The trend towards slugs…….

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Well I’ve never shot eft but am trying to decide if i should shoot 12.5 gr nsa slugs or 10.5 grain jsb pellets here in the east for ft. I’ve gone out on a day with a light swirling breeze and shot 4 5shot groups with each @50yrds and to me the slugs were much less affected by wind than pellets. I was shooting a 10 meter target and was able to keep the slugs mostly in the black but not even close with pellets. This is what makes me think slugs are the thing. Also I’ve done a bit of shooting with the 22 lr @100 and the wind can really play havoc with them at that range
 
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As people have said above, slugs are still in their infancy compared to pellets and the barrels made to shoot them for many many decades now, it's been pretty much perfected for 100yds and in. Given time and technological advances and understanding, slug shapes and barrels will get closer and closer in accuracy. It will evolve given the demand for slug shooting. In just a few short years look how far the hobby has come. FX is at the forefront right now and I'm sure the other manufacturers are doing their R&D. Good time to be into Airguns!
 
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Hey Steve! Some very good points. 

I hadn't considered poi shifting. I've been struggling with my my eye disease for a few months and haven't been able to see my pellet impact points at the last couple EFT events so can't say whether or not I'm having that problem. I do know that my turrets/zero have been in the same place since last October and the gun seems to be hitting where it should each time that I get it out. Do you think the guns that are collectively being used for EFT are more prone to poi shifts than regular FT guns for some reason? 

I have questioned my dope, going from 5600feet down to whatever PHX rod and gun is (1500feet?). It would be nice to be able to verify some longer range impact points during the sight in window, prior to the match. 

Even with your extremely accurate rimfire it sounds like you and Mike S shot 75%. I'd have guessed that really accurate rimfires, in the hands of exceptional shooters like you two, would have had higher knockdown rates. So, that maybe shows that this format is simply a very difficult one to shoot in, regardless of BCs, and retained FPE, and pellets vs slugs vs rimfire, etc. 

I agree with you about how windflags are a very "benchrest" concept (you mentioned EBR). I'm not Ben or Robert, but those two (who have kinda emerged as the "fathers" of this EFT type of competition) seem to have intended for this to be something different than benchrest, more like hunting. For the pdog shooting that I do, the lack of any ground cover (or at least any ground cover that is very responsive to wind), is pretty similar to what we're dealing with at EFT events. With pdog sniping and EFT, I usually only know the general direction the wind is blowing. Intensity and wind switches are the tricky parts. As for a trial run, if Ben decides to have a vote for it I guess it'll just depend on how the vote goes. Whatever the opinion of the majority of the actual participants, I'll go along with. 

As for the position, some of my description of the positional aspects were just my personal thoughts and opinions, specifically about the non-trigger hand supporting the forend of the gun. I'm not in charge of any of this, just somewhat active in sharing my thoughts and opinions, but the "reasonable position" is entirely my creation. I don't think the wording in the "official" rules say anything similar to "reasonable position." As for my opinion (which counts for exactly 1 vote if it comes down to it) I don't have any issues with any of the ways you showed the gun being held, they are all normal ways to shoot off a bipod. It gets a lot more questionable when the gun is laying across legs or not contacting the shoulder, etc. I hold it kinda like the first pic that you provided, just with my hand up at the top of the sticks. My hand sort of wraps around the junction of the sticks and the forearm of the gun. I wasn't trying to turn this into another debate about positions, just give a brief enough description of the allowed position for everyone to understand that we're all shooting from the same position. My one vote on position will always be that anything that affords someone an unfair advantage will be a nay from me. 

What I really want to figure out is why the heck is it so much harder to get good scores in EFT than it seems like it should be. Slugs have not yet proven to be the magic bullet was the main point I was trying to make and topic of discussion I was going for. 

