I owned a RTI Prophet Performance Gen 1 .22 LR which was the most accurate rifle I have ever owned, up until I got my Thomas HPX. Sadly I have owned and sold way to many air guns and none of them could beat the prophet for accuracy so they were sold. After I got my HPX the Prophet began collecting dust and I eventually sold it to one of the guys who shoots with us in our N50 matches. He kept after me to sell it so I did sell it to him on one condition, that if he ever decided to sell it that I would get first chance to buy it back. Looking back, I regretted selling the Prophet and it’s one rifle I wish I still owned. Recently I found another one here in the AGN classifieds and bought it just to see if my first one was just a fluke or if there really is something special about those rifles?
I received my Prophet #2 a few days ago so I scoped it and took it to the range today to see how it shot. I still had my notes from my first Prophet so I set the tune to shoot the same as my #1. To my surprise this one is a shooter, a very VERY good shooter which brought a sigh of relief and an afternoon of smiles.
I wasn't expecting too much because it was pretty windy, 12 MPH with gusts to 22. I was paitient and watched my flags and chose my shots carefully. I shot a selection of .22 MRDs from JSB, FX, Rangemaster, AEA and JTS And also the JSB Grands. All of the JSB variants shot very well but the rifle did not like the AEA and JTS offerings.
I used an FX tuner on my previous Prophet and it worked quite well. It takes a lot of time to find its happy place but once you do find it the results speak for themselves. Here is an example where the group on the left was shot and then I moved the tuner two hash marks and the right target shows the results. Its crazy how the groups shrink and expand as you search for the best anti-node that the barrel is happy with.
These are 5 shot groups all shot at 50 yards.
This is just one example that some of the older rifle designs are just as good or perhaps even better than the newest shiny designs with all the extra knobs, buttons, bells and whistles. Although YMMV…
I received my Prophet #2 a few days ago so I scoped it and took it to the range today to see how it shot. I still had my notes from my first Prophet so I set the tune to shoot the same as my #1. To my surprise this one is a shooter, a very VERY good shooter which brought a sigh of relief and an afternoon of smiles.
I wasn't expecting too much because it was pretty windy, 12 MPH with gusts to 22. I was paitient and watched my flags and chose my shots carefully. I shot a selection of .22 MRDs from JSB, FX, Rangemaster, AEA and JTS And also the JSB Grands. All of the JSB variants shot very well but the rifle did not like the AEA and JTS offerings.
I used an FX tuner on my previous Prophet and it worked quite well. It takes a lot of time to find its happy place but once you do find it the results speak for themselves. Here is an example where the group on the left was shot and then I moved the tuner two hash marks and the right target shows the results. Its crazy how the groups shrink and expand as you search for the best anti-node that the barrel is happy with.
These are 5 shot groups all shot at 50 yards.
This is just one example that some of the older rifle designs are just as good or perhaps even better than the newest shiny designs with all the extra knobs, buttons, bells and whistles. Although YMMV…
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