Red Wolf Standard with G2 board

[steve123]

Franklink, 

I have a suggestion that'd be interesting, for a future experiment I was wondering if you could find a calm morning and shoot some EBR targets at 75Y and 100Y with 25gr redesigns.

That's cool this rifle with those CP's doesn't take wind very much. My FX Royale with JSB 16's at 19fpe blew a stupid amount in the wind when I shot it in FT on one occasion. I missed the whole target a time or two which almost seems impossible. So painful I never tried again, lol.

Sure would be nice if we could shoot FT in June at Lake Perry Pit area!

 

[Franklink]

Yes Steve, I'd like to try some 100 yard groups. I don't expect them to be very impressive though. Not that the gun isn't capable, but I'm much less familiar with how to handle the wind that far out. I'll report the results whenever I have a good morning to try it out. 

That's been my prior experience too, .22s at 20fpe are a challenge in the wind. Highly probable that I'm full of false confidence and will end up getting thoroughly skunked at a FT competition!

I'd like to see a June comp at our normal summer match area too. I think Mark is planning on a monthly shoot this Saturday. I'm not excited about the drive to north PHX or for dealing with that kind of heat, but forecasts for Ben Avery are saying 95 degrees with a 5mph wind for this Saturday. That's hot, but it's not the 115 those poor PHX dwellers deal with for most of the summer. Anyway, it's been too long since a match so I'm currently planning on doing the grin and bear it thing and seeing how this RW does in competition. 

 

[Franklink]

Do I find the RW to be rest/hold sensitive?

I was asked this question over on the GTA forum from a Red Wolf shooter. One of the future reports I announced a few weeks ago was about learning how to shoot the RW. These two topics are related and I’m going to address them both here.

First off, “hold sensitive,” is a prime example of airgun vernacular. In fact, a Google search for me autocompleted with “….air gun” after I typed “hold sensitive…..” (It’s possible that Google algorithms are pulling from my search history though.) Regardless, when I hear that term, I think of springers. Because springers require so much more discipline in how the rifle is held in order to produce consistent accuracy, they are usually considered, “hold sensitive.” This line of thought is so prevalent that it is quite common to see various versions of the statement that PCPs are NOT hold sensitive like springers. Personally, I think a lot of that distinction is simply because of how fundamentally different PCPs are from springers, in how they function, and how they feel to shoot.

So, what does the term mean? For some it means you MUST use the “artillery hold” with a springer. Joe Rheas started a topic a while back calling BS on the artillery hold. I agree completely. The artillery hold is just the easiest way for most people to isolate the various places on a gun that they might be putting pressure on during the shot cycle. I have springers that actually shoot best with an absolute death grip. In my opinion, CONSISTENCY in how a “hold sensitive” gun is held is the most critical detail.

Somebody over on a UK forum said this about hold sensitivity. “A rifle with very little recoil and a very long lock time may be very hold sensitive. The time between pulling the trigger and the pellet leaving the barrel can be so long that you jerk the rifle or relax your muscles, pulling the bore off your point of aim before the pellet leaves the barrel.” Back to the RW, it does NOT have a long lock time, some even say it is very quick. Have I found it to be hold sensitive? No, I have not. Have I found it to be very different to shoot than many other guns? Yes, I have. Did I have to learn how to shoot the thing to get the most accuracy out of it? Yes, I did.

Just like the obvious differences felt between shooting a traditional PCP (fully mechanical-hammer spring, trigger linkages/sears, etc) and a springer, an electronic Red Wolf is vastly different than both. So, after a couple thousand pellets/slugs downrange from the RW, I posit that it is not hold sensitive, but rather DIFFERENT than the two main types of airguns we are used to shooting. The RW experience is more like a third class of airgun: traditional PCPs, springers, and then the electronic Daystate class of guns. The inner workings of a RW are very much disparate from what its outward appearance suggests. Solenoids and computer boards are not part of the firing mechanisms of the regular PCP most of us have shot a lot of, and most definitely FAR from what is seen inside a springer.

There’s also some Newtonian stuff going on here. RWs on their High power level are (depending on configuration) more powerful than what many of us are used to shooting. 3rd law says that: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Sending a 25grain JSB Redesign downrange at 40-65fpe is going to have a little more effect than sending a 10.34gr pellet downrange at 19.7fpe, both on the target and on the platform launching that projectile. Then there’s the fact that the Red Wolfs are not heavy cumbersome guns. The designers seemed to have settled on a mid-weight that makes them fulfill more roles better. There’s a reason the old classic 10m guns weighed 12 or 14 pounds, even though they only put out 6fpe. And those old 10m guns are pretty much a shoot from a stationary position type of gun because of their beastly weight. The Standard that I have does about 42fpe on High. Sending that kind of fpe downrange is more than twice the high end of what I’m used to, and 7 or 8 times the really sweet spot of backyard shooting that comes with 10m guns like the FWB 300s. I’ve heard it called a couple of things, “jump” being one of them. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it recoil, like we would call that equal and opposite reaction from a firearm though. I’ve noticed myself using “pulse” when talking about it with friends. I know that I can shoot the RW more accurately at 20fpe than I can at 42fpe. That's not a gun-specific situation, but rather one of physics. 

