Reality vs YouTube gun performance for the new guys

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PasadenaMike

PasadenaMike

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Aug 28, 2022
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The following is from personal experience I’m not a tuner I’ve just owned too many Airguns . I have a really good friend that recently bought his first regulated gun. The gun is really accurate however he’s not been very happy with it. The gun is pellet on pellet on paper but the numbers were bothering him. Curiosity got me to ask some questions. Come to find out that his gun only has a 25 foot spread which to me is excellent but I’ve owned many regulated guns and know what to expect. Honestly I’m ok with a 40 foot spread because the distances I shoot 40 spread makes no difference. My buddy has been watching YouTube and comparing doctored extreme spreads of 5 feet. I’m not saying it’s impossible but most guns unless you spend a week on and have the capability of multiple dials and knobs will never give you 5 foot spread. They won’t tell you that they sorted and weighed pellets or any of the details. All the YouTube world is trying to do is sell a gun. Also variables in the chronograph makes a huge difference as well. My fx chronograph isn’t very consistent but it’s good enough. Nate Chronographs on the other hand have proven very consistent. Other things such as humidity, pellet consistency, temperature, air pressure all play a big role. The point is don’t sweat the #s. Shoot at paper and see the results. You’ll know when your regulator is bad believe me it’s obvious.
 
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I think the point is that he’s been misled by social media (go figure) into believing that really good results are more common & easier achieve than reality. Few YT’ers are objective-most seem to be in it hoping to get sponsored, monetized & take home free stuff. The easy way to do that is gloss over the details to convince newcomers to buy more stuff.

It’s understandable the expectations the OP’s friend has based on the biased information he’s received.
 
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TN_Yankee said:
I think the point is that he’s been misled by social media (go figure) into believing that really good results are more common & easier achieve than reality. Few YT’ers are objective-most seem to be in it hoping to get sponsored, monetized & take home free stuff. The easy way to do that is gloss over the details to convince newcomers to buy more stuff.

It’s understandable the expectations the OP’s friend has based on the biased information he’s received.
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Exactly :)
 
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PasadenaMike said:
The following is from personal experience I’m not a tuner I’ve just owned too many Airguns . I have a really good friend that recently bought his first regulated gun. The gun is really accurate however he’s not been very happy with it. The gun is pellet on pellet on paper but the numbers were bothering him. Curiosity got me to ask some questions. Come to find out that his gun only has a 25 foot spread which to me is excellent but I’ve owned many regulated guns and know what to expect. Honestly I’m ok with a 40 foot spread because the distances I shoot 40 spread makes no difference. My buddy has been watching YouTube and comparing doctored extreme spreads of 5 feet. I’m not saying it’s impossible but most guns unless you spend a week on and have the capability of multiple dials and knobs will never give you 5 foot spread. They won’t tell you that they sorted and weighed pellets or any of the details. All the YouTube world is trying to do is sell a gun. Also variables in the chronograph makes a huge difference as well. My fx chronograph isn’t very consistent but it’s good enough. Nate Chronographs on the other hand have proven very consistent. Other things such as humidity, pellet consistency, temperature, air pressure all play a big role. The point is don’t sweat the #s. Shoot at paper and see the results. You’ll know when your regulator is bad believe me it’s obvious.
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Shew,
This is a rabbit hole for me, I have a love hate relationship with the toobs.
On one hand, it has done some great things for this hobby, it’s shown the capabilities of different rifles (and different shooters) ammo, slugs vs pellets, glass etc…
On the other hand it has set unrealistic expectations and standards for beginners and ever intermediates, such as- “oh, if I buy rifle x and scope y and a camera set up, I can shoot 50 starlings a day” not realizing the bench time it takes to shoot like that, I can use this example for anything.
I hope he finds his 5ft lb spread he is looking for, but it can be difficult on some Airguns.
 
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I think regulators at least sometimes settle down and give a tighter velocity string when you get 1000 shots or so through them. My inexpensive SPA guns have given me a 8 fps spread on some strings of 25 shots or so but they did not do it initially. I recently rebuilt one and have experienced a 17 fps spring of about 25 shots and yesterdays string of 40 shots was in the 20s. I think it will settle down. If not, I may take the light silicone grease off the bellville washers and put a little graphite on them instead. The Huma in my Caiman had much to much silicone grease on it's washers initially and is working great with a thin layer now. So I'm hoping it is just break in.

People whining about a squiggle move of their regulator gauge is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Worrying about a ES of 20 or so for short range shooting would also be right up there. We need to worry about our shooting. Not insignificant changes in something we can easily observe or measure that may make no difference at all. I've used my P35-25 to shoot a couple 30 yard challenge targets recently including letting it fall off the regulator. It doesn't increase the ES to let it go off reg for 15-20 shots. On one of the targets my last two shots were more like 40 fps below the peak and both were Xs. They were a touch low but not by enough I could have noticed when I was starting out. (The X on that target is literally a dot, not a circle so if you touch it you are less than 1/4 inch low with a 25 caliber)

Your friend needs to keep shooting and worry more about his skill than his gun's ES.

I should probably skip saying this but I won't. I assume Matt Duber is a good guy and often if not always knows what he is talking about. But I am pretty sure that most things he says are essentially an advertisement for FX airguns. I do not believe he an unbiased reviewer in other words. That doesn't mean we need to ignore what he says, just recognize his bias.
 
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Anything 20fps and under I don't stress about one bit. It's a better ES than any .22lr and I don't hesitate to shoot those out past 100yds. Most my shooting is birds out the window of my pickup on a bag I'm not necessarily worried about benchrest level accuracy. I've got guns that can do the sub 10fps spread but if they don't I don't worry. I also don't sort pellets or any of that other stuff. For a competitor I understand but the majority of us I wouldn't stress about it. More important things in life lol
 
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