Your Long Distance Philosophy to shorten time and get results ?

[Shooting Targets]

Ok, well been testing out a few guns I want to know your methodology in filtering through slugs and settings on your rifle to make things the easiest. There seems to hundreds of variables that we can tune / change and that then pushes us to retest our slugs and distance. So curious how you guys are able to filter out the trash and get out to 100 to 200 yards as quick as possible.

For me correct me if I am wrong I do not want to miss something. 

1. Start at an indoor range say 25 yards, No wind, no environment just Start pushing pellets / slugs and see what the tightest group is at that range. 

2. The fliers at 25 yards are already discounted and the groups that are say 1 inch or more are kicked out of the group slug types are removed. 

3. Push out doors say 50 meters star doing groupings with the ammo. When I say grouping lets say a mid tune of 850 to 950 FPS for these slugs. Sort out the trash and move to 100 meters. 

4. Find the best 2 or 3 slugs / pellets at that range then really start to work on tuning the gun, maybe even add a barrel tuner look at FPS spread, anything that might throw the slug off base and again sort/ refine the tune ?? 

5. Go long distance say 100 plus yards and keep tuning???



That is all i have if you have a better way let me know. In the above solution, I am afraid of getting a slug that does just so so groupings at 25 yards but really holds on at 100. My fear is I have tight groups with the JSB beasts at 25 yards but at 100 are destroyed , they destablize in flight and are horrible. Well curious about the opposite. You know the slug that is good to ok at 25 yards but just keep solid at 100 plus yards and more. Any input would be great ?

I shot .177 slugs last week, some good groups at 115 yards but man some fliers were like what the hell happened with that one ???



jay

 

[Ghostranger169]

Pellets and slugs are 2 different animals and behave differently. Research drag stabilization(pellet) versus gyroscopic stabilization(slug). A lot of slugs don't seem to produce as tight of groups(compared to pellets) at closer ranges, but they APPEAR to group better at longer distances(actually the group size just isn't worsening, as distance increases, AS MUCH, compared to pellet groups). Pellets are usually the other way around. The speed at which you are shooting has a MAJOR effect on longer range shooting as well. Pellets USUALLY like a specific range of velocities between 850 and 910 fps. Slugs USUALLY do better at longer distances when you shoot them faster(compared to pellets), but not always and there is an upper limit to how fast you can shoot them(research supersonicvs transsonic vs subsonic). Sometimes just a few fps more or less will give you better performance, especially at longer distances. Also, this "best speed" for performance at long distance when it is relatively calm, can be greatly affected by stronger winds.

If your goal is 100 yard shooting, just start shooting at 100 yards. Closer distances won't tell you much about 100 yard performance. Not much way around a LOT of trial and error. Do a lot of Google searching. Best advice I can give is to TEST EVERYTHING YOURSELF. What works for someone else, may not work for you. Or it may be "made up" or erroneous information.

I like to think shooting has 2 aspects: Precision(i.e.-consistent tight groups) and accuracy(i.e.-can you hit what you are aiming at). One is rarely much good without the other.

Projectiles with a higher ballistic coefficient(BC) and/or projectiles which are accurate/precise out of YOUR gun(at a particular speed) are your friend. Wind will always be your worst enemy, so be sure to test in the wind whenever you can. This wind testing will help you "cull" out a lot of projectiles. All things equal(mainly BC), a heavier projectile will USUALLY out perform a lighter one with respect to resistance to wind drift, BUT may or may not have the best precision(tight groups). One projectile may have good precision, but get blown by the wind so much you can't hit the target(poor accuracy). Another may be resistant to windrift(heavy with high BC, so you can at least hit the target at longer ranges), but doesn't have precision(groups like a shotgun all over the target, never yielding tight groups no matter the wind).

There is SOOO much more than what I have mentioned(barrels types, twist rates, sorting,...), and there are SOOOO many people who have WAAY more info than me, but this is just my 2 cents

Good luck and welcome to the addiction LOL

 

[qball]

Any gun that can do half inch groups at 50 yards can go to 100 yards and beyond. Once you get a good 50 yard tune then don’t touch it, everything beyond 50 yards is all environmental not the gun. Learn your ballistics/wind drift and work in your skills of reading the environments. 


Quickest way is to study ballistics and play around with strelok pro. Then just shoot, shoot and shoot some more. 