After I had shot the RW for just a few days, I was reaching out to friends that have been shooting them for a couple of years, asking how to shoot it. I could tell that it wanted to place the pellets accurately, but that I was doing something to mess it up. One guy stressed NOT to follow through. Another said to grip the gun tightly with the trigger hand but let it do what it wants during the shot otherwise. I’ve experimented and found both of those to be true. I’ve also found that there are many way to hold it and get excellent accuracy. So I don’t think there’s one right way. The thing that most helped for me, regardless of whether I’m shooting it from bags or off my knee in field target position, is to be “snappy” with the trigger. I know that goes against a lot of what most of us interested in guns hold as doctrine, but it gets results with the RW. The “snappy” that I describe is that I ease through the first stage of the trigger very carefully, kind of sneaking up on the second stage/break. Then, when I know that it’s about to break, I’ll “snap” the trigger quickly, almost more of a finger twitch than anything else. There is a fine line to walk here though, cuz too much snap turns into a jerked trigger and a pulled shot. If I try to gently squeeze through the second stage/trigger break like I usually would with a gun, I see accuracy diminish.

Finally, bag or bipod? This seems to be a shooter preference thing. I’ve been shooting this Standard from a bag when shooting it at further distances or on High. Some say they shoot better from a front mounted bipod, and others argue that they shoot more accurately from bags. I think I can shoot it more accurately from my field target position than a bag though. That could be because it’s only 20fpe vs 42 though. In fact, that just gave me the idea to try to see what it’ll do on HIGH power from a bumbag/shooting harness field target position.

Ultimately, I needed to learn how to shoot the RW, mostly because it is such a different beast than anything else I had experience shooting. The sum total of the electronics and its overall design just makes it a unique shooting experience. But, a very enjoyable shooting experience.

(I did some 101 yard shooting yesterday morning, slugs and pellets. This was originally going to be included in that report but I decided to separate it out, as it got rather long. 101 yard groups/report is on it's way too). 

 

[Corvid_hunter]

Thanks for all the time and effort that you have been putting into this and also for the excellent documentation of your experiences and observations.

 

[Red25R]

Thanks for the time you put in on that post. I put a few pellets down range today myself . The wind from the east is really no problem much at the gun club where I belong . And it wasn't raining like it has been for days and days . I was trying to get a better feel for the the rifle today with out the dealer watching 1st solo trip . And i noticed that the trigger in a nice compressed squeeze seems to make the groups grow . When I would take up stage 1 and sage 2 would go like before I was ready it kept the group smaller . I was shooting the JSB KIng Heavy MK II 33's On HI . So after some more trigger time on the RW . I'm going to try the EXact King 25.39 on med / Low see if that helps shrink the groups . You are right the RW is different the anything I have ever shot . But the learning curve should be fun. Keep the info coming I like lots of it . 

 

[Franklink]

@Red25r and Corvid_hunter, thank you for expressing your appreciation and recognition of the time and effort going into the review and related documentation. 

These triggers are really something to experience, just a whole new world. Sounds like you're getting familiar with your new quarter bore RW. The getting to know them stage of a gun is the most fun for me. 

 

[Franklink]

The steve123, put your money where your mouth is challenge (AKA groups at 101 yards)

It's been coming for awhile, but I was specifically challenged a few days ago to see what the RW can do at 100 yards. The timing of his challenge came after I was spouting off about shooting field target in the wind, and I don't think that was a coincidence. Steve123 and I are friends and the challenge wasn't called as much, but I'm pretty sure that's what he was politely getting at. So, here you go Steve. 

(warning, lots of pics)

Yesterday morning my schedule worked out to give it a go. I can get to 60 yards at my house, but further than that means a relocation of the shooting fun. The winds have been bad lately, and I was hoping that getting up early would allow me an hour or two of semi-favorable conditions. An alarm clock set to 430 found me about 3 miles from home, out on my families ranch, ready for the sun to peek up and get light enough to see to do some shooting. 

This is one of those panorama setting pics. It's much cooler on a device that allows you to pan, but it's alright as a still. Sun juuuuussstttt peaking out here. Targets are set up and ready to go, just over the top of the tailgate. It was chilly enough that I had a sweater on and was still shivering. Nights in the high country, even in the dead of summer it cools down pretty good at night. (5600 feet above sea level)

The set-up with more light.

Targets there at the edge of where the ground cover starts, no magnification here.

A little bit of a ragtag target situation, but I was trying to minimize trips out and back so utilized a few different paper holders.

The EBR printed target says 75 yards but all shots were taken at the lasered 101. 

Excuses

Figured it'd be good to get these out of the way early. First, I had no dope data for this distance. I'm a big believer in Strelok (for non-FT shooting) and have found long-range numbers to work quite well with the couple of fixed 20x SWFA scopes that I have on various airguns. The mil reticle and turrets on those scopes are just convenient for long-range shooting with a ballistics app. With the second focal plain and variable power Falcon X50, it was a little more complicated. So, I started out trying to make Strelok work, but what it was telling me wasn't hitting paper, so all of these shots had to be walked onto the paper. Would need to fool with the Strelok settings to get things to work out correctly-didn't want to spend what little time I had before the wind kicked up, to figure that out. The scope ring/scope combo also didn't provide enough elevation in the turrets. I'd want some adjustable rings if this long-range shooting was going to turn into a long-term situation. Dialing it all the way up wasn't enough with the current rings, I still had to utilize at least 2moas of holdover at 101yards (more for the slugs) after getting all the elevation the scope had. I've found, through FT, that I can shoot better as a scope dialer than a hold over guy. So all these shots were taken with holdover, not my favorite. I also had some more air movement than I hoped. There's a gentle left to right slope here, and as the sun warmed things up, the thermals started climbing that gentle slope, then the wind came up and was from right to left. So, despite my best efforts at setting up at an angle that would be 90 degrees to the prevailing winds here, I was still facing switching wind currents. Finally, I'm not a long range airgun competitor. I've only shot at paper at these distances a handful of times, and this was the first time with the RW.

JSB 25.39 Redesigns

I started with these, again at HIGH which is 42 foot pounds.

First up: lot ending in 219

This first one is a 10 shot group, This was before I had the scope dialed in very good, and was just holding dead-center. 

