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In this issue:
Need kneeling help
Need position help
Re: Federal ammo
Re: Federal ammo
Re: other cheap ammo
Re: other cheap ammo
Re: Grades of Eley / Bore Snake / other cheap ammo
Re: 4765 buttplate
Which air rifle to buy
Gunsmithing, Inc tuner
Re: Quiet Zone timing
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Your humble Editor again <g>
I could use some help with my kneeling position to get rid of the pulse (?) wobble of about 20-25mm. I can't seem to adjust my sling on my arm to get rid of it. You can see my position at
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1190/kneeling.htm
While I hardly shoot at all, I did have limited success with a different position last Nov, but the position was terrible in regards to balance and head position. How ironic, but it was nearly as stable as prone at times. Unfortunately, I couldn't duplicate it when I started shooting again in April so I decided to use a more conventional position.
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Dear Michael, great concepts, as always.
I am experiencing problems in prone position. Altough
I "see"the shots making a 10.9 when I pull the
trigger, I got surprised by having shot a 9 or worse,
8!! I cannot explain this, if these shots are made
standing, they hit the 10 ring undoubtedly. I have
verified my position, relaxation of shoulders and arms
and still there are some shots I cannot explain.
Perhaps the sighting time has something to do? Can you
help me?
About trigger control in standing (air and 3p) what do
you think is the best time to let the shot go?
sometimes, when you wait for a non moving period, it
seems too late for releasing the trigger.
Guido Lastra
BOgota, COlombia
[Editor - My problem with prone is my eyes don't seem to always find the center even with a long bloop tube. I just got a SCATT to play with and I can see that I aim at slightly different points on some shots. I also have some pulse beat so if I shoot on the peak of the beat, it may throw a shot out. I also don't always have the same pressure on grip, cheek, etc. No wonder I'm not a good prone shooter! <g> Prone is a highly technical discipline I think and I just don't shoot enough to get all the finer points down. Another thing to watch is wind.
As for trigger control, my opinion is in agreement with what you think. By the time it has settled it is often too late. Your finger has to activate the trigger AS it settles.]
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> I haven't done extensive wind testing, but my group of shooters do lots
> of NRA 1600 prone matches, and the generally accepted wisdom (many of
> them do ammunition lot testing before buying by the 5000 round case lot)
> is that the subsonic versions of Federal and other brands yield less
> wind dispersion at 100 yards.
> To be fair, no one in our group has done bench rest testing under
> controlled conditions, with statistical analysis, and published
> results. Therefore, our belief that subsonic is better in the wind may
> be considered as just popular opinion.
The drag at Mach 1 is much more than the drag at either subsonic or supersonic velocities; rimfire ammo with supersonic muzzle velocity become subsonic at a target 100yds away which make it more susceptible to winds than ammo that have subsonic muzzle velocity.
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I have done many hours of testing over the past two years with
Federal 900B and Federal 1000B ammunition. All of the testing was
done with a machine rest I built that was verified for accuracy
with a 36x scope mounted on the rifle. Most of it was in
troubleshooting problems that turned out to be unrelated to the
ammunition. In the process though, I was looking at the
ammunition.
In regards to the lead build up in the bore. Take two small
pliers and pull a bullet out of the shell. The crimp scraps lead
flakes off the lead bullet similar to the ones you find on your
patch when you clean the rifle. My reason for disassembling the
cartridge was to determine where the variation in the weight of
the cartridges were coming from. I had a lot of Federal 900B and
Federal 1000B that I observed frequent (1 in 5) shots outside of a
tight group. I weighed and sorted the cartridges into 5 groups
from light to heavy. I then fired five shots groups with each
weight group and then five shots groups with each shot from a
different weight group. I found no significant difference in group
size by weight. As for where the weight variation was coming from,
I disassembled the heaviest and the lightest cartridge I found.
All components in the heavy cartridge had more mass than the
components of the light cartridge. I concluded cartridge weight
could not be used to find bad cartridges in Federal 900B and
Federal 1000B.
The variations in weight were small (~0.5%). I used a precision
0.1 mg Mettler scientific balance for weighing the cartridges.
Zero point did not change from weight group to weight group as
indicated by shooting a tight group with each shot in the group
being from a different weight class.
Federal 1000B Lot 1978B 5 shot groups
3.3625-3.3650 grams 0.210
3.3651-3.3675 g 0.320
3.3676-3.3700 g 0.520
3.3751-3.3775 g 0.280
3.3776-3.3799 g 0.260
1 each of above 0.315
Federal 900B Lot 2030 10 shot groups
Random 0.400
>3.3675 grams 0.515 1 wild
651-675 0.460
626-650 0.400
600-625 0.400
<600 0.515 2 wild
2 each of above 0.545 2 wild
From my experience with statistics, scientific analysis, and what
I normally see from my machine, there is no significant difference
between any of the weight groups.
I have yet to discover where the fliers were coming from. I can
say that there have been some lots of Federal that I almost never
saw fliers from, while in the same test another lot gave many. I
have made one improvement to the machine rest that seemed to help,
but it still hasn't completely explained or eliminated the fliers.
The greater the mass, the slower the acceleration with the same
force. The carriage on my machine rest was heavy (>30 lbs.). I cut
out extra material and significantly lightened it to allow
increased acceleration of the carriage while the bullet was in the
barrel. I did this because when I tried to test in December when
it was cold and the bearings were stiff, I couldn't get a decent
group for anything. I realized how significant a slight
resistence was. The last test I ran, after cutting the weight down
of the carriage, I got the smallest groups I have seen from this
machine rest.
