Tuning Realistically, how do you all keep up with the slug dream??

[MongooseV8]

Realistically if you want to run slugs, you need a dedicated slugger.

I have one slugger, and several great pellet pushers that I use a lot more. Some pellet pushers can do very well with light slugs on your same pellet tune.

 

[Joekrooz]

This is a good post regarding slugging you barrel, narrow down the search by size at least, then test and tune with different weights.

How to slug a barrel? 🤔

How to slug a barrel? 🤔 I keep reading how important it is to "slug your barrel" in order to play the slug game..... (And buy correctly sized slugs for the barrel.) However, two things seem to never get explained in this context: ▪ How to "slug" the barrel ▪ How to measure what you...

www.airgunnation.com

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I’ve never slugged a barrel butI have one slugger, Uragan2 .30, found the perfect slug by dumb luck after trying a few different slugs, it never shot pellets all that good. All my other guns are strictly pellet shooters and same as others, they get a lot more use.

 

[Vana2]

When I think about airguns I'm thinking pellets.

That being said, I am curious about slugs so I bought a FX Panthera to play around with them for a while. Once I'm done, I'll likely put a pellet liner in the Panthera and tune it to 25 g pellets.

Each to their own! Good luck and have fun!

Cheers!

 

[Slyde]

Today I brought my Taipan V2T 700 .25 and Skout Epoch .25 with the 34.4” barrel to shoot a bit at 50 then 101 yards.
Both shot heavy pellets and slugs really well at 50 yards. No problem grouping, even with heavy winds. The Skout with the Corbin slugs and AEA 33.95. I concentrate on Zan slugs for the Taipan because that’s what Taipan seems to do(according to an email from Marek at Taipan). I’ve tried many and settled on Zan 37’s.
Then I move to 101 yards. I’m only shooting pellets from the Skout now, AEA 33.95’s. And I’m struggling(As per usual I should add). It’s a heavy wind, 12-14 mph and gusting higher. I’m really having a tough time keeping it inside the rings on a BR practice target. I fire 50 pellets and stop.
Then I grab the Taipan. Shooting Zan 37’s. And shoot the first 10 shots all inside the 8 ring less one that got away into the 7 ring.
It seems more accurate and consistent, for me anyway, to shoot at distance with wind using slugs than pellets. Cleaner kills and better groups.
Everyone is different but I like shooting slugs and pellets both. Pellets out to 50/60 yards and slugs when longer. It’s easy enough to have a tune for each. Although that’s more difficult with the Taipan.
YMMV
Brian

Edited to add; I have a tremendous respect for those that make shooting pellets at 100 yards look so easy. You all are true marksmen!

 

[PeteAir]

I have an Uragan 2 700mm in .25 shooting Zan 37g at 935 and can stack them at 100 yards no problem. It came shooting this way stock and will leave it there.

I couldn’t get any Nielsens to shoot worth a damn, Grizzlies 31g, nor the Zans in 35g.

Another one that showed promise is surprisingly the Apolo 40g slugs.

 

[stovepipe]

I've noticed that when I tune my 30 cal maverick sniper for slugs, any change I make to the tune (even tiny changes in hammer spring compression) cannot be judged by just a few shots. Initially the SD could suck. But I don't judge right away. I keep putting mag after mag through the rifle and watch the chrony. The SD and ES amost always gets better than it was with the first mag and the FPS average usually increases also. Once I've put two mags through back to back with no improvement in SD or change in FPS, THEN I decide if the tune is worth testing for accuracy.

This makes me wonder how many guys have tried slugs and have just given up on a particular tune before giving the slugs a fair chance to re-arrange the lead coating in their barrel for the new tune.

stovepipe

 

[MushroomPsyche]

I've noticed that when I tune my 30 cal maverick sniper for slugs, any change I make to the tune (even tiny changes in hammer spring compression) cannot be judged by just a few shots. Initially the SD could suck. But I don't judge right away. I keep putting mag after mag through the rifle and watch the chrony. The SD and ES amost always gets better than it was with the first mag and the FPS average usually increases also. Once I've put two mags through back to back with no improvement in SD or change in FPS, THEN I decide if the tune is worth testing for accuracy.

This makes me wonder how many guys have tried slugs and have just given up on a particular tune before giving the slugs a fair chance to re-arrange the lead coating in their barrel for the new tune.

stovepipe

I actually noticed this a few months ago when I started testing slugs. My Taipan Veteran Long served as a standby backyard varmint rifle for the 4 years I owned it. In that time, I only shot around 1,500 total through it including all testings. Before I was testing for slugs, I had the rifle tuned to shoot the JSB 15.89gr Hades at around 940 FPS. After around 150 or so slugs shot through the gun, without touching the tune, I randomly chronied the Hades and it was shooting 965 FPS. That gun was tuned well and will typically have an extreme spread of less than 10 during a single session. Typically around 6 or 7 ES. I did a number of shots with the Hades because I couldn't believe the increase in FPS but it was consistent. At the time, I didn't really understand what was going on but upon further reading into it, I believe it's the leading in of the barrel.