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Okay Cole, I gotcha, we're good then. I was freaking out a little over the reasonable position thing thinking that was the next official rule. Believe me when I say this, I'm the least limber person I've ever seen, and if I can get into a position so can anyone 😋

Just guessing but I think if there had been some wind indicators we all would have had better scores from 22rf down to 30 fpe guns.

Betcha if I had my 20-221AI with 32 grainers at 3750 fps I wouldn't have missed much 😉

Most air rifles are definitely more finicky than most PB rifles! For me it's much easier to say which air rifles I've had that didn't have POI shifts than the other way around. Some air rifles have been moment to moment almost, remember my 12 fpe FWB 800 basic?! 

Believe it or not I've seen pics and videos of guys setting out lath with surveyors tape on them every 50-100 yards when out PD hunting, and that was with centerfires from 250Y to 500Y+, the PD's get used to them. Helps with wind direction, speed, and gauging distance of course, and the farther away the distance is the harder it is to get good reads with a laser range finder on flat ground. I believe that's also called PD hunting and I bet there is less wounding and more killing happening.

I think another aspect that makes this match so hard is #1, most of us, including me, haven't learned which way to adjust our aim (up or down), or how much (up or down) to adjust our aim to depending on intensity, etc, of the wind. #2 if we don't know what's going on with the wind how are we going to make an adjustment up or down??? When I look at Mike N's two 100Y groups with pellets, the better group with 25 shots under a quarter with him aiming up and down depending on what the wind is doing, and the bigger one not aiming up and down, it is pretty telling how badly pellets are affected by vertical from wind. Right now I guess if we want higher hit percentages then we need bigger KZ's, no getting around it.


 
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I think some of the things a fair portion of what we airgun shooters are dealing with are POI shifts during the match, both with slugs and pellets. The gun I was using in the January match had that happen by the 3rd lane that I shot, then I proceeded to NOT SEE where my misses were on the steel "until my 3rd from the last shot which hit 1.5" high" at 50-ish yards. Since I saw it hit that high I compensated by dialing for 70Y instead of 82Y, a .6 mil difference, and hit the 2"-ish KZ at 82Y with my last two shots. 

My other point would be IF THE DOPE IS OFF for whatever reason, possibly the aforementioned as well as POI SHIFTING - meaning both combined going on at the same time, well now trying to hit stuff is a becoming a real B!TCH, lol!
Click to expand...

Steve, yeah, that's the first time that gun (Bleu) ever didn't hold POI, and I found out why when I returned to SD. I was baffled, and the first shot I took with it blew out the breech o-ring which was VERY worn, I think that explains it. My bad, loaned you a bum gun - or was that a part of my strategy? ;) After Novembers match, which was the last time I shot the gun, I went 33/36 in practice on the non off hand targets with .217 JSB KO slugs, so I thought it would be good to go for you. Sorry brother~!

I know I shot in front of you afterwards with the .25 Impact shooting NSA 43.5 grain slugs at 900 FPS. I did shoot over half the lanes prone, but don't think (this time) it made much of a difference since the last 5 lanes in competition I shot just as well bucket and sticks. I just wanted to point out that the difference between the high end rimfires (30) and a good air rifle shooting heavy high BC slugs (29) isn't very big anymore... and the conditions were significantly harder in during the practice round. Someone reading this might say "well, then why did you only shoot 22/40 in the competition?". Hell, can't really say. I do think I missed 11 out of the first 12 shots, until I executed the cranial anus extractus maneuver...

P.S., all three positions demonstrated above by Steve with that bad ass .30 Vulcan2 are reasonable...
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Ha, you employed a strategy, wise dude! JK.

You know I appreciate you for lending me ole Bleu. It could be the gun just shoots to different points because we hold it differently?? It could have been other things like the Oring but why would the POI shift be up instead of down??? or the cascading of various things, who knows??!! I do know that rifle shoots extremely well normally. Stuff happens right and Murphy likes things to happen much more if in a competition!

But wasn't your Impact hitting high or low at first and when you saw where you were missing you began to compensate thereby getting a good score?
 
