There's a good chance that I'm part of the 1% who got a notos that doesn't shoot laser beams, unfortunately I'm in no position to return the pellet rifle on account of incessant tinkering. So here's an account of my journey so far in the hopes that with some help I can figure out how to get the most out of this handy little hunter.
All shots and groups are taken at 20 to 23 yards from bags. The pic rails are torqued to 15in/lb and loctited, the barrel set screw is 10in/lb and loctited, the scope rings to pic rail are 15in/lb and the rings to scope are 10in/lb. There is no wobble to things as far as I can tell. The regulator is at it's stock pressure, the hammerspring is 1 full rotation out from maximum tension, though previous adjustments seem to make little difference.
The notos has these mods: polished hammer, polished sear, 3D printed LCD extension, 3D printed folding AR style lower, 3D printed magazines from thingiverse, Bugbuster 3-12x AO scope, 3D printed handguard, barrel o-rings replaced with ones from aliexpress (linked here: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256...il_item.3.68d9f19cqsiqY0&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa in 10.2x0.8mm ) de-burred to try and keep barrel orings from getting chunked and a poor attempt at brass-rod crown polishing.
Pellets tested: Crosman Premier Hollow Points, GTO Predator Lead Free (best shooting), Polymag short (second best), H&N Barracuda Green, Crosman Red Flight Lead Free (horrible), H&N field Target Trophy Power Copper Plated.
It never got single hole groups, as seen here:
At best I would get groups like this with GTO Lead Free:
and the best group I got out of CPHP's were like this:
So as y'all can see, nothing approaching the HAM review groups! Up until recently I'd been fine with the GTO's performance and it was accurate enough to hunt some squirrels with, but recently I've started to experience some left/right point of impact shift that I need to figure out. I've been getting more and more flyers and the groups have universally been opening up. CPHP's are getting as bad as 4" groups with flyers and the GTO's have widened as much as 1.5" with flyers from a clean barrel.
I mention clean barrel because it seems like the GTO's shoot better if I follow this procedure: clean barrel pulling cloth soaked with ballistol until no longer dirty, pull one clean dry cloth through, shoot ten rounds of lead pellets, shoot GTO's with improved groups. This procedure did not help the accuracy of the barracuda green pellets.
The barrel has seen an estimated 800 rounds of lead pellets and 600 rounds of GTO lead frees along with a handful of other lead free pellets. I also have a chronograph arriving tomorrow to help me troubleshoot and isolate what might be the cause.
And one final photo of two groups I shot just now, 5x CPHP in blue, 3x GTO in green.
I think that's everything, I've tried to be thorough! Ty anyone who has read the whole post, apologies in advance if this is just a simple fix that I've overcomplicated.
All shots and groups are taken at 20 to 23 yards from bags. The pic rails are torqued to 15in/lb and loctited, the barrel set screw is 10in/lb and loctited, the scope rings to pic rail are 15in/lb and the rings to scope are 10in/lb. There is no wobble to things as far as I can tell. The regulator is at it's stock pressure, the hammerspring is 1 full rotation out from maximum tension, though previous adjustments seem to make little difference.
The notos has these mods: polished hammer, polished sear, 3D printed LCD extension, 3D printed folding AR style lower, 3D printed magazines from thingiverse, Bugbuster 3-12x AO scope, 3D printed handguard, barrel o-rings replaced with ones from aliexpress (linked here: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256...il_item.3.68d9f19cqsiqY0&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa in 10.2x0.8mm ) de-burred to try and keep barrel orings from getting chunked and a poor attempt at brass-rod crown polishing.
Pellets tested: Crosman Premier Hollow Points, GTO Predator Lead Free (best shooting), Polymag short (second best), H&N Barracuda Green, Crosman Red Flight Lead Free (horrible), H&N field Target Trophy Power Copper Plated.
It never got single hole groups, as seen here:
At best I would get groups like this with GTO Lead Free:
and the best group I got out of CPHP's were like this:
So as y'all can see, nothing approaching the HAM review groups! Up until recently I'd been fine with the GTO's performance and it was accurate enough to hunt some squirrels with, but recently I've started to experience some left/right point of impact shift that I need to figure out. I've been getting more and more flyers and the groups have universally been opening up. CPHP's are getting as bad as 4" groups with flyers and the GTO's have widened as much as 1.5" with flyers from a clean barrel.
I mention clean barrel because it seems like the GTO's shoot better if I follow this procedure: clean barrel pulling cloth soaked with ballistol until no longer dirty, pull one clean dry cloth through, shoot ten rounds of lead pellets, shoot GTO's with improved groups. This procedure did not help the accuracy of the barracuda green pellets.
The barrel has seen an estimated 800 rounds of lead pellets and 600 rounds of GTO lead frees along with a handful of other lead free pellets. I also have a chronograph arriving tomorrow to help me troubleshoot and isolate what might be the cause.
And one final photo of two groups I shot just now, 5x CPHP in blue, 3x GTO in green.
I think that's everything, I've tried to be thorough! Ty anyone who has read the whole post, apologies in advance if this is just a simple fix that I've overcomplicated.
