Why all the .30 cal at RMAC? What happened to .22 and .25?

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Centercut

Centercut

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Was just thinking about RMAC 100 yard event, and just how different it was than the 100 at EBR, or the 100 from previous (2016 or 2017) EBR with regards to caliber.

So, for 2016, and even 2017, .25 caliber seemed to be the hot ticket. Shooters also shot .30, but there were quite a few .25, made famous by Ted and his 835 FPS claims, backed up by a win in 2016. The rationale was that the .25 heavy pellets had a significant BC advantage to the 44.75 grain .30 caliber pellets, so less affected by the wind.

Fast forward to EBR 2018, and "everyone" was shooting .22 JSB RD Monsters at 950 FPS - granted, some Impacts and Crowns were shooting .30, perhaps 50/50.. Was this because of a perceived advantage (they have about the same BC as the .25 heavies), and can shoot faster. So Claudio wins with the .22 RD Monsters. Could a reason have been the newly formed "one gun challenge", or the Wolf Pack where all we saw was a sea of Red...? Who can say?

Fast forward again to RMAC. Almost all .30, shooting 44.75 grain JSB (or 46 grain FX) pellets. Why? Anyone could have shot .25 Heavy, or .22 RD Monsters, but went with the .30, despite the fact that the .30 has an inferior BC compared to both the .25 Heavy 34 grain or the .22 RD Monster 25.4 grain. So is it consistency in the wind? Perhaps they are more affected due to lower BC, but are affected more consistently  than the smaller pellets? In this case there was no monetary reason to shoot the .30, no one gun challenge, no Wolf Pack, just a sea of Impacts that could be tuned to shoot .30, .25, and .22 interchangeably, whichever the shooter felt would perform the best - and 90% chose .30. 

SO WHY .30 CALIBER???
 
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I love .30 caliber, that’s all I use for anything above 100 yards. It bucks the wind great, and carries plenty of energy even at 200 yards, plus if you push them towards 100 FPE it’s a monster!

Matt 
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Very cool... We were shooting at RMAC in wind that I would not have hunted in. There were times that the .30 pellet moved up to 4 MIL at 100 yards... ;(
 
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I think it is like you said. .30 cal doesn’t have the higher bc but they are very stable in flight and so are predictable in the wind. They will be moved around more than the “heavy” pellets but easier to work out where it will go. 

There weren’t many .30’s at ebr last year but they very competitive in the 100y event. So was Ted with I think the only .25cal?

Michael
 
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Yes, it's about consistency of the wind. I shot .22 at RMAC and watched my pellets fly straight for about 60 yards, then do a loopty loop and land 12+ inches off from the previous 2 shots. I was listening and watching for changes in the wind out there since it was SO hard to deal with. 

I even shot in what may have been the calmest round of the first 2 days and my pellets were flying like I soaked them in Jack Daniels! No, I didn't actually soak them in it. BUT.... hmmm. On that day, it seemed like there were phantom breezes rolling through with very dense air. 

I'm not making excuses either. I'll own up to a stupid mistake or not holding for wind. But, what I was experiencing on the line out there really had me scratching my head.

Tom 
 
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This is my uneducated GUESS!, let me say this first I’ve never competed with anything but a .177 @ short range, but I have both.22hp and a standard .30 of another manufacturer and the .30 44gr. @ 860-880fps seems to stabilize sooner after leaving the barrel plus stays stabile even in varying conditions on way to target “even @ 100yds plus”, then the pellets themselves (at this time anyway!) seem to be more consistent from lot to lot from JSB, now another factor is with a double bottle fx impact gives more volume of air therefore more time between fills giving the shooter more time getting into a rhythm & concentrating on conditions etc. now I know everything is about BC! but predictability&repeatability brings confidence in my gun/ammo combo and that ranks top for me!


 
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Watching the weather at the base of a canyon in the Rockies is a waist of time! Prepare for unstable, unpredictable wind in multiple directions. I shot 22 cal RD last year and they did pretty well, but with all the thermals in the scope, I really struggled with seeing sighter and target holes, I don’t think I was alone because I have never seen so many multi shot targets or targets that didn’t get shot at all? Everyone’s gun will shoot moa or close, but throw in that 4 mil wind and crazy parallax, I’ll take that big hole and stable 44 grn, I would have really liked to shoot the 25 34 grn just to quantify my madness? Would have been fun!
 
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Jayson.

I think you hit part of the nail's head. Some of the complaints the .22 shooters had was not seeing their hits with the thermal drafts. The other problem I was dealing with was the crazy wind shifts. The wind flags were all pointing in different directions. I would send a pellet down to test and my next several pellets would be right, left, high, and low.
 
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There should be some very interesting differences in the competition this year firstly because FX are not going to EBR, so I presume Matt & Ted won't be there (Giles either) unless they plan to pay for their own travel accomadation etc. etc.who knows?

For .30 the IMPACT is easy but there are very few .30 Daystates out there, the .25 Safari may be more evident and the new .25 barrel is amazing to say the least combined with the extra power from the new board and it should be more competetive, Claudio had very limited time to get to know the Safari before he competed at RMAC.

Also would scoring outward affect the shooters decision to use a .30?
 
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Also would scoring outward affect the shooters decision to use a .30?
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Why would they score outward? They score inward just like every other airgun tournament in the USA.
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Because outward makes it more difficult, here BR would be scored outward, only action style comps, Bianchi 1500 would score inwards, so shooters lean toward 44's for a bigger hole but at the cost of more recoil.
 
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I thought I saw some wolf pack shirts in the RMAC photos. Maybe FX corporate won’t show up but I don’t see why people like Ted, Matt, Giles, etc would skip. It’s great publicity for their channels if nothing else.
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Agree. FX may or may not be a major sponsor for EBR, but I’m pretty sure all their sponsored shooters will be there to compete against the .25 Daystate Safaris that will be there in force. Plus all of the other shooters not sponsored that shoot FX guns. 
 
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