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Steve, good point. Yes, it was shooting about 1/2 inch high and I didn’t see the misses until I hit the size ring. Every shot was near dead center left to right but high. It took me quite a few shots to realize it was the gun and not me. Funny how we forget the problems but remember the good things. It was so bad I wanted to quit the first half of the match... Glad I didn’t. 
 
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Believe it or not I've seen pics and videos of guys setting out lath with surveyors tape on them every 50-100 yards when out PD hunting, and that was with centerfires from 250Y to 500Y+, the PD's get used to them. Helps with wind direction, speed, and gauging distance of course, and the farther away the distance is the harder it is to get good reads with a laser range finder on flat ground. I believe that's also called PD hunting and I bet there is less wounding and more killing happening.

I think another aspect that makes this match so hard is #1, most of us, including me, haven't learned which way to adjust our aim (up or down), or how much (up or down) to adjust our aim to depending on intensity, etc, of the wind. #2 if we don't know what's going on with the wind how are we going to make an adjustment up or down??? When I look at Mike N's two 100Y groups with pellets, the better group with 25 shots under a quarter with him aiming up and down depending on what the wind is doing, and the bigger one not aiming up and down, it is pretty telling how badly pellets are affected by vertical from wind. Right now I guess if we want higher hit percentages then we need bigger KZ's, no getting around it.
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My pdog shooting is strictly pest control. Not the sportsmanlike thing to say, but wounded is fine with me and ALL of the landowners who want em gone agree. 

I did see Mike Ns recent post showing the two groups at 100 yards, one just holding dead center, and the other adjusting aim point left and right and up and down for shifting winds. An eye-opener for sure, but not applicable to me and EFT for a couple reasons. First off, with my 20x scope, the kzs on anything out past about 70 yards are too small to be able to tell if I'm holding a half inch or so high or low. Second, I'm nowhere near stable enough from sticks to be able to have that much control. Nearly all of my shots are a much less exaggerated than offhand version of swinging through the target in all directions and just hoping the trigger will break at the time/location in the swinging that I want it to. I can see how holding a little higher or lower to account for the wind would be doable with a benchrest and higher magnification scope, but I won't be able to make that work in EFT. And that could entirely be a combination of my poor eyesight, $300 scope, lack of shooting sticks practice, less stability from bullpup, etc, etc, etc. 

All that being said, if I could find some time to practice with sticks I think my scores would improve. Others have said that practice somehow won't help improve the sticks/bucket shooting position, but I just must be less coordinated/physically genetically gifted as them in the hand/eye, muscle-memory area. 

And that gets us back to what I wondered aloud in my original post......is the position we're shooting from the accuracy-limiting factor? And if we were shooting from benchrests, with windflags, and rock steady rests, and 50x multi-thousand $ scopes would we be more likely to see the difference in BC between slugs and pellets having an effect on the scores? 
 
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Frank, 😊

Your posts are very insightful and "frank" if you excuse the pun. 👍🏼👍🏼



I have a somewhat related but more foundational question:



(1) Introduction:

So, I understand that in shooting competitions (PB + AG) there are often rules that limit the equipment being used. 

Because we want to make the competition more realistic to real life shooting, e.g., hunting, combat shooting, shooting with service weapons, etc.

Or because we want to make the competition more accessible for more shooters by using e.g., only unmodified guns, or only allowing certain modifications that are financially more accessible, or prohibiting special shooting clothes, etc.

Or because we want to extend the service life of the targets.

Makes all sense to me.





(2)❓ Question

But what's up with rules that limit the way you hold your gun? 🤔 

What purpose does a rule serve that obligates a shooter where he/she must put the offhand, or the buttstock, or whatever else? 🤔 

In my mind (with very limited understanding of competition shooting) it seems that does not give anybody an unfair advantage — everybody can put their hands and feet where they want to — usually we've all got them (outside of special olympics and the like).