 

[JungleShooter]

Jay,

I appreciate your question. It's one that I have thought about a lot....

I like your step by step procedure. Someone really ought to write up a comprehensive guide...! 



Ghostranger,

your write-up is really good!

I think I have rarely seen some of these issues stated so clearly:

•accuracy vs. precision

•BC vs barrel's precision

•at longer ranges slug groups open up less than pellets



Green ball.

 

Matthias

 

[Shooting Targets]

Any gun that can do half inch groups at 50 yards can go to 100 yards and beyond. Once you get a good 50 yard tune then don’t touch it, everything beyond 50 yards is all environmental not the gun. Learn your ballistics/wind drift and work in your skills of reading the environments. 


Quickest way is to study ballistics and play around with strelok pro. Then just shoot, shoot and shoot some more.

qball respect your advice. I do have a question. For one of my examples I was shooting the JSB beasts at 55 yards groups were good , they bucked the wind better than say the regular pellets. I thought this might be the ticket. Then stretch the gun out to 100 yards and was shocked at the grouping. I guess in looking at other research people are saying the JSB beast destabilize around 80 yards and go crazy. I guess that is why I try to test out that distance. I like your advice and would typical agree but seems a bit odd you do get an example like this and wonder if other slugs do the same like destablize out past say 125 yards but are great at 100?? Nothing to back that up but makes me wonder more and more how things actually with pellets and slugs in flight. 


Jay

 

[qball]

Any gun that can do half inch groups at 50 yards can go to 100 yards and beyond. Once you get a good 50 yard tune then don’t touch it, everything beyond 50 yards is all environmental not the gun. Learn your ballistics/wind drift and work in your skills of reading the environments. 


Quickest way is to study ballistics and play around with strelok pro. Then just shoot, shoot and shoot some more.

qball respect your advice. I do have a question. For one of my examples I was shooting the JSB beasts at 55 yards groups were good , they bucked the wind better than say the regular pellets. I thought this might be the ticket. Then stretch the gun out to 100 yards and was shocked at the grouping. I guess in looking at other research people are saying the JSB beast destabilize around 80 yards and go crazy. I guess that is why I try to test out that distance. I like your advice and would typical agree but seems a bit odd you do get an example like this and wonder if other slugs do the same like destablize out past say 125 yards but are great at 100?? Nothing to back that up but makes me wonder more and more how things actually with pellets and slugs in flight. 


Jay

You can't compare pellets with slugs because their BC or how much they are pushed around is VERY different. Pellets do NOT destabilize no matter how far, they don't even need any rifling because they are designed to be self stabilizing with their little skirt/parachute. Unfortunately because of their little parachute they simply get blown around by the wind as they slow down much faster. In calmer conditions you can put the center dot on the bullseye and get very close or hit it at 20-25 yard but 100 yards is completely different. This is NOT because they destabilized, this is simply the result of environmental variables like the wind and altitude density. Slugs do not have a parachute built in so they need enough spin to be stabilized and can be destabilized by too slow of spin or muzzle blast/turbulence but with much higher BC they will have smaller group size if you don't account for environmentals. 



Examples at 100 yards with 5MPH crosswind:

16.3 JSB Exact Beast with BC of 0.034 @920FPS, 100 yard horizontal drift due to 90 degree croswind of 5mph: 7 inches

12.5 NSA slug with BC of 0.07 @920FPS, 100 yard horizontal drift due to 90 degree croswind of 5mph: 3.5 inches

Assuming your gun shoots 1MOA with ZERO wind, if you shoot the much lighter 12.5 grain slugs in 5mph croswind you have max group size of 4.5 inches(3.5+1) but if you shot the much heavier pellet in the same condition and speed your max group size will be 8.5 inches (7.5+1). Most of us don't have indoor ranges so when shooting outdoors you have to account for wind drift/environmental effects or ballistic calculations on the particular projectile you are shooting. The farther you go the more dramatic the environmental effects are. This is why the only way to shoot well at long distances is to learn ballistics, not obsess over the guns. Guns don’t shoot sub MOA groups at 100 yards, the shooter does. you can decrease the environmental effects by shooting faster and higher BC projectiles but the gains over currently available slugs will be relatively small, we are already at the limits of airguns with most high power quality rifles and slugs.



