Great shooting with the .25 cal Jim!
I have a few 2024 leaderboard submissions from today. I shot my RTI Prophets - they are currently set up as a .177 and a .22.
It was nice temp for February here - 50F - but it was very breezy most all day - so I’m very happy with these cards. Especially since I had not shot either Prophet in weeks.
30-Challenge: 193 8X with .177 Prophet
30-Challenge: 197 15X with .22 Prophet
30-Masters: 199 17X with .22 Prophet
Wish I could swap my one sighter on the 199 Masters card for the “9” - the sighter was at least a 10, lol.
-Ed
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All are great cards here Ed.
Looks like the .22 18.1g squeaked out a slight edge in scoring over the .177 13.4g. I’m guessing the wind accounted for that a bit. You guys got a little snow, huh!
Your RTI guns are accurate and shooting well.
Can’t let snow or wind or cold keep us 30-Yard Challenge shooters from shooting…
… get some lead downrange Gentlemen!!
-Ed
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Hi Guys,
Did manage to shoot one 40 yd card today - in a 15-mph gusty breeze. The vertical spread on the shots was like 10mm CTC (<1 MOA), but the horizontal spread was wild! Gave up trying to read the gusts and just shot. This (below) is what you get! That's all 24 shots. I think it was a 174-7x.
Cheers,
Greg
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what equipment do i need to do prints like this one ? Stan in KYHi Guys,
Did manage to shoot one 40 yd card today - in a 15-mph gusty breeze. The vertical spread on the shots was like 10mm CTC (<1 MOA), but the horizontal spread was wild! Gave up trying to read the gusts and just shot. This (below) is what you get! That's all 24 shots. I think it was a 174-7x.
Cheers,
Greg
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Yep, that the .22 Crown with the 18.1 gr FX pellets. The interesting thing is that with all that wind (mainly from my 4 o'clock but swirling around my house) there wasn't any spiraling. With the .177 shooting the 13.4's I get off and on spirals at 40 yds with a 3-5 mph quartering wind. I was also pretty consistently hitting my 72 yd spinner (2 inch) with a hold of almost 2 MOA right. I think the misses were spirals.Great vertical spread Greg. I assume that is .22 FX Crown at 40 yards?
On a less windy day, with a vertical that tight, you could shoot 198+ with that rifle at 40.
Well Stan, you need to kind of anal and retired to spend the time to do that. These shots are part of an experiment I am doing to see if sorting pellets helps. I measure the head size and weight of each pellet, then I shoot it and record the velocity and POI of each pellet. To do that I measure the distance from the target center to my best guess for the POI center (horizontal and vertical) +/- .25mm. Then plot in Excel. The pic in my message is just the graph from Excel saves as a .png file.what equipment do i need to do prints like this one ? Stan in KY
ok thanks . I am sort of anal and i am retired so i qualify ! but i came to the same conclusion , not worth the time sorting . Now i need to qualify this statement . when i shoot a competition target i weigh size and roll test to get the same pellets for that target . i have found that when sorting one ends up with several piles of like pellets . in my finding it does not matter if i shoot from pile A or pile B , C , as long as all shot from the same pile .Well Stan, you need to kind of anal and retired to spend the time to do that. These shots are part of an experiment I am doing to see if sorting pellets helps. I measure the head size and weight of each pellet, then I shoot it and record the velocity and POI of each pellet. To do that I measure the distance from the target center to my best guess for the POI center (horizontal and vertical) +/- .25mm. Then plot in Excel. The pic in my message is just the graph from Excel saves as a .png file.
I would be happy to send you the spreadsheet I use to do this if you want. I am getting near the end of my experiment and will share my results. It is looking like it makes no difference to spend the time sorting.
Cheers,
Greg
I have seen Olympic videos of targets made in real time looking the same as your print . probably more than i would want to spend hahaWell Stan, you need to kind of anal and retired to spend the time to do that. These shots are part of an experiment I am doing to see if sorting pellets helps. I measure the head size and weight of each pellet, then I shoot it and record the velocity and POI of each pellet. To do that I measure the distance from the target center to my best guess for the POI center (horizontal and vertical) +/- .25mm. Then plot in Excel. The pic in my message is just the graph from Excel saves as a .png file.
I would be happy to send you the spreadsheet I use to do this if you want. I am getting near the end of my experiment and will share my results. It is looking like it makes no difference to spend the time sorting.
Cheers,
Greg
One vote for "the tune". Thanks for giving me credit for this idea, but I was really just passing on info I had gathered from lots of more experienced airgunners (Steve of AEAC, Geof of Sub12Airgunners, PJ of Wisconsin Airgunners, and a bunch more). I am working on trying to develop a way to relate the tuning adjustments to valve opening and dwell and then to pellet muzzle velocity (at least for my Crowns). Still a way to go - looking at things like the number of changes in direction for the air moving from the valve to the pellet, transfer port restrictions, and probe size and type). Winter nights are great for this kind of stuff.Tuning…
To me, “tuning” a regulated air rifle means finding the optimal balance between regulator pressure and hammer spring pre-load.
A while back in our TYC thread (now up to 104+ pages !), our TYC data guru Greg (NAProf) stated that he believed accuracy was more impacted by the “tune” of the rifle rather than the velocity the rifle was shooting the pellet. I understood this to mean when the rifle is in a state of balanced harmony, that is also when its most accurate.
I’ve been putting Greg’s theory to the test with my FX Power Pup. It started life as a .25 with 500mm barrel from the factory – with regulator around 140bar.
With a 500mm .22 barrel, I tuned the rifle until it was shooting very accurately. Eventually the tune had the regulator pressure at about 115-120bar (gauge is not detailed). The tune was super-efficient, shot count was way up and the rifle became very quiet. It was almost “silent” despite slinging FX 18.13g at 895-905 fps.
With this tune I tested Greg’s theory – by swapping different barrels onto the Power Pup – and changing nothing else (no reg adjustments or hammer spring adjustments).
Results with this 117bar regulator tune:
500mm .22 barrel: I shot a 200 16X 30-Challenge on 1/12/24 – FX 18.13g at 900fps
600mm .22 barrel: I shot a 198 10X 30-Masters on 2/3/24 – FX 18.13g at 955-963fps (!) – in the wind.
600mm .25 barrel: Today I shot a 198 10X 30-Masters on my first card with .25 barrel installed – FX 25.4g at 870fps (also shot 189 5x 40-Masters on next card after that - I lost all feeling in my fingers towards end of that card)
I did turn the hammer spring adjuster up 2-clicks for the .25 barrel – velocity increased from 855 to 875 fps with the 2 clicks. However, the paper plate shows that the original hammer spring setting also grouped extremely well – note that 5-shot groups with both velocity settings were sub ½” at 30 yards (see paper plate photo)!
So, Greg’s theory that the tune (balance) is more important than velocity when working to find a rifle’s best accuracy seems to prove out by me & the Power Pup.
Tuned reg and hammer spring until I had a great shooting .22 500mm, stuck on a 600mm .22 barrel and it continued to shoot great – even at very high velocity. Then stuck a 600mm .25 cal barrel on it and it still shoots insanely tiny groups and great scores – from the very first card – in the freezing cold and wind, lol.
Including some photos of my shooting conditions when I shot these groups and the 198 30-Masters card today - note ice on shooting table top. Biggest challenge is not killing myself slipping on the wet ice building up by the back door leading out to my “range”, lol.
So, what do you guys think? Is it the “tune” or is it the velocity that dictates best accuracy for a pellet?
-Ed
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