Slugs in ft

At such a low power and inside the range where a slugs ballistics find advantage over a pellet ….. WHY

I tried playing with 10.5 NSA's in .177 and some testers in .20 cal seeing if i could find a combo that met or exceeded what I already had in pellet accuracy ….. I'm staying with pellets for FT duty.

Solo1

Motorhead

At such a low power and inside the range where a slugs ballistics find advantage over a pellet ….. WHY

I tried playing with 10.5 NSA's in .177 and some testers in .20 cal seeing if i could find a combo that met or exceeded what I already had in pellet accuracy ….. I'm staying with pellets for FT duty.

Well at 55 yds a 12.5 gr nsa shot @800 fps has about 1/2 the wind drift of a 10.3 jsb shot @920 fps.  Seems like a good reason to me!? Also I’m finding my wolverine really likes them except they are using a bit more air than i wish they would. 

O' i agree completely and the WHY I tried ….. Consistent accuracy wins the day and the slugs fell short in this task !

Having shot FT now for enough years, tried as much outside the box thinking and tweaking as one can muster …. switched to .20 cal @ 6 years ago and never looked back !!

You only need ask yourself one question   ….. In ideal conditions with no wind. IS THE SLUG equal too or more accurate ?

If it is Not … your fooling yourself into thinking it will make up for some other deficit in your FT game.

IMO

Scott S

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Motorhead.

I wonder what the slugs are doing at 100+ yards. Most FT courses I shoot at are in suburban or semi-rural areas, so I could see a match director having a question about the terminal ballistics of a slug, even though it's only going 800 fps. If I was the match director, I guess I would ask you "how far will the slug travel if you miss the faceplate of a target sitting up in a tree?". I don't know the answer to this question, but I would recommend that you know the answer if you want to shoot slugs (whether at field target or anything else).

The official FT rules don't have the word "Slug" in the rulebook. However, the very first rule under equipment says "Safe airguns of any power plant, shooting a single pellet". On the other hand, two sentences above that sentence it says "In any matters arising and not covered by these rules the Match Director's decision will be final".

So if you feel that you can safely shoot slugs at a given location, I would probably check with the match director before showing up just to make sure. Some people say "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission", but I think that the people that say that are sociopaths.

I think we should add a “slug fee” for early replacement of chewed up targets and paddles.  LOL 

I was playing with Hornadys ballistic program a couple days ago with pellets and slugs (25 caliber for my Avenger, not for FT).  But I was surprised that the drop was not much different.  Wind drift was (roughly half).  I need to try it in a different calculator because I am not sure that is right.  But if the drop really is not strongly a function of ballistic coefficient then the slugs will not carry farther.  If drop varies, as I think it does, the calculator would tell you how much further it will carry with an assumed angle shot. 

Of course if you hit the target you won't have to worry about how far it carries.  

It isn't real life but you can plug the bc and muzzle velocity into a ballistic program like American Airguns Trajectory Calculator and it will give you wind drift for an assumed wind speed.  I would think as a comparison tool it would give you a pretty good idea. But for it to give you less wind drift the 20 caliber pellets would have to have a better ballistic coefficient.  

I also played some more with Hornadys ballistic program and a slug with a significantly higher ballistic coefficient might travel further.  I don't know how well it works for this but if I assume a pellet with a .022 coefficient versus a slug at .1 I get 300 yards versus 1000 yards if both are fired at a 45 degree angle (nearly the optimum to maximize flight).  But the other thing I noticed is the velocity and fpe are really low near the end of the flight.  I assumed a 900 fps muzzle velocity for both.  That pellet coefficient is for a 14.3 gr 22 pellet and the slug is for a 25 caliber – so apples versus oranges.  But with more realistic inputs I think the slug will still go significantly further.  A pellet with a higher ballistic coefficient will too but the difference in bc is probably significantly less.