And in hunting and combat shooting or self-defense, you can hold your gun however you like — as long as you can hit your target! ➔ So, why make rules for competition shooting, that originally started so people would get better at real life shooting (hunting, combat, self-defense)? 🤔

Again, a competition like FT requiring some forced positions makes total sense — because it simulates real life hunting, where not all shots can be taken prone — grass is often too high....

❓But why be so specific of how to hold and handle the gun?





😊 Please, bear with my ignorance and darken my dim mind (dim in the competition area, that is).

I live in Peru were airgun competitions are pretty much non-existent, so I have no beef in this. (Well, maybe I can get something started some day...! 😄).

Thanks!

Matthias
 
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Your positions are not the limiting factors.

The basic problem is that you have doubled the distance to the targets and only doubled the kz size. Wind drift squares by the distance. It does not double when you double the distance....it is 4x. So in essence....you are trying to shoot the equivalent of a 50y standard FT with a 3/4” KZ when you try to hit a 3” at 100.

What sort of percentage do you guys think you might get it you took a normal FT course and halved all the normal kzs?

Your 100y kz should be 4-5” if the better shooters are going to be able to knock them down with 90% regularity in average conditions. It’s better to view KZ sizes in mph of wind drift if you want them to be comparable. A 1.5” kz on a 50y target with a 20fpe gun is 5 mph wide...meaning you have a 2.5mph wind reading area on each side of center. That’s plenty difficult for even the best shooters. Your 3” kzs at 100 are 3 mph wide for the higher BC pellets.

Please try to read this without hearing me say it in the worst possible manner.

Mike
 
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@jungleshooter

"Why be so specific on how to hold and handle (shooting position) the gun?"

The long version can be found here: https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/extreme-ft-rules-and-positions

I'll take a stab at a shorter version. Among many other schools of thought regarding competitive airgun events, the two that are seemingly most at odds here are the following: the shooter who is willing to do ANYTHING to win, and the shooter who wants the competition to be fair for all participants. 

There is nothing "wrong" with either and both have pros and cons.

The "no limits to the lengths I'll go, financially, or otherwise" type shooter are the kind at that are at the bleeding edge of equipment, finances, and usually the rules. Those types are where the advancements are made. They're the ones dropping big coin investing in special barrels, their own slug molds, machining or machining fees, etc. These guys are learning new things about twist rates and BCs and slug shapes and, etc, etc, etc that will eventually end up in the guns that we are shooting in the future. I won't beat around the bush, the ridiculously stringent positional requirements that were imposed (by an almost unanimous vote of actual participants in EFT) were very specifically meant for these types. These are the guys that will shoot from a different position than the rest of the competitors if they think it gives them a competitive edge. They can't be bothered with silly things like etiquette and manners and ethics. WINNING. IS. EVERYTHING. If the rules don't explicitly ban something, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will be doing it, even if no other competitor is capable of doing the same. 

The "whoa whoa whoa, I want to win, but I wan't to do it in a fair manner" types are the other extreme. These are the guys that show up to a match, see that everyone is shooting from bucket/stool and sticks and decide that, "hey, when in Rome." These are the guys that enjoy spending time with like-minded individuals (airgun folks) and value their friendships enough that they don't want to piss everybody off by attempting to compete in questionable ways. These are the guys that are happy for their friend when he/she shoots the highest score at a match. Competing is fun for these types. These are the types of guys that are not pushing the envelope and are therefore NOT the guys that are likely to make large advancements in equipment or evolving the game. They like the game how it is and are having fun with it in it's current configuration. 






 
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Your positions are not the limiting factors.

The basic problem is that you have doubled the distance to the targets and only doubled the kz size. Wind drift squares by the distance. It does not double when you double the distance....it is 4x. So in essence....you are trying to shoot the equivalent of a 50y standard FT with a 3/4” KZ when you try to hit a 3” at 100.

What sort of percentage do you guys think you might get it you took a normal FT course and halved all the normal kzs?