6? shot group-dunno what happened here as to # of shots, likely too early in the morning for my brain to be able to count to 5

5 shot group

It was at this point that I got frustrated with the low-striking pellets. Out of every 5 or 10 shots, there were a couple that would hit low. Pellets were being plucked straight out of the tin. If this was to turn into a long-range benchrest competition situation, I would be weighing and sorting these bad boys, hopefully to exclude those low striking ones. 

So, I went digging in my little plastic tub of Red Wolf paraphernalia (can be seen sitting on the tailgate) to see if any of the other RD tins were a different lot#, success, there WAS a tin with a different lot#. 

Next: RDs with lot ending in 720

First group after switching lot#s was the high point of the 101 yard shooting. Only 5 shot group, but no way I was going to keep shooting and try my luck to do it 5 more times for a ten shot group. Didn't measure it, but I believe I've got a couple 10s in there and the rest are 9s. 

10 shot group here, this is when it had gotten warm enough for those left to right thermals to kick in

11 shot group here (can't count), and less than 5 minutes after the left to right, the wind came up and I was getting right to left shift. 

 

This lot# seemed to be more consistent than the first, and resulting groups were better. 

I could see what the wind was doing from the dust that was kicking up with the pellet strikes behind the targets. The little cloud of dust was easy to watch to see the wind currents, although after the fact and just a little too late to be useful for the shot that I had just taken. 

Slugs

Switched over to slugs next. 

JSB Knock Outs-I think these were around 33fpe (763fps) when I shot some over the chronograph the other day. The tightest fitting pellets were the low strikes. There seems to be a big variation in slug diameter with these KOs. It may just be the tin that I have or the slug/barrel combination, but there's some potential here, would just need to filter out the tightest ones somehow. Even at these slow speeds, again, there's some potential here. 

NSA 17.5-ten shot group

NSA 20.2, 0.216-ten shot group (I pulled the one that's low and to the right).

NSA 20.2, 0.217-ten shot group (these seemed to be the winner in the slug category, for this gun)

NSA 23gr, 0.217, ten shot group. These fit REALLY tight. I wasn't impressed here. There's a little cluster, but the other shots that aren't in the group, were't me. 

JSB 18.13 on LOW (28-29fpe)

The wind was moving pretty good now, but I wanted to take advantage of the situation so decided to try some long range groups on LOW. 

Ten shot groups, man that wind is tough on pellets compared to slugs.

10-11 shot group here. But there's 12 or 13 holes in the paper. The two (3?) right-most holes are actually going the wrong direction. I had only taped the paper in the top middle, top bottom so it had folded over on me with gusts right when these pellets struck. 

Those pitiful 28fpe pellet results had me throwing in the towel for the shooting paper in the wind.

Extreme long distance airgun shooting (for me)

Next, I did a little shooting at prairie-dog sized targets, similar to this:

Using the NSA 20.2 in 0.217, I was able to connect at 147,148,151, 171 yards, lasered. The 171 yard shot was ridiculous. I was out of elevation and holdover for that one. I had to shoot with the target out of sight under the scope and then move the scope down to see the hits. Took a few to walk it in but I was able to connect on what was mostly a hail mary shot. Those slugs sure seem to hit hard and don't need nearly as much windage as I would have expected. My furthest airgun hit prior to this was at 144 yards, I was on cloud 9 after beating my own record 5 times in one morning. After seeing how much further they can extend airgun ranges, I can kinda see the slug push (although I still think they're only safe for non-populated areas like the ranch pictures shown above). 

Glamour pics taken on the way back in

Old weathered lumber meets new classy lumber

RW was not harmed in this pic, pellet tins between rocks and gun. Morning sun cast some shadows and the pic didn't turn out as good as I hoped for. 

Just a little sagebrush action

Something about this corner pic seemed like the ranch in a nutshell, old weather juniper fence posts, rusted barbed wire, mostly sand, a little grass, tumbleweeds piled into the corner fence, and a dried up cow pattie there in the bottom left. Just had to slip the RW on that nice soft bed of grass to make the pic relevant.

(wow that was a long one)

I came back to the RW in the same afternoon, just at 20fpe with 14.35JSB. I cleaned the barrel and reconfirmed my FT dope chart to make sure that nothing had gotten bumped or barrel leaded up or anything else that could mess up my FT competition this Sat. I'll do a much shorter write up on that confirmation process. 

 

[Red25R]

 I like my Laminate stock . But that's a really pretty piece of wood you got there. 

 

[Franklink]

I was asked over on GTA about scope power and why no measurements of the groups.

No group sizes because I assumed the standard EBR target would give everyone a good idea of what they were looking at. Guess I was assuming too much there.

I threw some calipers on the best pellet and the best slug groups this morning before I left the house, per your request.

I'm measuring that best 5 shot Redesign group at 0.835, center to center. So, sub-MOA at 100 yards.

I'm getting the best 10 shot slug group (NSA 20.2/0.217) at 1.533ish.

For the rest of the groups, the outer edge of the red circle is exactly 2 inches. That should give a pretty good idea of what size groups you are looking at.

From all the group measuring I've done the past couple months, 10 shot groups have almost always been at least twice as big as 5 shot groups. Nothing too groundbreaking about that info (pretty much common sense), there's just twice as much to go wrong in a ten shot group. The odds of getting 10 consecutive projectiles in a row are much worse than getting 5, when pulling straight from the tin like this. So, the slugs should shoot sub moa, 5 shot groups at 100 yards as well (1/2 of what I measured the 10 shot group at).

While I pulled a few shots here and there, most of the "flyers" seemed to be inconsistent projectiles. I've never seen the need for pellet sorting at my typical < 60 yards but for serious 100+ yard shooting, I can see the sorting of pellets as a required step.

