What have you done with your airgun today?

I am working hard on trying to get my new Maverick to work.

on shoot #1 10 days or so ago, i jumped strait on JSB heavy, but really the gun did not like those, felt / looked ( on paper ) pretty erratic. Tried a few hammer spring setting ( 7 - 5 - 3 - 1 ), but that did nott really change much for the heavy pellets.

So i changed to the Monster redesigns, and that did work a lot better, but TBH still did not feel super good, but i could make large holes with 10 shots, and smaller holes with 5 shots, they was just a bit larger than i expected they would be ( this on a fairly calm day with winds at 2 MPH max and from the back ( shooting 47 M / 51 yards )

So i figured one of those carbon liners might take the edge of things, so one was ordered at Krale down in the Netherlands

When i got it, needless to say the Maverick was unpacked so i could install the carbon liner and check the install of my scope ( which was installed by eyeballing it, and turned out to be 2 - 3 degrees off at the most ) But the carbon liner was sort of a buzz kill the Smooth twist liner ( with no FX sticker on it ) fit just fine, but then inserting it into the shroud there was a big slop i assume at least 2/10 of a mm, if you just put the carbon fiber tube in the shroud you can shake it and hear it rattle around in there.

So to gauge about how much ( me not having a micrometer ) i put on some clear office tape, and i can cut a length of 13 CM and wrap it on the carbon liner and then it will slide in and fit better, BUT ! the barrel shroud also seem to be choked too, inserting the carbon fiber tube + tape and past the threaded part and suddenly it is much smoother sailing, but no resistance felt.

Anywho i just put on the carbon liner as it was, and was ready for shooting again, and that i did yesterday in conditions much like the #1 shoor at least direction of the winde, but it was probably 1 MPH faster.

Anyway the gun was now all over the place, even after dialing in scope again cuz the monster redesigns was hitting over a foot low and also a 1/4 - 1/2 foot to the right. So i dialed my scope,,,,,, and i did that a lot in the following hours, and there was no large hole shooting, at best a little inclination of that, and i tried JSB heavy + Hades - Monster redesigns and even gave the beasts a spin too, and the HN Silver points, and all of them was all over the place within 2" or so from point of aim, with the occasional pellet jumping out to 3- 4" from point of aim.

My friend beside me, once i got him to tether his 170 bar tank and dial his scope for that was shooting a lot better with his old .22 Cutlass firing Jumbo exacts which that gun and my cyclone always liked the best.

I even tried cleaning the Maverick at the bench yesterday, and i did also get some pretty dirty patches thru it, and it did also help a little, but it was a "little" not a solution.

Anyway i once again ran a good tin of pellets thru the gun and TBH i was not enjoying my new expensive gun much, Maybe i had too high hopes.

So today i figured i would try to take the barrel apart again, and then to space out the carbon fiber tube with tape so it is at least a little better fit in the barrel shroud, so i now have 4 places where 13 CM of clear office tape are wrapped around the carbon fiber tube.

I then found my missing FX barrel sticker, it must have come off inside the barrel and then gotten jammed deep down behind the carbon fiber tube, but the sticker do read Smooth twist X superior, so there should be a chance of the gun being able to drive in tacks.

Also ran a lot more patches thru the barrel and again they came out really black at least for starters, so now i am ready for my #3 go at shooting my fine mew Maverick, and hopefully this time it will perform more to my expectations, for the next shoot i will also be the owner of a crono so i will be able to take a more scientific approach to my shooting, maybe change the REG setting away from the default 90 BAR

Inserting the CF liner i of course made sure of the orientation of the barrel, it was also marked with a black mark from the factory, so the gun suddenly being off by more than a foot cant have been from me indexing the barrel wrong,,,,,, at least that is what i tell myself.

Messing with the CF liner again today, i did turn the barrel 180 degrees VS the factory position seeing as it shot that low yesterday.

I have of course also been careful not clamping / tightening down too hard on the barrel, i dont think my issues have been that.

PIC of today's result of FX Maverick barrel & shroud exploration.

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Okay did a little " pew - pew" again today, and with the cleanup and "mods" the Maverick shoot better, though it still very much favor the Monster redesigns. but the performance with the heavy pellets did also improve.

