Benjamin Fortitude Accuracy

[amsuter]

Hey y'all,

I'm new to air gunning but am an experienced rifle shooter. I picked up a Fortitude and scope. I've been trying to put shots (350ish so far) through it to break it in. So far, accuracy isn't amazing. The fit and finish of the gun/stock aren't great, either, which I suspect isn't helping my accuracy. 

Are there things I can do? If it was a centerfire I'd be bedding the stock. Is that a thing with air guns? Should I just keep culling pellets and trying to break it in?

If you have suggestions or if there's another thread you can point me towards, I'd be grateful. 

Thanks for helping out a newbie

 

[pnwairgunner]

Each individual barrel will like a particular pellet more than others. I would suggest starting with cleaning your barrel, and then buying as many different types and weights of pellets as you can and then begin shooting groups with each to see what your Fortitude likes. 

Jsb 15’s and 18’s shoot VERY well in our Fortitude .22

Keep in mind that pellets are very affected by wind. The lighter they are, the more the wind moves them. 

A wooden stock from a Benjamin Discovery fits the Fortitude perfectly and if you want to spend the extra dough on it...Boyd’s gunstocks have some nice options for it. I’m not a fan of the plastic hollow stock either. 

I recommend using a couple wraps of electrical tape around the shroud where it goes through the barrel band to snug it up and remove the slop there. You’ll benefit more from doing this than you are benefiting from the free floating shrouded barrel that has too much flex and wiggle to maintain POI. 

I don’t know what quality scope you have mounted on it, but quite often folks will buy a nice air rifle and mount an el’ cheapo scope on it and complain about accuracy problems and poi shifts and they assume it is the rifle. A lot of the time it is the crap scope they’ve stuck on it. 

And finally, the trigger isn’t great on the Fortitude, but there are ways to improve it by doing a little research on the forums. 

Do you have a gen 1 Fortitude or does it have a G2 after the serial number?

 

[amsuter]

Thanks for all this. 

It's Gen 2. When I bought it, I worked the trigger according to some youtube videos I found. It's not like it's match-grade but I've done enough shooting to know that's not my biggest problem. I also bedded the end of the air tube in the stock so that's not slopping around. 

The float of the barrel in the band has flummoxed me since I got it. There's so much play. What you're saying makes a lot of sense. I almost did something like that when I got it, but I didn't know if there was some airgun thing I didn't know about. 

Scope is a centerpoint 4x16 that came with it. I'm putting a Nikon on it at some point. I'm not getting a wandering zero, so I haven't rushed on that. 

I've been working my way through a bunch of sampler kits. So far the Air Arms Diablo shoot the best. Generally, it seems to like 18's more than 14's. 

I've also been cleaning about every 100 shots. Should I be doing more often than that? Do you do brushes, patches, cleaning pellets?

I've attached two targets from my notebook. The top is the best group I've gotten at 30 yards (furthest I can shoot at my house). Bottom is pretty typical - most groups look something like that. I've still got about 10 types of pellets to try.

How much do you think the break-in period is affecting it?

 

[biohazardman]

If I were to do it after finding the pellets it liked best I would start tuning with the hammer spring in 1/4 turns at a time to find the speed it likes to shoot that specific pellet most accurately. If you got a decent barrel it will do even better than what you have shown us. I have a 2260 barrel that will do MOA groups at 100 yards a good portion of the time.

 

[amsuter]

Thanks to you both for the advice!

I cleaned the heck out of it last night. I think I was under the mistaken impression that it wouldn't get that dirty since there's no powder fouling. Between that and taking the slop out of the barrel band fit, I expect to get a little improvement. 

 

[MJS]

 

Welcome!

As far as cleaning goes:

I push (not fire) cleaning pellets soaked in Ballistol thru the barrel of my Maximus until they come out clean, then I push patches thru. I don't use brushes. The rifle was really accurate right after the initial cleaning with no lengthy break-in necessary.

FWIW - A lot of people have good luck with Crosman Premier Hollow pts and domes in their Benjamin PCP's. I have good luck with those and JSB 15's.

I'll be following this post as I am considering a Gen 2 Fortitude.

 

[amsuter]

I can already tell it likes domes. Pointed/extreme tips spread the groups out dramatically. 

I will be sure to add more pictures to let you know how it's coming along, since you're considering getting one. I'm definitely not unhappy with it. Feeling pretty confident I can get it shooting how I want. 