Another way to look at it is if your gun sucks and shoot 2 MOA all day but you know your wind drift well and can read the wind like no one else then it's completely conceivable to have a 2 MOA group at 100 yard or even farther with the same crappy gun. In this scenario you can out shoot a guy with sub MOA gun but doesn’t account for environments all day at 100 yards with your crappy 2 MOA gun.



You can't buy your way into long range shooting, then again this is why it's fun and addicting. 



Edit: slug stabilization is a completely different conversation but if you can get 1/2 inch group at 50 yard then your slug is adaquately stabilized, in fact the farther the slugs goes more stable it will be. 

 

[Airgun-hobbyist]

I am a tinkerer and have found that working on the gun's air flow, and then power delivery, and then accuracy through barrel maintenance and finally ammo selection for accuracy. All this gets me to the best of all worlds and satisfies that tinkering hobby. In the end keeping the air flow most consistent and getting tightest extreme spread throughout the shot string keeps the barrel whip and those harmonic nodes consistent predictable to be able to find the best ammo for the barrel.

First comes air flow... High pressure air needs the efficient transfer of air around corners of the valving and ports. I achieve this through cutting/grinding and polishing (where the air starts at or before the poppet and ends at the back of a pellet or slug). This is critical in that it makes the flow less turbulent and the most consistent. Benefits include tightening up the extreme spreads and usually has gains of around 40 fps also.

Then I move to power delivery to get the most power out if the the spring and hammer system by cleaning gooped up grease and polishing anything that has witness rub marks on it. This makes less friction there, and where parts must rub the lower friction from being polished is more consistent. 

And then I move on to the accuracy and projectile's of choice. First comes the barrel. A good cleaning, inspection of the bore and crown, then polishing said barrel and fixing crown blemishes such as burrs goes a long ways it the start of finding the best ammo. As far as ammo goes, because I like to use a magazine for hunting and bench shooting I find all the off the shelf ammo that fits them and is within the parameters of the end use (be it hunting or target shooting). This selection of ammo gets shot for groups based on weight at the highest power setting. I eliminate the worst weights and then go from there as far as far as tuning using the hammer spring tension setting and other tuning apparatus such as regulator pressure. All this starts out on a calm day and at decent yardages where group size differences can easily be seen, again based on the rifle and projectile.

There is a lot of intricacies that I learn every day on here that other's do and will include them into my tasks. For example I recently bought a heavy harmonic tuning weight for a 457 that has bad accuracy issues even after working on the barrel and projectiles. Hopefully this weight will be the answer because of the amount of power is surely throwing the end of barrel all around at the shot, but I may find that it is just a slug stabilization issue based on twist rate and speed. It is an expensive experiment, but worth it to me to learn something new.

In the end do what works best for you and try new things.

 

[Shooting Targets]

I am a tinkerer and have found that working on the gun's air flow, and then power delivery, and then accuracy through barrel maintenance and finally ammo selection for accuracy. All this gets me to the best of all worlds and satisfies that tinkering hobby. In the end keeping the air flow most consistent and getting tightest extreme spread throughout the shot string keeps the barrel whip and those harmonic nodes consistent predictable to be able to find the best ammo for the barrel.

First comes air flow... High pressure air needs the efficient transfer of air around corners of the valving and ports. I achieve this through cutting/grinding and polishing (where the air starts at or before the poppet and ends at the back of a pellet or slug). This is critical in that it makes the flow less turbulent and the most consistent. Benefits include tightening up the extreme spreads and usually has gains of around 40 fps also.

Then I move to power delivery to get the most power out if the the spring and hammer system by cleaning gooped up grease and polishing anything that has witness rub marks on it. This makes less friction there, and where parts must rub the lower friction from being polished is more consistent. 

And then I move on to the accuracy and projectile's of choice. First comes the barrel. A good cleaning, inspection of the bore and crown, then polishing said barrel and fixing crown blemishes such as burrs goes a long ways it the start of finding the best ammo. As far as ammo goes, because I like to use a magazine for hunting and bench shooting I find all the off the shelf ammo that fits them and is within the parameters of the end use (be it hunting or target shooting). This selection of ammo gets shot for groups based on weight at the highest power setting. I eliminate the worst weights and then go from there as far as far as tuning using the hammer spring tension setting and other tuning apparatus such as regulator pressure. All this starts out on a calm day and at decent yardages where group size differences can easily be seen, again based on the rifle and projectile.