The other main contributors to less than stellar accuracy were slugs/pellets that the barrel just didn't agree with, and the wind. I set up in a place where hardly anything grows, because I didn't want to deal with ground cover sticking up in the way of the pellets. From watching pellet strike dust back behind, there were air currents rising off that dirt as the day warmed up (as well as the previously mentioned left to right, right to left currents). If that was happening back behind where there was grass, it was probably worse there in all the barren area between me and the target.

And there's always the human factor.

Also, this is almost all of what I shot on Weds morning. The only shots not shown were the sighters and the hail mary fun on the pdog sized target. If I was cherrypicking I could have painted a rosier picture, but I'm a little more of a realist than that.

Also, scope was at 20x for the shooting, I can't manage the perceived wobble at 50x. There were a couple times I needed to turn it up to see the pellet strikes (when they hit in the dark red).

 

[Franklink]

FT Match

My club had a monthly match yesterday. But first I'll address the last little bit of prep that I did prior to the match. 

After going out and doing the 100 yard groups, I decided that I wanted to pull a few patches through the barrel to de-crud. I haven't seen a loss of accuracy due to the RW barrel being dirty yet, but I didn't want to get to that point in the middle of a match. Pulling patches through a barrel with the oring in a groove in the barrel carries the risk of messing up that oring, but I chose to take the risk rather than possibly lose my dope data/scope zero by removing the scope and barrel.

This was what came out:

It got clean quite quickly. It was very similar to some patches pulled through when I first received the gun. I realized I had an old picture of those patches and now is as good of time as any to share, since I'm already talking about barrel cleaning.

After that I wanted to verify the dope data that I had worked up. The first 5 shot at 30 were on top of each other. I then shot another 10 shots at a target at 55 yards and they too were spot-on. Here is that 10 shot at 55, this is shots 6-15 immediately after cleaning the barrel.

Not quite under a dime, but not too bad. This particular barrel doesn't seem to need any "fouling" shots before the accuracy returns, like we sometimes hear about barrels requiring. 

So, I was all set for the Saturday match at that point. 

The match

I live about 3hrs away from the Ben Avery Shooting facility where our club holds its summer matches. I left my house at 6 AM, planning for around 45min to an hour for sight-in/warm up prior to the 10am start time. 

It seems that many people unfamiliar with the state envision Arizona to be one giant desert. It's not. I live in high desert, as seen in the pics with the 101 yard groups. It is 5600 feet above sea level in my little town. To make it to Ben Avery, I've got quite the scenic drive, and actually climb UP to 7500 feet to cross over a geological feature that is known as the Mogollon Rim. Pronounced "MOH gee yon" and simply referred to as "the Rim" by most Arizonans, it is a geological feature that starts roughly in the northwestern corner of the state, runs east until it hits New Mexico. The Rim splits most of the state into "the low country" to the south, and "the high country" to the north. Ben Avery for example is about 1800 feet above sea level. Lots of ear popping happens with all those elevation changes. And lots of wacky stuff can happen with airgun trajectories. 

I stopped at the top of the Rim and snapped this pic:

Yes, those are pine trees. The Rim holds the largest stand of Ponderosa Pine in the world. The Rim is essentially a 1000 foot cliff, at least for most of it's length, the elevation drops fairly quickly as you get further south and it becomes too low and hot for the Pine trees, that's when you see the saguaro cacti and the desert that most people seem to think of when they envision Arizona. I got to drive through all of that transition on my way to the match. I can certainly think of less scenic 3hr drives. 

The sight in range:

(just a little different scenery than the beautiful Ponderosa pines up north, between you and me, I prefer the high country)

During sight-in I figured out that I was needing an extra MOA (8 clicks) at 55 yards and nearly that for 50 yards (6 clicks). The rest of the dope was spot-on. That is pretty typical of the difference between 5600 feet where the work-up was done, and 1800 where the summer matches occur. That denser air at lower elevation causes the pellet to drop faster at the far distances. I also was needing 6 or 7 inches of hold-off for the wind coming in from about 7 o clock. At this point I was thinking the day was not going to go well. The wind seemed to really be grabbing those .22 pellets. More hold off was definitely necessary for a 14.35gr doing 792 than my usual 10.34gr doing 920. There's a reason FT shooters mostly use .177, easier in the wind than the big heavy stuff moving more slowly. 

The actual course was set up back behind those berms in the above pics, about where the desert scrub starts. 

I snapped a couple pics of targets too. This rabbit target was hiding out, just like a real jack will do. 

No zoom, rabbit is about dead-center in this pic, somewhat of a challenge to see it:

Zoom:

The match director didn't have a Troyer factor figured out this month, but I kept notes on what I ranged the targets as. I had 19/40 yards on one lane, with 25/54, 25/52, 32/44, 30/55, 14/44, 34/46, 25/32, 14/25 on the other 8 lanes that I kept track of. I forgot to write down my yardages on the last lane but I think it was around 30 and 55 yards. There were a couple pretty long targets, but most had generous kill zones. Were it not for the wind, it would have been a very easy course. The wind was from behind us, and switching back and forth from either shoulder. There were far targets that I needed to hold 5 or 6 inches to the left for one shot, and the very next shot on the same target needed that much hold-off to the right because the wind had switched. It was tricky. 

I ended up shooting 36/40. Much better than I thought I would with the .22 handicap, especially when I saw what was happening to my pellets during sight-in. Two of my misses were the wind. One I held at 9 oclock and got pushed all the way over the top of the kill zone to the left, so not enough hold-off. One I held about 1 inch upwind of the target and the pellet hit right where I was holding, so too much hold-off. I completely pulled one shot. My final miss hit at 6oclock and I thought I had a good trigger break. I dropped that target on the second shot without making any scope adjustments, I'd like to blame that one as a bad pellet but I could have been the weakest link in the chain again there too. In conclusion, the RW did what it needed to do. My less than stellar score is a matter of physics (larger pellets making it harder than necessary) and shooter error (pulled shots and misread wind). I can't complain there. 

