Having discussed this many times with different people, Franklink and I came up with a tentative plan and this is the first attempt to try to learn if the BARREL really can make a difference in the wind and if so... why and can it be measured. Now understand, this is going to be a somewhat extended learning experience and things will likely change as it progresses.
I chose this title because some have indicated in other threads that they would rather just shoot and are not interested in WHY things are like they are. If it doesn't interest you... PLEASE feel free to go on to other threads. I welcome input as it's a complicated subject but posting to show your indifference isn't productive.
So...
I chose 177 to start as I have many accurate and proven rifles and chose the 10.3 JSB to be shot in all except one even though it may not be the preferred pellet for some. The exception is a 13 ft lb AA RN10 from the mid nineties because it has proven to hang with the 20 ft lb rifles even though it's shooting an 8.4 @ 850. Now this rifle really is the biggest reason that this whole thing has been on my mind for years but Franklink's USFT and my USFT are big parts of the discussion as well. As I get through this, please keep in mind that the targets were shot carefully, but ultimate accuracy was not the goal because the pellet may not be the best for a particular barrel. I have 13 rifle/barrel combos that are proven capable of winning in FT and several would be competitive in Benchrest.
In no particular order, they are: DS Safari with choked and unchoke polygonal barrels, DS Delta Wolf with 17" standard rifled and 23" choked poly, DS Tsar w unchoked poly, DS CRX ST standard rifled, Air Arms RN10 with 19" standard rifled shooting 8.4s, USFT with 23" choked poly, BSA Goldstar with standard rifled, Air Arms ProTarget with 23" standard rifled, DS Wolverine R with 17" standard rifled, Steyr LG100 with original Steyr standard rifled, and Theoben Rapid 17 with 23" standard rifled.
The first attept was to shoot 25 shots at 50 yards with the same poa through all 25. The hope was to see if some would spread more than others as the wind changed. As you can see in the photos, real difference may be difficult to discern but some, like the USFT had much less vertical and the horizontal was somewhat less as well. Peak wind was likely around 8 mph and the 2 outliers on the USFT were during a couple of these gusts. The wind varied pretty much 360 degrees on both cards and is responsible for much of the vertical as all of these are quite consistent.
Now I had a TOUGH time editing the LabRadar data as it is SLOOOOWWWW with many glitches but the process was to delete the faulty data so as not to skew the results . The faulty data results when the tracking process goes awry and there is bad or no data in some of the yardage captures. This was why I chose to do 25 shots... to have plenty remaining after the editing. Please note that this was not an attempt to manipulate data, just get rid of faults.
So @Franklink took the spreadsheet data and processed it for me to give this list of rifles based on best to worst bc. There are some things to note but at this point, I need to sign off and will post more as I can. If you see me at EBR, definitely say hello and give me your thoughts.
In Franklink's spreadsheet, there are 2 entries for the USFT. Note above that 1 is at 923 ft/sec average and the other is at 890 ft/sec average. It's pretty interesting that this corroborates the general wisdom that is disseminated on this site about 890 ft/sec being about the best place for tradeoff between velocity and bc. Also, I intended as much as possible for the rifles to be in the 880 to 900 ft/sec range but some, like the Tsar, were not able to get there and I did not try to tune any extensively. Mostly, this was just where they were from last competition use. Also, the Goldstar data is missing from the current spreadsheet but suffice to say, it was quite good and maybe upper middle of the pack. This was one of my LabRadar fights. With regard to that, there are 2 target sheets because somewhere along the way, all my first files were lost. I tried to center up the shots on the second one better but the wind was blowing quite a bit so not perfect. So I shot 325 shots for record plus sighters on the cards and the LabRadar gives the results in a .csv form that I will have to convert to be able to post. I will try to do this soon as it is interesting.
Another interesting thing is that mostly, the polygonal bores were at the top. Two very strange results were that BlueBaby (ProTarget - wife's previous comp rifle) was so high with an HW standard rifled barrel and that the CRX was so low with a LW standard rifled barrel... both 12 groove. Also, the ProTarget, RN10, Steyr, and USFT had direct loaded pellets with air coming directly from behind rather than below. The remainder are all bolt inserted. Note that the Theoben is an HW standard rifled and the Steyr is the original factory hammer forged standard rifled barrel (absolutely like a mirror inside).
I also wanted to add that some of these really stand out in firing behavior. Overall, I'd give most pleasant to the Wolverine with the Safari at this power very close behind. The Steyr seems to have the fastest "snap" of a shot cycle with RN10 and ProTarget close. The USFT and Theoben seemed slowest by my perception. It was pretty nice sitting down and revisiting these gems since I mostly have been focused on the Delta Wolf for a while.
