost an inch while the 10 grain JSB hades will be 1 single hole at the same 34 yard distance with no tune changes. And yes, the crosman pellets will go into the same hole over and over again if there is absolutely no wind, I have validated that many times. 

Went through 7-8 mags of pellets and I have given up on my old low power tune from MK1. To get to 650FPS target I had to have HS on absolute minimum and 130 bar pressure, because of the imbalance the ES is over 30 and it shows in POI changes especially with the wind. Then when with TP is on low it just doesn’t want to go pass 600 FPS no matter what unlike the MK1, MK2 has more power and tighter lower power TP!



Here is the new tune I have settled on(even lower power) for now until I find a better tune:



Reg = 110 bars

PW = minimum & TP on Min

crosman 7.9 grain @600 FPS

Hades @550FPS



PW = Min & TP = medium

Hades = 750 FPS



With this tune the crosman is basically targets only and Hades still packs a punch at 20-25 yards which is sufficient for a head and vital shots(tested against wood block), plus same zero as the crosman pellets. I can turn up the TP to medium for very rare longer shots with the hades shooting 750fps, the POI is exactly 1Mil higher so easy to remember. Good thing is the HS and Reg are more balanced so I’m getting ES of 8-10 over 10 shots with SD of 3 so very consistent for target work which I’m very happy about. Will try to get some 12.5 slugs chronoed tomorrow! I LOVE the fact I can shoot multiple ammo from the same gun and tune! I have one mag loaded with hades in case a roof eater shows up. 



As I use it more the more comfortable the stock feels, target acquisition through scope is MUCH faster and the gun just feels steadier. Only done leaning against the wall shooting so far but that’s 99% of my shots, will try prone shooting position tomorrow.