There were three other shooters in my class that also shot 36/40, so by knocked down targets, we had a 3 way tie for first in Open Class. We'll sometimes have shoot-offs in this scenario, but I think we were all done getting cooked by the early summer Arizona sun, and we defaulted to breaking the tie by who had the longest runs without misses. My 4 misses were scattered throughout my 40 shots, so that put me in third for the tiebreaker, the other two 36/40 shooters had their misses clumped together. There was also a Hunter class shooter that shot a 39/40 (good job Van)! 

So, how'd the Red Wolf .22 do in a FT competition? Well, when looking at all the classes, out of 17 shooters, only one person had a better score, and 2nd place was a four way tie. The argument that the Red Wold in .22 can be stretched to be a competitive FT gun still holds. The one-gun challenge that is part of EBR is pretty much the essence of this experiment with the RW. Can it shoot pellets accurately out to 100 yards? Yes, it'll do sub-moa. Can it shoot slugs for long range critter knocking? Yes, also sub-moa. Can it, not only be used for FT at lower powers, but also be competitive? Most certainly. 

Check out the full match write-up by our match director here:

https://www.airgunnersofarizona.org/may-2020-match-report.html

The dairy

After the match, one of the club members invited me to a dairy where he's been shooting pest birds for a couple years. We got there about 230 and shot til 630. We had two Red Wolfs, his .177 HP and the .22 Standard that I've been reviewing. We've both shot enough pests to realize that less is more when it comes to this kind of shooting. He had the .177 doing about 24fpe, and I used my FT tune at 20fpe for the .22. In that four hours we shot as quick as we could reload. My upper body is actually sore from all the shooting. I'd estimate that between the two of us we killed 400-500 birds (mostly Euro collared doves but some pigeons in the mix too). I shot a full tin and another 100 or so, so 600ish shots. The wind was keeping our hit rate probably around 50-75%, but I was dropping them out to 83 yards with ease when the wind would cooperate. He had a couple shots out to 121 yards with the better BC .177. All in all, a blast! The high shot count with the Standard .22 at 20fpe was perfect for the high volume that we saw. The RW performed flawlessly. I believe it's got somewhere around 5000 pellets through it now, and not even the slightest hiccup in performance at any point of that. 

Future installments

• MAYBE test out some of my cast pellets-they're in the 19.6 weight range and look a lot like a JSB 18.1, just with a small meplat (NOE mold)
• MAYBE still do a full string on LOW with 18.13s (I wanted to shoot the gun a lot with these pellets at this power level, I just haven't)
• measured BCs from the preferred pellet at each of my power levels
  • 25.39s at 42fpe
  • 18.13s at 30-31fpe
  • 14.35s at 19.5fpe
    • ArzRover brought the LabRadar to the match and we tested the BC of the 14.35s to compare to the chronograph derived BC I had, so I've got a little bit more to write about on that. 
• Final thoughts

Sadly, I think my time with the Red Wolf Standard in .22 with the G2 board is winding down. I've learned a lot, and it's been a lot of fun. Hopefully some of my long-windedness will help current or future owners of the RW in some way. 

 

[Springrrrr]

Cole,

With the proper picks, jeweler's screwdrivers and some ambidextrous maneuvering, you can remove and replace the "O" ring without removing the scope or the barrel. Maybe not on the first try, but I do it all the time in my Wolverine and now the Red Wolf.

Patience the first time out is paramount, but once you develop a method, it gets easier each time.

Nice shooting at the match too.

• Final thoughts

Sadly, I think my time with the Red Wolf Standard in .22 with the G2 board is winding down. I've learned a lot, and it's been a lot of fun. Hopefully some of my long-windedness will help current or future owners of the RW in some way. 

With all that great work you put into it, how can you let it go? Skip lunch for a few years and just buy it.

 

[steve123]

The steve123, put your money where your mouth is challenge (AKA groups at 101 yards)

It's been coming for awhile, but I was specifically challenged a few days ago to see what the RW can do at 100 yards. The timing of his challenge came after I was spouting off about shooting field target in the wind, and I don't think that was a coincidence. Steve123 and I are friends and the challenge wasn't called as much, but I'm pretty sure that's what he was politely getting at. So, here you go Steve. 

(warning, lots of pics)

Yesterday morning my schedule worked out to give it a go. I can get to 60 yards at my house, but further than that means a relocation of the shooting fun. The winds have been bad lately, and I was hoping that getting up early would allow me an hour or two of semi-favorable conditions. An alarm clock set to 430 found me about 3 miles from home, out on my families ranch, ready for the sun to peek up and get light enough to see to do some shooting. 

This is one of those panorama setting pics. It's much cooler on a device that allows you to pan, but it's alright as a still. Sun juuuuussstttt peaking out here. Targets are set up and ready to go, just over the top of the tailgate. It was chilly enough that I had a sweater on and was still shivering. Nights in the high country, even in the dead of summer it cools down pretty good at night. (5600 feet above sea level)

The set-up with more light.

Targets there at the edge of where the ground cover starts, no magnification here.

A little bit of a ragtag target situation, but I was trying to minimize trips out and back so utilized a few different paper holders.

The EBR printed target says 75 yards but all shots were taken at the lasered 101. 