Your 100y kz should be 4-5” if the better shooters are going to be able to knock them down with 90% regularity in average conditions. It’s better to view KZ sizes in mph of wind drift if you want them to be comparable. A 1.5” kz on a 50y target with a 20fpe gun is 5 mph wide...meaning you have a 2.5mph wind reading area on each side of center. That’s plenty difficult for even the best shooters. Your 3” kzs at 100 are 3 mph wide for the higher BC pellets.

Please try to read this without hearing me say it in the worst possible manner.

Mike
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Glad for your input Mike. 

Yes I agree, the target kill zone size relative to distance makes these competitions difficult. I personally like that the kz sizes and distances make this a hard event. The kz sizes and distances are non-changing variables for slug or pellet shooters though, within each monthly competition.

I like your wind drift examples and extrapolations. As usual, your technical knowledge is welcome and informative and almost always makes me think of things from a different perspective. Piggybacking off your concept of viewing kzs as xmph wide.....a better BC projectile should make the x in xmph wide kill zones higher. For example, a 0.07 BC slug might make a 3" kz @100 yrds 6mph wide. If a 0.05 BC pellet makes that same 3 incher @ 100 yards a 3mph wide kz, the slugs should be shooting better scores (higher wind speeds or more misread wind speeds and intensities gives more wiggle room to the slug shooter to get the pellet in the kz). Going another step down in performance, when I shot the 0.029ish BC 18.13gr JSB the first month, the hold-offs necessary made me feel like those 3 inch, 100 yard kzs were 0.1mph wide (10 inches of hold off on the long ones felt like if I misjudged the wind by the smallest degree I was going to not even hit the faceplate). 

The point of my starting this discussion is because I was hoping to see if anybody had any good theories as to why the better BC slugs aren't shooting better scores, on a regular basis, than the pellets.

If it's not position is it something like the barrels the slug shooters are using are really pellet barrels, products of decades of R&D? So, the slugs aren't as accurate as the pellets, but their better external ballistics profile (BC) makes their lesser inherent accuracy a wash when compared to the ballistic equivalent of badminton birdies (pellets) being fired from barrels that were designed to shoot badminton birdies (pellets). So, when shot from pellet barrels, slugs = less inherent accuracy but better BC and pellets equal better inherent accuracy but lower BC and the end result is basically equal final scores?
 
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I like the use of wind speed in showing the effective size KZ for our EFT targets.
I ran the numbers through Strelok Pro, using 100 yards and a 3 inch KZ. Below are typical pellets and slugs used in EFT competitions. This is worst case 90 degree wind from left to right in a gun with a right hand twist. MPH numbers are slightly higher (larger Effective KZ width) with a right to left wind. For example, the heavy 43.5 grain slug would be 8 mph vice 7. Interesting times in the air gun world.

.22 cal 18.1 gr JSB - 2.5 mph wide

.30 cal JSB 44 gr - 2.8 mph wide

.22 cal RD Monster - 3.5 mph wide

.25 cal King Heavy - 4 mph wide

.22 cal JSB KO slug - 6 mph wide

.25 cal NSA 43.5 gr slug- 7 mph wide


 
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Your positions are not the limiting factors.

The basic problem is that you have doubled the distance to the targets and only doubled the kz size. Wind drift squares by the distance. It does not double when you double the distance....it is 4x. So in essence....you are trying to shoot the equivalent of a 50y standard FT with a 3/4” KZ when you try to hit a 3” at 100.

What sort of percentage do you guys think you might get it you took a normal FT course and halved all the normal kzs?

Your 100y kz should be 4-5” if the better shooters are going to be able to knock them down with 90% regularity in average conditions. It’s better to view KZ sizes in mph of wind drift if you want them to be comparable. A 1.5” kz on a 50y target with a 20fpe gun is 5 mph wide...meaning you have a 2.5mph wind reading area on each side of center. That’s plenty difficult for even the best shooters. Your 3” kzs at 100 are 3 mph wide for the higher BC pellets.