There is a lot of intricacies that I learn every day on here that other's do and will include them into my tasks. For example I recently bought a heavy harmonic tuning weight for a 457 that has bad accuracy issues even after working on the barrel and projectiles. Hopefully this weight will be the answer because of the amount of power is surely throwing the end of barrel all around at the shot, but I may find that it is just a slug stabilization issue based on twist rate and speed. It is an expensive experiment, but worth it to me to learn something new.

In the end do what works best for you and try new things.

Thanks for the info will take that into consideration. Always learning new things.



Jay

 

[Shooting Targets]

Any gun that can do half inch groups at 50 yards can go to 100 yards and beyond. Once you get a good 50 yard tune then don’t touch it, everything beyond 50 yards is all environmental not the gun. Learn your ballistics/wind drift and work in your skills of reading the environments. 


Quickest way is to study ballistics and play around with strelok pro. Then just shoot, shoot and shoot some more.

qball respect your advice. I do have a question. For one of my examples I was shooting the JSB beasts at 55 yards groups were good , they bucked the wind better than say the regular pellets. I thought this might be the ticket. Then stretch the gun out to 100 yards and was shocked at the grouping. I guess in looking at other research people are saying the JSB beast destabilize around 80 yards and go crazy. I guess that is why I try to test out that distance. I like your advice and would typical agree but seems a bit odd you do get an example like this and wonder if other slugs do the same like destablize out past say 125 yards but are great at 100?? Nothing to back that up but makes me wonder more and more how things actually with pellets and slugs in flight. 


Jay

You can't compare pellets with slugs because their BC or how much they are pushed around is VERY different. Pellets do NOT destabilize no matter how far, they don't even need any rifling because they are designed to be self stabilizing with their little skirt/parachute. Unfortunately because of their little parachute they simply get blown around by the wind as they slow down much faster. In calmer conditions you can put the center dot on the bullseye and get very close or hit it at 20-25 yard but 100 yards is completely different. This is NOT because they destabilized, this is simply the result of environmental variables like the wind and altitude density. Slugs do not have a parachute built in so they need enough spin to be stabilized and can be destabilized by too slow of spin or muzzle blast/turbulence but with much higher BC they will have smaller group size if you don't account for environmentals. 



Examples at 100 yards with 5MPH crosswind:

16.3 JSB Exact Beast with BC of 0.034 @920FPS, 100 yard horizontal drift due to 90 degree croswind of 5mph: 7 inches

12.5 NSA slug with BC of 0.07 @920FPS, 100 yard horizontal drift due to 90 degree croswind of 5mph: 3.5 inches

Assuming your gun shoots 1MOA with ZERO wind, if you shoot the much lighter 12.5 grain slugs in 5mph croswind you have max group size of 4.5 inches(3.5+1) but if you shot the much heavier pellet in the same condition and speed your max group size will be 8.5 inches (7.5+1). Most of us don't have indoor ranges so when shooting outdoors you have to account for wind drift/environmental effects or ballistic calculations on the particular projectile you are shooting. The farther you go the more dramatic the environmental effects are. This is why the only way to shoot well at long distances is to learn ballistics, not obsess over the guns. Guns don’t shoot sub MOA groups at 100 yards, the shooter does. you can decrease the environmental effects by shooting faster and higher BC projectiles but the gains over currently available slugs will be relatively small, we are already at the limits of airguns with most high power quality rifles and slugs.



Another way to look at it is if your gun sucks and shoot 2 MOA all day but you know your wind drift well and can read the wind like no one else then it's completely conceivable to have a 2 MOA group at 100 yard or even farther with the same crappy gun. In this scenario you can out shoot a guy with sub MOA gun but doesn’t account for environments all day at 100 yards with your crappy 2 MOA gun.



You can't buy your way into long range shooting, then again this is why it's fun and addicting. 



Edit: slug stabilization is a completely different conversation but if you can get 1/2 inch group at 50 yard then your slug is adaquately stabilized, in fact the farther the slugs goes more stable it will be. 





Qball thanks gain, will look more into reading the wind and environmental issues. I know it does effect accuracy just did not think that much. Will start to really look at wind direction and might put out wind flags to get a rough indication what is really going on down range. 

Jay