Excuses

Figured it'd be good to get these out of the way early. First, I had no dope data for this distance. I'm a big believer in Strelok (for non-FT shooting) and have found long-range numbers to work quite well with the couple of fixed 20x SWFA scopes that I have on various airguns. The mil reticle and turrets on those scopes are just convenient for long-range shooting with a ballistics app. With the second focal plain and variable power Falcon X50, it was a little more complicated. So, I started out trying to make Strelok work, but what it was telling me wasn't hitting paper, so all of these shots had to be walked onto the paper. Would need to fool with the Strelok settings to get things to work out correctly-didn't want to spend what little time I had before the wind kicked up, to figure that out. The scope ring/scope combo also didn't provide enough elevation in the turrets. I'd want some adjustable rings if this long-range shooting was going to turn into a long-term situation. Dialing it all the way up wasn't enough with the current rings, I still had to utilize at least 2moas of holdover at 101yards (more for the slugs) after getting all the elevation the scope had. I've found, through FT, that I can shoot better as a scope dialer than a hold over guy. So all these shots were taken with holdover, not my favorite. I also had some more air movement than I hoped. There's a gentle left to right slope here, and as the sun warmed things up, the thermals started climbing that gentle slope, then the wind came up and was from right to left. So, despite my best efforts at setting up at an angle that would be 90 degrees to the prevailing winds here, I was still facing switching wind currents. Finally, I'm not a long range airgun competitor. I've only shot at paper at these distances a handful of times, and this was the first time with the RW.

JSB 25.39 Redesigns

I started with these, again at HIGH which is 42 foot pounds.

First up: lot ending in 219

This first one is a 10 shot group, This was before I had the scope dialed in very good, and was just holding dead-center. 

6? shot group-dunno what happened here as to # of shots, likely too early in the morning for my brain to be able to count to 5

5 shot group

It was at this point that I got frustrated with the low-striking pellets. Out of every 5 or 10 shots, there were a couple that would hit low. Pellets were being plucked straight out of the tin. If this was to turn into a long-range benchrest competition situation, I would be weighing and sorting these bad boys, hopefully to exclude those low striking ones. 

So, I went digging in my little plastic tub of Red Wolf paraphernalia (can be seen sitting on the tailgate) to see if any of the other RD tins were a different lot#, success, there WAS a tin with a different lot#. 

Next: RDs with lot ending in 720

First group after switching lot#s was the high point of the 101 yard shooting. Only 5 shot group, but no way I was going to keep shooting and try my luck to do it 5 more times for a ten shot group. Didn't measure it, but I believe I've got a couple 10s in there and the rest are 9s. 

10 shot group here, this is when it had gotten warm enough for those left to right thermals to kick in

11 shot group here (can't count), and less than 5 minutes after the left to right, the wind came up and I was getting right to left shift. 

 

This lot# seemed to be more consistent than the first, and resulting groups were better. 

I could see what the wind was doing from the dust that was kicking up with the pellet strikes behind the targets. The little cloud of dust was easy to watch to see the wind currents, although after the fact and just a little too late to be useful for the shot that I had just taken. 

Slugs

Switched over to slugs next. 

JSB Knock Outs-I think these were around 33fpe (763fps) when I shot some over the chronograph the other day. The tightest fitting pellets were the low strikes. There seems to be a big variation in slug diameter with these KOs. It may just be the tin that I have or the slug/barrel combination, but there's some potential here, would just need to filter out the tightest ones somehow. Even at these slow speeds, again, there's some potential here. 

NSA 17.5-ten shot group

NSA 20.2, 0.216-ten shot group (I pulled the one that's low and to the right).

NSA 20.2, 0.217-ten shot group (these seemed to be the winner in the slug category, for this gun)

NSA 23gr, 0.217, ten shot group. These fit REALLY tight. I wasn't impressed here. There's a little cluster, but the other shots that aren't in the group, were't me. 

JSB 18.13 on LOW (28-29fpe)

The wind was moving pretty good now, but I wanted to take advantage of the situation so decided to try some long range groups on LOW. 

Ten shot groups, man that wind is tough on pellets compared to slugs.

10-11 shot group here. But there's 12 or 13 holes in the paper. The two (3?) right-most holes are actually going the wrong direction. I had only taped the paper in the top middle, top bottom so it had folded over on me with gusts right when these pellets struck. 

Those pitiful 28fpe pellet results had me throwing in the towel for the shooting paper in the wind.

Extreme long distance airgun shooting (for me)

Next, I did a little shooting at prairie-dog sized targets, similar to this:

Using the NSA 20.2 in 0.217, I was able to connect at 147,148,151, 171 yards, lasered. The 171 yard shot was ridiculous. I was out of elevation and holdover for that one. I had to shoot with the target out of sight under the scope and then move the scope down to see the hits. Took a few to walk it in but I was able to connect on what was mostly a hail mary shot. Those slugs sure seem to hit hard and don't need nearly as much windage as I would have expected. My furthest airgun hit prior to this was at 144 yards, I was on cloud 9 after beating my own record 5 times in one morning. After seeing how much further they can extend airgun ranges, I can kinda see the slug push (although I still think they're only safe for non-populated areas like the ranch pictures shown above). 

Glamour pics taken on the way back in

Old weathered lumber meets new classy lumber

RW was not harmed in this pic, pellet tins between rocks and gun. Morning sun cast some shadows and the pic didn't turn out as good as I hoped for. 

Just a little sagebrush action

Something about this corner pic seemed like the ranch in a nutshell, old weather juniper fence posts, rusted barbed wire, mostly sand, a little grass, tumbleweeds piled into the corner fence, and a dried up cow pattie there in the bottom left. Just had to slip the RW on that nice soft bed of grass to make the pic relevant.

(wow that was a long one)

I came back to the RW in the same afternoon, just at 20fpe with 14.35JSB. I cleaned the barrel and reconfirmed my FT dope chart to make sure that nothing had gotten bumped or barrel leaded up or anything else that could mess up my FT competition this Sat. I'll do a much shorter write up on that confirmation process.