Bob
View attachment ORDERED BY HIGHEST BC (RIGHT COLUMN).docx
I chose this title because some have indicated in other threads that they would rather just shoot and are not interested in WHY things are like they are. If it doesn't interest you... PLEASE feel free to go on to other threads. I welcome input as it's a complicated subject but posting to show your indifference isn't productive.
So...
I chose 177 to start as I have many accurate and proven rifles and chose the 10.3 JSB to be shot in all except one even though it may not be the preferred pellet for some. The exception is a 13 ft lb AA RN10 from the mid nineties because it has proven to hang with the 20 ft lb rifles even though it's shooting an 8.4 @ 850. Now this rifle really is the biggest reason that this whole thing has been on my mind for years but Franklink's USFT and my USFT are big parts of the discussion as well. As I get through this, please keep in mind that the targets were shot carefully, but ultimate accuracy was not the goal because the pellet may not be the best for a particular barrel. I have 13 rifle/barrel combos that are proven capable of winning in FT and several would be competitive in Benchrest.
In no particular order, they are: DS Safari with choked and unchoke polygonal barrels, DS Delta Wolf with 17" standard rifled and 23" choked poly, DS Tsar w unchoked poly, DS CRX ST standard rifled, Air Arms RN10 with 19" standard rifled shooting 8.4s, USFT with 23" choked poly, BSA Goldstar with standard rifled, Air Arms ProTarget with 23" standard rifled, DS Wolverine R with 17" standard rifled, Steyr LG100 with original Steyr standard rifled, and Theoben Rapid 17 with 23" standard rifled.
The first attept was to shoot 25 shots at 50 yards with the same poa through all 25. The hope was to see if some would spread more than others as the wind changed. As you can see in the photos, real difference may be difficult to discern but some, like the USFT had much less vertical and the horizontal was somewhat less as well. Peak wind was likely around 8 mph and the 2 outliers on the USFT were during a couple of these gusts. The wind varied pretty much 360 degrees on both cards and is responsible for much of the vertical as all of these are quite consistent.
Now I had a TOUGH time editing the LabRadar data as it is SLOOOOWWWW with many glitches but the process was to delete the faulty data so as not to skew the results . The faulty data results when the tracking process goes awry and there is bad or no data in some of the yardage captures. This was why I chose to do 25 shots... to have plenty remaining after the editing. Please note that this was not an attempt to manipulate data, just get rid of faults.
So @Franklink took the spreadsheet data and processed it for me to give this list of rifles based on best to worst bc. There are some things to note but at this point, I need to sign off and will post more as I can. If you see me at EBR, definitely say hello and give me your thoughts.
In Franklink's spreadsheet, there are 2 entries for the USFT. Note above that 1 is at 923 ft/sec average and the other is at 890 ft/sec average. It's pretty interesting that this corroborates the general wisdom that is disseminated on this site about 890 ft/sec being about the best place for tradeoff between velocity and bc. Also, I intended as much as possible for the rifles to be in the 880 to 900 ft/sec range but some, like the Tsar, were not able to get there and I did not try to tune any extensively. Mostly, this was just where they were from last competition use. Also, the Goldstar data is missing from the current spreadsheet but suffice to say, it was quite good and maybe upper middle of the pack. This was one of my LabRadar fights. With regard to that, there are 2 target sheets because somewhere along the way, all my first files were lost. I tried to center up the shots on the second one better but the wind was blowing quite a bit so not perfect. So I shot 325 shots for record plus sighters on the cards and the LabRadar gives the results in a .csv form that I will have to convert to be able to post. I will try to do this soon as it is interesting.
Another interesting thing is that mostly, the polygonal bores were at the top. Two very strange results were that BlueBaby (ProTarget - wife's previous comp rifle) was so high with an HW standard rifled barrel and that the CRX was so low with a LW standard rifled barrel... both 12 groove. Also, the ProTarget, RN10, Steyr, and USFT had direct loaded pellets with air coming directly from behind rather than below. The remainder are all bolt inserted. Note that the Theoben is an HW standard rifled and the Steyr is the original factory hammer forged standard rifled barrel (absolutely like a mirror inside).
I also wanted to add that some of these really stand out in firing behavior. Overall, I'd give most pleasant to the Wolverine with the Safari at this power very close behind. The Steyr seems to have the fastest "snap" of a shot cycle with RN10 and ProTarget close. The USFT and Theoben seemed slowest by my perception. It was pretty nice sitting down and revisiting these gems since I mostly have been focused on the Delta Wolf for a while.
Bob
View attachment ORDERED BY HIGHEST BC (RIGHT COLUMN).docx
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