Please try to read this without hearing me say it in the worst possible manner.

Mike
Click to expand...

I like the use of wind speed in showing the effective size KZ for our EFT targets.
I ran the numbers through Strelok Pro, using 100 yards and a 3 inch KZ. Below are typical pellets and slugs used in EFT competitions. This is worst case 90 degree wind from left to right in a gun with a right hand twist. MPH numbers are slightly higher (larger Effective KZ width) with a right to left wind. For example, the heavy 43.5 grain slug would be 8 mph vice 7. Interesting times in the air gun world.

.22 cal 18.1 gr JSB - 2.5 mph wide

.30 cal JSB 44 gr - 2.8 mph wide

.22 cal RD Monster - 3.5 mph wide

.25 cal King Heavy - 4 mph wide

.22 cal JSB KO slug - 6 mph wide

.25 cal NSA 43.5 gr slug- 7 mph wide

Click to expand...

Great stuff Mike N and Mike B. 

Mike B, I take it that the figures you posted would need to be halved since aiming in the middle would only allow 1/2 the error??/(.25 cal King Heavy - 4 mph wide = 2mph from center either way, then subtract 1/2 the width of the projectile), to avoid splits. Also when we are aiming on circle shapes "the higher or lower" we are off in dope, human error, and capable precision of the rifle/pellet/slug, it reduces the chances of a knockdown increasingly more.


 
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If you shoot a dozen 50y BR cards with slugs and the same with pellets you will quickly see why the scores with slugs are not higher....despite the higher BC. 

Slugs have a lot more erratic behavior and slugs have way more up and down. My pellet gun shoots very flat compared to KO slugs. I saw the KO slugs have almost a 40 degree slant in LW barrels in a 90 degree cross wind. There is a really good chance that if you sighted in with any kind of wind you are going to be high or low if you didn’t comp for that...Or you are going to see the bullet go high or low in wind even if you had it right. 


Because kzs are round....shooting higher or lower on them diminishes the kz width.

A simple experiment to determine if there is any validity to this theory would be to use square kzs of the same size and note the differences in hit rate. Since you are making your own targets , presumably on a CNC plasma table, that should not be difficult to conduct.

I proposed the square target idea a long time ago for standard FT so the need for a good ranging scope would not be necessary....but the sport already had traction and it was not going to change. You guys have the luxury of doing what you want.

Ultimately, the less determined guys will lose interest shooting 30% or less. Lowering the difficulty level will raise everyone’s scores and keep the less determined interested longer. This concept has been proven in the UK ft game over and over. It’s not speculation. They have no shortage of participation in ft events, and some venues continually made their courses more and more difficult. The attendance at those particular events plummeted over several months. People like success.

Mike





 
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Steve123

Great stuff Mike N and Mike B. 

Mike B, I take it that the figures you posted would need to be halved since aiming in the middle would only allow 1/2 the error??/(.25 cal King Heavy - 4 mph wide = 2mph from center either way, then subtract 1/2 the width of the projectile), to avoid splits. Also when we are aiming on circle shapes "the higher or lower" we are off in dope, human error, and capable precision of the rifle/pellet/slug, it reduces the chances of a knockdown increasingly more.
Click to expand...

Thanks Steve, and yes, your assumption is correct I would say though that IF you knew the wind direction you could hold left or right edge to effectively increase your mph KZ size vice aiming at the middle. Where we shoot EFT many times it is very hard to discern the actual wind direction and the constant shifting and swirling complicated matters even more.
 
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Thomasair

Slugs have a lot more erratic behavior and slugs have way more up and down. My pellet gun shoots very flat compared to KO slugs. I saw the KO slugs have almost a 40 degree slant in LW barrels in a 90 degree cross wind. There is a really good chance that if you sighted in with any kind of wind you are going to be high or low if you didn’t comp for that…Or you are going to see the bullet go high or low in wind even if you had it right. 
———————————————————-
Mike, do you see this in all slugs? Do the bullets shot from a .22 Rimfire do this? Or is this just your observation for a commercial slug shot from a pellet barrel?