Sorry Franklink, I've just now got back to this thread so I'm late responding back.

It's not easy to know exactly what we are trying to communicate to each other with just words on a page, is it??? 

Nope I wasn't calling you out in the least, and truthfully I already know you are an excellent shot, possibly the best in our FT club.

I was seriously curious to know how well that RW you are testing would be capable of doing at 100Y compared to Bob's and Mike Bricker's RW's, because I was considering buying it.  

What I take from this post is that this rifle is pretty accurate! As in it's "normal" accurate at 100Y for a RW. In other words, shooting pellets, the better groups with the #720 lot, are doing about as good as one can hope for with pellets. 

As you are experiencing - shooting at 100Y is a funky thing, lol! I can't do any better with my Impact 25 cal or with that EVOL in 30 cal. Also I can get a really good group of 5 one day and the next day I can't, and that's with weighed pellets??? Just life on earth with pellet guns I guess, at least for me right now with what I have to work with??? The most I've scored so far is a 220 at 100Y in calm conditions and I bet you could beat that no problem.

20.2 slugs are shooting awesome BTW! What's that like 1" vertical for 10 shots?

Great place that family ranch!!!

 

[steve123]

Congrats on the 36/40 in the FT match, that's super for a 22 cal!

Man that's a pile of dead birds, what a blast!!!!

 

[Franklink]

Hey Steve!

I assumed it was a good-natured challenge mostly based in curiosity about what the gun could do. 

Thank you for the kind words about my shooting. Whenever I'm shooting with you guys, I feel like I'm just trying to soak up as much knowledge as I can from you experienced and accomplished competition shooters. 

Yep, the vertical on that 10 shot NSA 20.2 group was 1.05 inches. Really cool to see what slugs can do, they get there so quickly, and need about 1/4 as much hold-off for wind. Slugs are a whole new ball game. 

Yeah, I've been having the same thoughts about possibly buying this one from AOA. Seeing what this particular RW can do (100 yard pellets, 100 yard slugs, and 20fpe field target) has made me take a hard look at my finances. On a proven shooter like this one, it's really hard not to give it a forever home.

 

[nomojo65]

I was wondering if that one was staying put!, I think you have answered any questions and details that a potential or existing owner could hope for, nicely done!

 

[Franklink]

With all the time and prep that goes into getting FT match ready, I get a little burnt out. In fact, I've noticed a trend where I won't shoot the rifle that I competed with for a little while, often a week or two. Well, not so with the Red Wolf, I only lasted 4 days. At work today I found myself jonesing for another fix and thinking about an enjoyable and informative testing experiment that I'd have enough time for after work. This is what I came up with.

First, how does shooting it on HIGH from a field target position (bumbag in my case) compare to bench shooting?

I noted in an earlier report that the gun is much easier to shoot at 20 fpe than 42 (cuz you know, physics). During that write up I realized that I had not tried to shoot on HIGH from a bumbag. Decided on 5 shot groups at 55 yards. Also decided to use the lot ending in 219 since I was only at 55 yards, and because I was still intrigued by how consistently inconsistent that lot had been. It was throwing about 10-20% of the pellets low when shooting at 100 yards. INCHES low.

This is my true to dime-size dime target. 6 groups of 5 each. 

I lost concentration on the bottom right one, so disregard it. But on the rest it is interesting to see that the pellets wanted to group in the lower half of the dime. The upper right was my best group and that cluster of four seemed to be where the gun was zeroed. VERY interesting to see the trend continue here. A couple (1 or 2 in the case of 5 shot groups here, or 2 or 3 in the case of 10 shot groups) out of every group hits low. It is not hard to extrapolate this out to 100 yards. If there are a couple pellets out of every group that hit 0.25-0.5 inches low at 55 yards, it's only going to get worse at 100 yards. Very interesting. 

So the continuation of that trend with the wonky 219 lot was cool to see, but I was also able to compare bumbag to benched shooting on HIGH. It actually wasn't as difficult to shoot from a bumbag on HIGH as I thought it might be. I pulled some shots, but the overall accuracy results weren't that much worse/better than what I can do off a bench. Especially that upper right dime. Were it not for inconsistent pellets, I'd be looking at 5 shots into something like 3/8 inch. I could sure tell it was shooting 42fpe though, when comparing the pulse to what is experienced when shooting at 20fpe. 

Second, how do various lots of JSB 18.13 compare? Is the variation in accuracy perceived, or an actual measurable event?

Early in the testing, it became apparent that some lots of the 18.13 shot MUCH better than others. I was very careful to mark the "bad" and "good" lot. I've since gotten another sleeve and wasn't sure where they'd fall. So, similar to the above experiment, I decided on multiple 5 shot groups at 55 yards. These were from a bench. Power level on LOW, so about 29fpe. 

I concentrated really hard to minimize the human effect to make this a fair comparison.

Circles are 1 inch. Left column is the unknown new sleeve. Middle column is the previously decided "bad" lot. Right column is the "good" batch. 

Groups measured center to center and average of the 4, 5 shot groups is at the bottom. All shots taken holding as close to the middle of the bull as possible. 

The "bad" lot was grouping a little high and left of where the other two lots were. It was also very evident that the "bad" lot pellets were chambering with much less resistance than the other two lots. Not that the other two were hard to chamber, they just gave more tactile feedback that the pellet was sliding into the barrel. This is very similar to what I saw with the JSB 13.34gr pellets. They fit loosely and did not shoot as accurately as tighter fitting pellets. 

The new group shot just a hair better than the old "good" lot. So, it looks like the new sleeve will be a good match for this particular RW. 