 

[stovepipe]

I actually noticed this a few months ago when I started testing slugs. My Taipan Veteran Long served as a standby backyard varmint rifle for the 4 years I owned it. In that time, I only shot around 1,500 total through it including all tastings. Before I was testing for slugs, I had the rifle tuned to shoot the JSB 15.89gr Hades at around 940 FPS. After around 150 or so slugs shot through the gun, I randomly chronied the Hades and it was shooting 965 FPS. That gun was tuned well and will typically have an extreme spread of less than 10 during a single session. Typically around 6 or 7 ES. I did a number of shots with the Hades because I couldn't believe the increase in FPS but it was consistent. At the time, I didn't really understand what was going on but upon further reading into it, I believe it's the leading in of the barrel.

I've had my mav for over 3.5 years now and always shot slugs. It was frustrating for sure. I noticed that every time I cleaned the barrel or changed anything about the tune, my slug velocities were all over the place. My buddy hunts with it -- he doesn't know how to tune it or anything. I handed it to him to go hunting for a couple of weeks and told him the groups were probably going to suck and the muzzle velocities weren't up to what he was used to because I'd just cleaned the barrel. He called me a week later and said it's shooting high, and grouping well. I asked if he'd cleaned the barrel and he said no. I said "let's just not clean the barrel anymore". We don't clean the barrel anymore -- literally. We don't clean or lube our slugs anymore either. Lead is a good enough lubricant for slugs. And with each change in tune, apparently it takes maybe 50 shots or so for the new tune to migrate the lead along the rifling from breech to muzzle to finally get a good seal.

I'm glad we've made the same observation. Maybe not all slug/barrel combinations are like what we've observed. I only have one rifle and nothing to compare to. I hope our similar experience will help others with their slug trials. Cheers.

stovepipe

 

[bowopt]

Have you ever experienced a tune that does really well in a slug, and rest the gun for a few weeks then comes back to shoot it without any changes made to the tune and the grouping got worse? That's sort of my experience tuning for slug with fx heavy liner on my FX wildcat mk3 bt.

 

[MushroomPsyche]

Have you ever experienced a tune that does really well in a slug, and rest the gun for a few weeks then comes back to shoot it without any changes made to the tune and the grouping got worse? That's sort of my experience tuning for slug with fx heavy liner on my FX wildcat mk3 bt.

I have noticed this as well. Even the slugs that would group ok with my rifle ("ok" meaning less than MOA at 30 to 50 meters) would not do it over and over again. There were times where it can't even MOA at just 30 meters.

 

[CanMike]

I have noticed this as well. Even the slugs that would group ok with my rifle ("ok" meaning less than MOA at 30 to 50 meters) would not do it over and over again. There were times where it can't even MOA at just 30 meters.

Interesting.. I wonder what cause that.

Mike

 

[stovepipe]

Have you ever experienced a tune that does really well in a slug, and rest the gun for a few weeks then comes back to shoot it without any changes made to the tune and the grouping got worse? That's sort of my experience tuning for slug with fx heavy liner on my FX wildcat mk3 bt.

I did have that happen once on my maverick. In that particular case it turned out that my jam nut had loosened up.

stovepipe

 

[steve123]

The first time I tried slugs in a gun not intended for them(barrel twist) the results were disappointing so I waited for the tech to catch up for a year or so.

I decided to pay the big bucks the 2nd time around and got a Thomas HPX and a while later got a slug barrel for it and slug swaging system from Mike N. It shoots these 223 sized 42gr slugs fantastic because he'd put in the work beforehand. I suspect he'd been working at it for a while experimenting. The nice thing is I'll always have as many slugs as I want to shoot. It's outshot my Anschutz 22rf at 50Y(most of the time), at 100Y, and at ELR distance on more than one occasion.

Somewhere afterwards I had ordered a tuned Vulcan 3 25 cal from Tenacious Airguns which has a fast-ish twist rate and found it shoots 60gr at Altaros slugs at 99 fpe great too. Not quite as well as the Thomas does but darn close, however these slugs have a higher BC at .245G1 so they have a wind advantage.

But I shoot a UFT match which requires mass produced slugs be used so I had another friend local to me fit a 22 cal fast twist barrel to that same Thomas. To my delight it shoots 32.3gr Altaros really good as well.
I've done very little tuning myself though I recently turned the HPX down to 49.5 fpe for a new match format coming up. Fortunately the Altaros 32.2gr shoot great at this mid power tune too, if not better than at the previous 67 fpe, and the next weekend afterwards had got a W at our last UFT match.

I prefer pellets in the 30fpe and lower powered airguns.

Honestly if it took a lot of effort to tune slugs to a gun or vice versa I'd not be using slugs because of the time and hassle. I'da just shot pellets or 22rf but I'm at a nice place slug wise and slug gun wise so I'm very happy about my situation right now.

 

[rcarlisle]

I let the slug dream pass me by. I seldom shoot beyond 50 yards and I am well covered by a multitude of pellets for my shooting needs. I wasted a little money on slugs, but I was never hell bent to make them work for me (and they never did). I am pleasantly surprised that my 1701P shoots 10gr K.O.s remarkably well at around 400FPS at a 10 yard target. But it does that with anything I put in the pipe: pellets, slugs or round ball shoot really well from that little pistol.

 

[Trucker3573]

By not partaking…lol