 

[bearair]

I just shot a plastic golf ball at 50 yards with mine this afternoon lol. Funny to come in and find this thread. Welcome to AGN and welcome to airgunning. The rabbit hole is harmless! Come on it. I will be sending you a PM and let you know all the mods I have done to my Fortitude and what I have seen so far with my limited shooting distance. Two real good guys to ask questions would be Fuzzygrub and vdwb on AGN. Good luck.

 

[pnwairgunner]

I would suggest just doing the initial cleaning by pulling patches through with ballistol, until the patches come through clean. Then do your testing of all kinds of different pellets. Choose the one or two types that your rifle likes and stick with them. Then clean the barrel only when your accuracy starts to fade. 

Your 30 yard groups are not horrible but not awesome either. Does your Fortitude sound a little loud around the receiver when you shoot? Broken or missing transfer port orings happen and it will give inconsistent accuracy. A beginner to the hobby wouldn’t notice anything was amiss. The Fortitude we have actually was missing the upper transfer port o ring but I installed one and fixed the problem myself. Waaaay quieter.

I believe if you do the tape trick on the shroud you’ll notice an immediate improvement. Hit up Pyramydair and stock up on an assortment of different ammo! Buy 3 get 1 free! 

 

[amsuter]

Y'all. I'm a little perplexed. 

After my last round of culling, I cleaned the heck out of the barrel until I was getting pure white patches. I put a wrap of tape around the shroud under the barrel band and everything snugged up. 

I shot it today and it was spraying all over the place. Even pellets that it usually liked. The only comforting thing is it shot a nice group with AA Diablo, which it has always seemed to like best. 

You think it's worth taking apart to see about those o-rings? It doesn't make sense to me that it shoots worse cleaned & without play. 

 

[JadedC]

When you clean a barrel really thoroughly as you did it usually takes 20-50 shots to season the barrel again. Wild groups are common directly after cleaning. 

 

[amsuter]

That makes me feel better. I'll get some rounds through it and get back to trying pellets. 

PNW's comment has me thinking I need to tear it down and check o-rings. 

If my groups never get better than what it's doing with Air Arms Diablos, I can still hunt with it. I'd still like to tighten up a little bit, though. 

 

[amsuter]

I've still been messing with my Fortitude and really have it in a good place right now. I have no buyer's remorse. For the money I think it's exceeding reasonable expectations. Dispatched a pest in the garden last week at nearly the full length of my yard (was trying to get away and I finally got him!). 

I'm going to keep tuning to see if I can tighten up the groups via the hammer spring. I splurged for a Nikon scope because I think the gun is worth it. Next step is to get some squirrel hunting permissions for this Fall! 

Thanks to all of you for helping out a rookie. I really appreciate it. 

 

[MileHighAirGunner]

I think the trigger on the Fortitude (Disco, Maximus as well) is the limiting factor in these rifles. If you really like the Fortitude and want to keep it maybe consider upgrading to the Challenger/MRod trigger. I have a Disco that I bought at a very reasonable price that I wanted to use as a project gun and play around with but couldn’t stand the OEM trigger. And I’m not a trigger snob really. But I couldn’t shoot the Disco very well with the OEM trigger. I tried the brass trigger from Baker Airguns and didn’t like it any better. So I put the Challenger/MRod trigger on and it made all the difference when shooting it. When I got a Fortitude I did the same thing with it. Most people would say to buy a Marauder before buy a Fortitude and upgrade the trigger and they’d have a valid point but I got a really good deal on the Fortitude that I couldn’t pass it up. Upgrading the trigger just makes the rifle that much better and I felt it was worth it for what I had invested in the Fortitude. You do have the modify the Fortitude stock somewhat for the trigger but it’s easy enough to do.

Just something to consider. 

 

[scratchcoobster]

Yeah, I like my Foritude but would certainly be interested in the mods bearair is talking about. Just seems to need a little tightening up.

 

[amsuter]

So far all the adjusting I've done to my Fortitude has been free stuff - just tuning. I put set screws and replaced the spring on the factory trigger and it's very shootable. I'm sure a metal trigger & assembly would be better, but this trigger isn't limiting my accuracy. Per Pnwairgunner, I put a wrap of electrical tape around the barrel under the band to eliminate slop. The other thing I did was I bedded the end of the stock to the air tube and put a couple little magnets down in the epoxy. Now the end of the stock fits the tube like a glove and those magnets grab it since there's only one bolt holding the stock on. 

I may do some of these mods, but the real appeal of the Fortitude for me was getting a serviceable 50 yard gun for $300. I think I have that. As y'all point out, it's only up from here.