Its an interesting question since you have gone to slugs at 50Y BR, so obviously they can be very accurate as you have demonstrated here on AGN. Thanks for your input.


 
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Tried every slug available under the sun in close to 20 different barrels and found them all to be considerably less accurate than pellets in the long term. Some would shine for short periods of time and quickly lose their luster. Erratic is the best description. Mostly useless for 50y BR. My own slugs do not suffer from the same problem from the barrels I’m using....but it still takes a lot of effort to keep things humming along. It’s a whole package...not just one thing.

I don’t personally have any experience with 22 Rimfire BR...but happen to know some of the best in the country. 22rf can be incredibly accurate with one lot of a particular ammo, and a complete dud with most everything else. You can buy a championship winning rifle, but if you don’t get the ammo it likes....you are dead in the water. In the case of Steve and Mike shooting RF....I would like to see how their rifles and currently used ammo would do on 5-6 50y BR cards. I’m not trying to be insulting at all, but I bet they do not fare very well...and not because their rifles are not good or because they are not personally capable. Without the magic ammo, there is no magic... and great RF rifles become very mediocre. The ARA factory Rimfire class 100 ring is .850” in diameter. All you have to do is put a bullet inside the ring and you get a 100. It’s fairly rare to see perfect cards, though. A couple big fliers are common per card and not too many bullets in the center....and those are the guys that have it together pretty well.

Mike 
 
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I like the use of wind speed in showing the effective size KZ for our EFT targets.
I ran the numbers through Strelok Pro, using 100 yards and a 3 inch KZ. Below are typical pellets and slugs used in EFT competitions. This is worst case 90 degree wind from left to right in a gun with a right hand twist. MPH numbers are slightly higher (larger Effective KZ width) with a right to left wind. For example, the heavy 43.5 grain slug would be 8 mph vice 7. Interesting times in the air gun world.

.22 cal 18.1 gr JSB - 2.5 mph wide

.30 cal JSB 44 gr - 2.8 mph wide

.22 cal RD Monster - 3.5 mph wide

.25 cal King Heavy - 4 mph wide

.22 cal JSB KO slug - 6 mph wide

.25 cal NSA 43.5 gr slug- 7 mph wide

Click to expand...

Nice Mike. 

This is what I've been trying to say. Those Strelok #s are suggesting that the slugs you were shooting would still hit kz in a 7mph wind, while the pellets I was shooting would hit kz in a 3.5mph wind and be a complete miss if I held thinking I had less that 3.5mph but actually had any wind speed greater than that. Your fired slug should still knock down the target, in twice as much wind as my fired pellet. Or, thought of another way, the slugs SHOULD afford an advantage over pellets by allowing the slug shooter to make more errors in assessing the wind at trigger break. But that isn't evident in the EFT scores.

So, there's something else at play and, regardless of what the the industry is selling us, I think that it may be that the slugs simply aren't as accurate/precise as pellets at these < 100 yard distances. If slugs are simply less accurate, but have better ballistics, the end result is that slugs and pellets are shooting very similar scores. 

Will be very interesting to see if this changes as the matches go forward. 
 
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Franklink,

thanks for your helpful explanation a few posts above. 😊

(here: https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/the-trend-towards-slugs/page/2/#post-924689 )



And for the link to the main discussion — yes, I was interested enough to start reading that thread with post 1....

And over several breaks I had during the day I was able to finish it.... 🤣



Wow, designing a game that is also a competition is a complicated matter — and sometimes it's our underlying philosophies that cause the larger differences between what we consider "best design" or "best rules."



I appreciate the nuances, and the widespread civility of that long discussion, cool that we can agree to disagree. 👍🏼 😊



Matthias




 
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