I am looking at an AEA in the classifeds, ad while researching came accross a video where the presenter was shooting at 1100+ FPS and wanted to slow it down. Why slow it down, is there an optimal window for FPS.
Optimal FPS
- Thread starter T&J2002
- Start date
Speed or accuracy. Your choice. The question is. How is the accuracy @ 1100 fps is the big ?.
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Yes pellets typically wont shoot very well faster than ~930fps with most setups preferring 800-890fps. Pellets are pretty sensitive in flight and can flop around while traveling to the target. Slugs are a whole different story and many prefer to go faster 900-1050fps or so. In the case of the AEA Challengers they are very powerful, but can be choked down to shoot pellets pretty well. I have 2 of them and I think they are a good choice for your first pcp. Also take a look at the Avenger, Gamo Urban, Gamo Arrow as alternative budget first pcps.
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SPEED is not everything. Most guns shooting pellets, I think you'll find, are accurate in the 850-930ish FPS range. A lot of people assume "the faster, the better", not so.
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Agreed. FT season is going to be starting up around here soon (south central upstate NY) and I'm trying to decide which one of my .177's I might want to play with for FT this year. It's down to a Taipan standard or an HW100. The latter has been tuned to sub-12 for the last two years or so as I have used it a lot inside of barns clearing pigeons but I'm currently working on getting it back up to 17-18 ft/lbs w/10.3's. Anyway . . . I setup 1" targets at 50 yds out in my back yard recently and defacto dialed up the taipan to send 'em 890'ish. Groups were . . . alright. I started backing it down on the hammer spring 1/4 turns or so and sure enough the groups started getting better. Cutting to the chase - I wound up being able to repeatedly do 3/4" 5x groups @50 which I think is pretty good for a .177 and should be good for a FT KZ at that range. ( I'm playing off a bench, bipod and sandbag @the rear . . . lol! Sitting on a bucket and and shooting off of sticks will surely prove more challenging . . . ) BUT . . . . after I decided to "lock it in" at that speed - whatever it was - I decided to send another 5 over a chrony just for the heck of it. 875. Yeah - slower (with that gun anyway) definitely better.
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With pellets, one of the key elements in shooting well is wind deflection. And with pellets, wind deflection actually goes up as speed increases much over the 900 - 950 fps range. So even if you have a gun that shoots well at higher speeds in calm conditions, the variation due to the wind will be higher. We have a much easier time knowing the distance to target (and thus can find the right scope setting or holdover for the distance) than we do knowing the wind, so minimizing the impact of wind is critical for good results.
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