Figured I would share an overview of a recent project because I think a lot of shooters try to achieve something similar but always have to settle or compromise a little. I’ll try not to bore anyone but I have to set this up. Every year I travel to my camp in another state to hunt deer. I always take an airgun for down time fun shooting and hunting if I get a deer. I’ve found myself over gunned and I’ve found myself under gunned over the years. Then I found myself traveling with two or three guns. This year I had my M3 on a trip as a fantastic pellet gun. It took care of business. Until I started having late night coyote episodes across from my camp. My pellet tune had head shot accuracy to 100 yards. After that, and I mean shortly after that, the pellet gets seriously drunk. The coyotes were always 130-190 yards away. I had a pack of slugs with me and burned through all of them one day trying to find a slug setting that I was confident with. It didn’t happen. The next trip I just took my .30 RTI that has a pellet/slug tune with a FX liner. But a .30 is a cannon of a plinker so I wanted to figure something out with my little M3. The second all the seasons were done and the weather went to poop, I put on my thinking cap and dug into my barrel collection. I wanted to have the gun set on an efficient accurate slug tune and also be able to shoot hunting pellets without touching a thing. Definitely not the valve knob and preferably not even the hammer wheel. I wanted to run the optimum tune for everything. I knew the slug I wanted to use but after so many hours jumping from the lathe to prone position in the shop to shoot, I just couldn’t get it and pellets to work. I am waiting on another custom reamer and I will try it again on another barrel. So then I switched to another slug and started trying to find a compromise with it and pellets. Back to pulling the barrel out of the lathe, sliding it in the gun and shooting to the back corner of the shop 50 yards away. After quite a few evenings, it was time for some serious shooting. What I have is at 128b and I touch nothing to shoot one slug, three hunting pellets and two dome plinking or shoot impressive group pellets. The 30gr slug is going 920fps. All slugs group on a 1.5” spinner at 100 yards. Hades/Atomics are going 940fps and one .45 cal hole at 50 yards. H&N 27.47 HP are 938fps and all touch at 50 yards. H&N Baracuda Extremes are 914fps and all touch at 50 yards. I haven’t shot the 25.39 or 33.95’s yet for groups but I would be shocked if they didn’t do great. I might have to click the wheel one or two clicks for the 25.39. I will check that later because now I’m in the practical shoot phase. I have been Window Willy Critter Sniper with the slugs. Floating between 40 and 88 yards popping stuff. Checking first shot consistency and how many shots until the gun opens up. Then I will pull some patches and see how the pellets do. This gun is my hunting gun. Giant paper punching scope came off and it’s back to how I hunt with it. Internally it’s stock except for some plenum work so my first shot is within spec and a blueprinted second reg. So now that I no longer have to get my hands dirty, I will just keep testing to see if any issues pop up. Mainly POI issues with the slugs. I already know that if I mix shooting pellets and slugs, the slugs open up more quickly so a couple patches are necessary when I switch. Going from a goo barrel slug gun to pellets? They don’t really care at hunting distances. I will also start stretching the pellets out to see when they start getting woozy. Just 2 pics. One of hopefully my favorite small/medium game gun. And one of my mistress. Well at least that’s what my girlfriend called my lathe for the last month.
so I truly understand your post! By the way, I hope your GF wasn't too jealous of your lathe.....