When I did this before, it was only the middle compared to the right column, and ten shot groups. The "bad" batch of pellets had a much larger average group size than the 
"good" one did. So, although the difference isn't huge here, I feel like this is a better than average showing for the "bad" batch, and a worse than average showing for the "good" batch. The 5 shot groups also made the difference in accuracy seem smaller, but still present.

Conclusion

The above testing/shooting can pretty much be summarized as witnessing the variation in pellets, from one lot to the next. It takes a consistent and reliable airgun to be able to see these subtle differences in pellets. The Red Wolf is that airgun. This thing is a perfect test-bed for this sort of pellet lot variation testing. Every time I shoot this gun on HIGH, I get an additional confirmation about how important weighing and sorting would be for EBR type competitions.

 

[Corvid_hunter]

Once again, thanks for the testing and informative posts you have been sharing with us.

 

[Red25R]

Franklink ,

Lots of food for thought again , thank you . With all the variables in group size and there are many of them. The pellet in it's self is the one thing we have no control over really . We can sort them by weight and by diameter . Which should lead to some of the fliers being taken out of the equation . But what about the makeup of the pellet ? When the batch of lead was mixed to spec. was it high in the tolerance zone or low ? The hardness of the pellet is going to effect how it loads in the rifle . As well as how it flies down the barrel . Yes lots of variables do in fact make things interesting . Following this thread has and I hope will continue to be very informative . 
Thanks again for all the time and effort you put into your post in this thread . It is helping with my learning curve into the Airgun world . Still working on the quarter RW , It has been an adventure so far .

 

[Franklink]

Franklink ,

Lots of food for thought again , thank you . With all the variables in group size and there are many of them. The pellet in it's self is the one thing we have no control over really . We can sort them by weight and by diameter . Which should lead to some of the fliers being taken out of the equation . But what about the makeup of the pellet ? When the batch of lead was mixed to spec. was it high in the tolerance zone or low ? The hardness of the pellet is going to effect how it loads in the rifle . As well as how it flies down the barrel . Yes lots of variables do in fact make things interesting . Following this thread has and I hope will continue to be very informative . 
Thanks again for all the time and effort you put into your post in this thread . It is helping with my learning curve into the Airgun world . Still working on the quarter RW , It has been an adventure so far .

You know, I've never thought about the lead having composition variances from one batch to the next. I'd like to think that JSB has at least that part of the equation worked out. 

I would hope that it's more of a question of consistency between batches ( specs like head size, concentricity, balance, weight, etc) vs consistency of the hardness/composition of the lead (think Rockwell scale). My minimal understanding of the making of lead pellets is that the dies that have a finite lifetime, or rather, will make x amount of pellets before needing to be replaced with new dies. So, pellets that come out of that die early in its lifetime, are more uniform to one another, and closer to specs of what the die is designed to produce. Pellets produced from later in the dies lifetime are not as uniform, as the metal making up the dies has begun to wear (perhaps unevenly). So, batches of pellets from early in the dies life will be "better" and produce more accuracy, be more consistent, etc. Pellets from later aren't as uniform, and less accuracy, Or, heaven forbid, pellets from early and late get mixed into the same tins/sleeves, then all bets are off for any sort of consistent accuracy/precision results. 

 

[Red25R]

Franklink,

I watched a Video of a JSB Factory tour a few days ago. They produce millions of pellets per year . And have some good press on this board that I have noticed . Myself I am only getting a good start with things airgun but I already have a bunch of JSB Pellets and I am forming opinions about them.

I have no doubt that JSB does in fact have a good handle on there process . They would need to maintain a "" Quality Product "" to satisfy the customer . My point about the metal composition was that there is a variance from lot to lot . This would be within the specifications that they work to and test too. I would hope that consistency between batches would be close but they wouldn't be the same . Testing would insure that the end product should satisfy the end user the shooter .

In regards to the question of pellet form ( head size, skirt size,body size, concentricity, balance, weight, ) . Those would for the most part be controlled by the die used to form them . Based on the volume of pellets produced and after watching the video I mentioned earlier . I would figure that multiple dies would in fact be running on on different machines to make the same caliber weight pellet . Each die is slightly different from the others because of the tolerances used in making the dies . So you would have to allow for slight differences they can't be perfect. The dies wear and would have to be resunk in time which would most likely mean that Quality Control and or engineering would have to certify the new die . And to have it be capable of producing the quality pellet in question . And the circle goes on and on . There is allot of possible steps to the process . But as you stated above JSB is I'm sure working on keeping a firm hand on the process.

Checking the diameter of the head , skirt and body . Along with the weight and then doing a setup to check concentricity is doable if you have the time and decent equipment . Even the hardness is doable with a rockwell machine and maybe a fixture to hold the part based on the product being tested . It would make it easier . The metal testing of the composition of the pellet would take some time and expensive equipment . So I think I'll let JSB do most of that. It's to much work for me I'm retired . 

A short back ground on me . I happen to have some first hand knowledge of die formed parts . I worked 33 years in Quality Control at a large manufacturing company . I worked a lot of the time during those years with vendor supplied die formed parts . As the die wears the part being produced changes slightly . And part of my job was to maintain records of the volume of parts made per die run . And the lot numbers of the metal that was being used to make the parts. Because the metal had to meet are specs. And our lab verified to our specs, and the vendor provided certs. As well as the parts had to meet Blue print specs As checked by little ole me . FYI . That was not intended to be an all inclusive step by step process story line . But a simple an, I hope not to boring glance if you will at I guess what I was alluding to in my previous post . Lots of variables, . Some we can check without a lot of trouble . Some I think we need to let JSB do the heavy lifting . At least in regards to the pellets . Sorry if this run, Looong !!