Other Cold shot accuracy

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jmohme

jmohme

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Jun 8, 2021
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Texas, United States
A few weeks ago I was reading through the "Whats your most onsitently accurate airgun?" thread. Regulator creep andcold shot accuracy was brought up. So this got me wondering and I decided to do a little test with my RTI Prophet Performance with a .25 RPB barrel installed.
I have my Prophet tuned to shoot JSB 33.95gr King Heavys at an average of 920 fps. My target board is set at 50 yards with 3 inch splatter targets.

I have been in and out as this is my busy season so here are 5 cold shots spread out from October 9th through today October 28th.

Cold shot #1. No site in or dry fire. Just load a pellet and take the shot.
Time, date and tempreture logged on target.
IMG_3179.JPG


Cold shot #2
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Cold shot #3
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Cold shot #4
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This was this morning and I was going to wait until I got back next week for the fifth shot, but then I thought about why I would be taking a cold shot in the first place.
I am not a hunter, but I did buy my first serious PCP to deal with raccoons that were killing my chickens after the sun went down, so I decided the fifth shot would be after dark.
I do not have a light on my Prophet, so I brought out my TalonP along with it for illumination.
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and this is cold shot #5 from just a few minutes ago.
IMG_3220pm.JPG


Yes, there are some very minor incosistancies between cold shots, but enough to be a problem? Not for me.

Anyone else care to join in on this little experiment?
 
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Preaching to the choir! Any rifle I'm planning to use for pest control goes through a similar proving out process.

For example, shortly after a reg rebuild on the DAR .25 cal:
4 cold shots 50y JSB 34.jpg


Each of the next two nights, it delivered dirt naps to a couple of trash pandas.

Proving out a rifle for nighttime pest control - DAR .25 cal

Hey guys, I've had this DAR in .25 cal for about a year and a half, and it has been a good shooter but I figured it would be sooner rather than later that one of the cheap OEM O-rings would give way and call for a rebuild. Well, turns out that was 2 weeks ago. It started leaking out the...
www.airgunnation.com www.airgunnation.com
 
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You don't even have any chrony numbers. To know if you have cold shot you would need chrony numbers. Also we don't know how far your target is. Cold shot wouldn't effect your poi if you target is 50 yards or closer. You won't really see a difference. If you shooting out to 100 yards, cold shot will be the difference from putting a lead into a post's brain vs a miss. From my experience not all guns have cold shots. From reading and my experience, usually it's fx gun such as the fx impact that have cold shot. I own other regulated pcp and they do not have cold shot. With my impact the first low shot would be around 40-50 fps off and at 100 yard that makes a difference from hitting your target or missing it. If shooting distance of 50 yards or closer it wouldn't be such a problem.
 
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ImpactX said:
You don't even have any chrony numbers. To know if you have cold shot you would need chrony numbers. Also we don't know how far your target is. Cold shot wouldn't effect your poi if you target is 50 yards or closer. You won't really see a difference. If you shooting out to 100 yards, cold shot will be the difference from putting a lead into a post's brain vs a miss. From my experience not all guns have cold shots. From reading and my experience, usually it's fx gun such as the fx impact that have cold shot. I own other regulated pcp and they do not have cold shot. With my impact the first low shot would be around 40-50 fps off and at 100 yard that makes a difference from hitting your target or missing it. If shooting distance of 50 yards or closer it wouldn't be such a problem.
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Thats great! So show us some 100 yard cold shots.
I would but don't have a 100 yard shooting lane...........yet. Working on that though. Lots of Yaupon Holly to clear out first, and so little time to do it.
 
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ImpactX said:
You don't even have any chrony numbers. To know if you have cold shot you would need chrony numbers. Also we don't know how far your target is. Cold shot wouldn't effect your poi if you target is 50 yards or closer. You won't really see a difference. If you shooting out to 100 yards, cold shot will be the difference from putting a lead into a post's brain vs a miss. From my experience not all guns have cold shots. From reading and my experience, usually it's fx gun such as the fx impact that have cold shot. I own other regulated pcp and they do not have cold shot. With my impact the first low shot would be around 40-50 fps off and at 100 yard that makes a difference from hitting your target or missing it. If shooting distance of 50 yards or closer it wouldn't be such a problem.
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His target was at 50 yards. A good experiment in my opinion if that’s the max range he is shooting at game.

My FX Crown had a cold bore shot that was 50+ fps slow. It drove me crazy. I upped the hammer spring and now it’s only 5 FPS outside the normal velocity spread.

Have you tried adjusting the hammer and regulator to try and get rid of the issue?
 
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You can see my 130 yard cold shots in my ELR mice topic. I’ve been cold shot testing all my serious hunting guns since probably 2017. That was the year that my cold shots on animals increased beyond 50 yards. Out to 50 yards, if you don’t have one of those harmonically sensitive guns, your cold shot velocity can be pretty far off the norm and still land real close.
 
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Vetmx said:
You can see my 130 yard cold shots in my ELR mice topic. I’ve been cold shot testing all my serious hunting guns since probably 2017. That was the year that my cold shots on animals increased beyond 50 yards. Out to 50 yards, if you don’t have one of those harmonically sensitive guns, your cold shot velocity can be pretty far off the norm and still land real close.
Click to expand...