Then on a hunch / WTHN notion i figured why not UP the reg / plenum pressure from 90 to 100 BAR,,,,, and then instantly the MRD pellets shot even better, maybe even the Heavies.

Got a crono in the mail, i am done guessing here, now i wanna know for sure my exact "pew - pew" speeds

Still a bit strange to me that the heavies dont fly better, TBH they are sort of what i would expect the gun to have been tested with at the factory ( heavies being sort of a middle ground in pellet weight )

Now i am inclined to think FX use sub 10 grain pellets for testing,,,,,,, which if true i find SILLY, but on the face of it ( never owned a regulated gun before ) i would assume 90 BAR would be fine in .177 at least.

As they say "you live - you learn" :) so far i have learned my Maverick only like 1 pellet, even tried 10.34 KO slugs today,,,,,, the result not even worth mentioning.

NEXT up,,,,,, clamping the damn gun down to rule out any amateur scope use on my part,,,,,, though i can not see how i should suddenly have become incapable of using a scope right.

It is a new scope though, so i also contemplate slapping on the old Hawke scope from the Cyclone, just for the hell of it.

As they also say " if it was easy, everyone would be doing it"
 
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Retuned my SAW (Squirrel Assault Weapon) to 100 bars and minimum hammer spring to get a few more shots out of my 170cc tube. Found the HS and reg sweet spot shooting 7.9grain CPHP @585fps with TP on low and Hades @600fps with TP on medium with same zero or POI. Shot it a ton with the new Vectoptics LPVO scope and damn this thing is fun and accurate plus I get like 4 mags with a 230 bar fill. While still full on lethal on tree rats with Hades any where in my little yard. I freaking love this thing with the LPVO scope. 



Also retuned my crown compact to shoot 12.5 NSA at 760fps, will try to take her out to the range soon to see how she does at 150 yards! I freaking love this thing too! I know, I have problems!😅

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Stopped by the range today for couple of hours. Decided I really don't care for the FX laminated stock on the bench, just doesn't fit my shooting style, it is wonderfully comfortable at freehand leaning on a tree type of free style shooting but not great on the bench and probably even worse prone. 



Got my 50 yard groups down to about .3 inches but in the process of trying to get better it got worse. Need to fine tune the gun better, trying to get a 300mm barrel to shoot slug accurately at long range certainly can be frustrating. I can hit 1 inch rock at 120 yard bank at the end of the range but just not very consistently especially at lowly 760fps also the wind really kicks the little 12.5 grain slugs around. 
 
Decided that I like my Pepper laminate Crown stock so much better for offhand shooting style I changed it back to ultra compact form. Just super fun to shoulder and shoot offhand and leaning against the wall which is what I do mostly in my back yard. 


Then I was wondering about which scope to use, wanted to drop a bit more weight especially on top so for fun I put on my Alpha6 1-6 LPVO scope. Now it’s a Crown Ultra Compact CQB edition! 🤣

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as you can see in picture it balances very well! 


Think I will try to tune it for 10FPE on min power with TP on medium and 6.5 FPE with TP on low, then see if I can get it to shoot 12.5 grain slugs at 750fps on high power. Will have to tinker with it more at the range. 


 
Picked my 45 minute tank/bottle from hydro testing yesterday. Trying to fill the tank this morning with my compressor and thinking to myself I really should just have the paint ball shop do the initial fill. On my second run and cool down cycle and I’m barely at 2000 psi. 😭

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EDIT: as I try to fill the tank my YH compressor gauge gave up the ghost. Doh!
 
I assembled sort-of a tdr "frankengun" from an Evanix Rex with extra parts over the course of the last few years. And sometimes i just take it out of the bag and assemble it and lay down prone in my living room. Larping like a sniper during the Zombie Apocalypse. And then i just take it apart again and put it back in its bag... It makes me smile. So that's what i did today 😃
 
Got my 1720t carbine back from my buddy. I really like this little carbine a lot!

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“Stalked” a fat fox squirrel around my yard , never had a shot. However it’s brazen and comfortable enough to run by me on my fence only 5 feet away so………I’m just waiting for that perfect pose at the right spot. Hopefully next day or so. Gotta love work from home! LOL