Getting my Maverick back from a 4 month repair that should have been a 2 week repair at most.
Well i threw in the new Heavy liner, and went shooting on Sunday.
But ! this really was a nightmare and reminded me strongly about the rifle when it was new.
First of all somehow the slugs was clipping my moderator, and so would on occasions leave the rifle with a whine and go to god know where.
When they did not do t hat ( well at least not as bad ) well lets just say a 5 shot group on 50 M was CTC of 1000 mm and with one of the pellets not even hitting the rather large target ( a fridge 1 X 2 M in size ) ( 20 gr Zan @ 900 FPS )
So i yanked off the moderator, and then things started to work a little, and i was able to get 20 gr Zan to fly at least as good as i can out of the standard barrel, but on the day there was more wind than forecast so for sure things was drifting too. but still not in any predictable way so for sure wind or not things are not optimal with this barrel compared to what i have seen other .177 shooters do with the Heavy barrel on even larger distances.
I also tried 16 gr Zan and 13 gr Zan and KO slugs, and really the lighter the worse with slugs, and i mean 13 grain was like OMG all over the place. but just a 150 mm CTC or so.
10.43 gr Air arms field heavy, well shoot fine, and so did 13.43 monster redesigns.
Anyway as i got the 20gr Zans to sort of worked, i moved out to the 75 M i usually shoot, put up some 2" shoot N see targets and set off.
First target i decided to shoot it until i had annihilated the red dot in the middle, with the wind not least on 75M and the not overly well performing barrel, well i needed at least 40 shots to remove the red in the middle.
And as you can see not much order in the shots, the wind was gusting from behind and as i shoot up hill, i think the ones below the target are wind related, the other ones that missed i have no idea.
View attachment 347239 The next target i shot, i decided to just do a 5 shot group, and paid more attention to the gusting winds.
Here i managed to NIX the red dot in the #5 shot, and have a not too bad CTC for 5 shots, and the grouping make sense.
View attachment 347240 One thing is for sure, next time i go shooting i am bringing the standard barrel, CUZ the way lighter slugs performed for me in the Heavy liner, well i have little hopes for that to get better, so a new liner just to be able to shoot 20 gr slugs,,,,, a bit expensive.
I feel like the FX barrel lottery, not much luck in it for me.
I will have a fellow shooter ( viking airgunner ) test my 700 mm heavy barrel in his gun if he can be bothered, but really it is strange.
Probing the barrel when i got it, it is very hard going for the first 2-3 " of the barrel, then for the middle part you only press very little, until you get to the forward end of the barrel where it again choke in the last 2" or so.
None of my other barrels are that "choked" in the feed end, you only have to overcome the initial seating of the slug, then its fairly even until you reach the choke in the front.
My next rifle will not be a FX one simple too much work and cost to get shooting well ( initially i had to get a new barrel CUZ the factory 600 mm one did not really like shooting anything over 600 FPS )
Also a cocking handle snapping like mine did,,,, WTF
at 7 yards in basement. Still too cold for outside. The ones I figured were X's are the ones entirely inside the 10 ring.
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. I have a set of adjustable rings on order and that will correct this problem.