What kind of groups do you get at 130-150 yards ?
 
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Headshots said:
What kind of groups do you get at 130-150 yards ?
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I haven’t shot paper with that gun since I built it. The paper shooting process when I build a gun sometimes gets me to a point of burn out. Overlaying target after target looking for averages and trends. I think I still have pictures of my targets from that particular gun but I don’t post them. But I know what it’s capable of so at 130 or 150 I know my slug should land right where I’m aiming if I do my part.

What’s interesting about these guns and it’s just my opinion is this. They can behave differently if you change how you are shooting them. I did all my testing off a bipod and rear support bag. I still try to do all my real long shots with the gun on a bipod. Shooting mice and squirrel at 130 is being done off a tripod. The gun is a little different and I had to figure that out to smack mice at that distance.
 
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You technically don't need a target range of 100 / 150 to test cold shot. Just run it over the chronograph and you will get a good idea if it will be an issue at 100 / 150 yards. If FPS is almost same on first shot as next 2 then nothing to worry about.

I don't hunt but if you were to hunt at 100 / 150 yards wouldn't you want to shoot at something to get wind, etc. anyways. Taking a 150 yrs shot as first shot at game in wind is risky.

Mike
 
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The target I think I attached is my test of first shots of several of my airguns. I shot 4 shots, one at each of 4 horizontal targets, at 12 hour intervals 3 times. So I got a three shot group in each bullsye of the first, second, third, and fourth shot from a "cold" bore.

I switched pellets in my P35-177 before the last shot series with it and got better results. The H&N Baracuda FTs have me a better 30 yard challenge target but I got better cold bore performance with H&N Baracuda Match pellets. The Caiman did the best in this test but I think they all were OK except the 177 with the FTs. Now my misses are even more clearly on me. Guns are accurate enough. I wanted to see all 4 shots within 1/4 inch of the aim point especially the first shot.

The P35-25 and Prod were a little handicapped by their scope. The others have 6-24s, the Prod wears a 2-7 and the P35-25 had a 4-16 on it. But in each case that is the scope I'm using on it so if there was an issue I wanted to know it.

I was testing at 30 yards.

View attachment hunting accuracy.pdf
 
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I was just looking over this topic again. Cold shot accuracy is not a competition. It’s not about whose gun is better than who’s. And it’s definitely not about sending guys chasing something they don’t need and having them second guess a gun they were previously happy with. A guys cold shot accuracy is for those who shoot living creatures. Once you determine how far out you can cleanly take something with a cold shot, you know the window for success. If the guns cold shot or even 30 minute shot doesn’t work for you in your particular use for the gun, sell it or try to fix it. There are work arounds and I have used them if the gun isn’t horrible. A couple clicks with the scope, hammer or just slightly adjusting your hold all work if your gun is superb after the first shot and changing permanent settings ruins it.
 
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I agree there are work arounds. But first you have to know what your gun does. Is the first shot consistent with the point of aim or not. If it is not consistent is it off a consistent amount. My issue with the FT pellets in my P35-177 was it was inconsistent. Sometimes it would hit the point of aim and sometimes it was off as much as 1/2 inch at 30 yards. I do not want that with a gun I may shoot an animal with. But switching to a different pellet resolved it.

A gun that is consistently off on the first shot but puts them into a slightly different point of impact can be "fixed" with a small hold adjustment as you state.

If you look at my target you can also see that while the Caiman was always within 1/4 inch of the point of aim, the groups did move around a little from the first to the second to the third and fourth shot. I see the same sort of thing shooting 30 yard challenge targets. I have to make small adjustments during a 20-24 shot target to keep hitting the 10 ring. But that is changes on the order of 1/8th of an inch. For hunting at 30 yards I don't think that matters.

I find it a little non-intuitive that a really good pellet for target shooting could be a not so good target for hunting. But when I'm target shooting I can warm up and let the gun settle in. No real chance to do that hunting. The match pellets that seem to do better for consistent accuracy of shots 1-4 from a gun that has set 12 hours or more are also pretty good for target shooting but I have done better on targets with the FTs (best with Match is a 194, best with the FTs is a 197). .
 
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Vetmx said:
I was just looking over this topic again. Cold shot accuracy is not a competition. It’s not about whose gun is better than who’s. And it’s definitely not about sending guys chasing something they don’t need and having them second guess a gun they were previously happy with. A guys cold shot accuracy is for those who shoot living creatures. Once you determine how far out you can cleanly take something with a cold shot, you know the window for success. If the guns cold shot or even 30 minute shot doesn’t work for you in your particular use for the gun, sell it or try to fix it. There are work arounds and I have used them if the gun isn’t horrible. A couple clicks with the scope, hammer or just slightly adjusting your hold all work if your gun is superb after the first shot and changing permanent settings ruins it.
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I agree. It is not a competition. For me it was just a curiosity about my gun after reading comments in another thread about reg creep and it's effect on a first cold shot. It wasn't even about shooting living creatures. I have a very predictable non regulated gun that serves that purpose.

As for my 5 shot test, I was pretty satisfied with the results and I suspect that the variations between one shot and the next probably had more to do with the shooter (me) than any other factor. But any of those 5 shots still would have taken care of the murderous raccoon in the chicken pen.
 
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