In both of my rifles it takes only 3 shots with Federal after
cleaning for the groups to tighten up. I have observed this every
time I have tested and I have conducted many tests (>25). My
cleaning process is to run two patches with Hoppes 9 through the
bore, two passes back and forth with a bronze bore brush with
Hoppes 9, and then three patches with Hoppes 9. The last patch
usually comes out clean. I run a dry patch through the bore to
clean out any excess solvent. I follow the dry patch with a patch
having a few drops of JB-80 oil on it and then a final dry patch.
I used to not run the dry patch through after the solvent and oil,
but I noticed the groups coming tightening up faster after doing
so. With other types of ammunition it is quit different. I just
tested a Anschutz 1912 with Eley Tenex. The first 15 shots after
cleaning at 50m covered over a inch. Shots 15-20 formed about a
0.3" group. I had observed at least 10 shots with Eley were needed
after cleaning my two rifles. With RWS R50, I observed at least 20
shots were needed after cleaning to get a decent group. For this
reason I avoid Eley and R50. Tenex and R50 is too expensive to
waste that many shots every time I clean my rifle. If I have to
switch to this type of ammunition, I will have to experiment with
cleaning less frequently.
I have heard some discussion that it depends on the rifle. One
may say it depends on the rifle, but my two rifle barrels are very
different, yet I continue to get similar results from both with
Federal "B" ammunition. The one rifle has a Anschutz 1907 barrel
(1:16" twist) set back and chambered using a Clymer "Match"
reamer. The other rifle has a Shilen Match Select barrel (1:16.5"
twist) also with the Clymer chamber. European barrels are choked.
If you doubt me, just pull a bullet from a cartridge, lube it up,
and push it down a clean barrel. Each European manufacturer has
it's own style of choke. American made barrels are straight tubes.
No choke. I discovered my "no choke" Shilen barrel with Federal
900A sprayed shots all over the place. The "choked" 1907 barrel
does OK.
Of the different brands of ammunition I have tested, the Federal
seems to be the most consistent from lot to lot and rifle to
rifle. I watch out for not so good 900B. It is a second to the
1000B, so occasionally I find a lot of it that is unacceptable.
Other ammunition I have tested seem to vary more in my rifles from
lot to lot and it takes much more testing to find a good lot
number. When I find a good lot of Federal 900B, I get five shot
group sizes at 50 m consistently under 0.25" with my machine rest.
Nick Priddy
GVSU Rifle Coach
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In regard to Mark Shuman and his question on PMC Match ammo, and other
cheaper ammo. I know people how have shot in the 280's (1/4 match at 50 ft
shot with a 2313) with the RWS target and they swear its the best "Cheap"
ammo on the Market. I also know of people who have tested the PMC Match ammo
and say its complete junk (at 50 yd and with a 2011 prone gun). I currently
have a box a the RWS GECO and I'm still waiting to test it but call Champion
Shooter Supply and ask them about it, when I ordered they said it was OK at
50yd but your wasting the ammo at 100yd. As for the cheap Lapua I have no
idea. One last thing It really depends on where you shoot (i.e. going from
50ft to 50yd to 100yd), so test all the different types of ammo you can get
your hands on.
Best of luck
Ross Miller
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Here's my two cents worth regarding the ammo issue. I have used T-22,
CCI blue label and had great luck with it. I have used these two and had
results every bit as good as the more expensive ammo. But, I have also
had terrible performance/results, so you have to test, test, test. I
find that the Eley Practice 100, Club and other lower grade ammo's work
great in my late 50's Model 54 Anschutz. In fact, the one time I tried
Red Box, it did not perform nearly as well as the Black box or other
lower cost Eley's. Again, it all comes down to what works best in your
rifle for what kind of match you are competing in. I would never use the
higher cost ammo for indoors at 50-feet on the A-17 and probably not on
the A-36 or the new USA Shooting Int'l target card. It is just not worth
the cost for the one or two points you may save during a winter league
season. I always save my better ammo for use outdoors at 50 yards, 50
meters or 100 yards. I have used the Russian less expensive ammo for
some time (I am just about out of it right now) and on the A-17 target,
it worked just as well as the more expensive stuff, so why spend the
extra money?
Hope this adds something to the discussion.
Don Williams, Oregon.
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I have heard that many Eley varieties are just selected lots of the same
manufacture. Which means that except for the highest price, the quality
may vary from one lot to another. If they need to sell more of the lower
price ammo, but it is all working great that particular day, you might
get Tenex an a lower price. Other days, reject Tenex by some other name
might actually be sub-standard or it might be manufactured in a
different way. I don't know which Eley varieties are made identically
before selection, nor if this is even consistent one day to the next.
I tried (yellow) Target Pistol in my bullseye pistol and got poor
accuracy, but (orange) Club Xtra worked great for only slightly more, in
the particular lots that I received. I immediately ordered more of the
same lot of Club Xtra.
> with the use of the Bore Snake type bore cleaners ...
> One pull through the bore is like using
> 25-100 separate patches. I'm careful to pull it straight out from the
> muzzle, so not to erode the crown.
The one I have is not nearly that good. Pulling the embedded brush
through once is exactly the same as running any brass brush through
once. The snake itself, regardless the large advertised surface area,
tends to stretch out when pulled and be thinner than the barrel, which
means it does not make enough barrel contact to clean effectively like a
tight fitting patch.
> I do have a question on ammo. Has anyone out there on your list tried
> RWS Target, the cheaper Lapua or RWS GECO.
I tried RWS Target and GECO. I really can't tell any difference between
them in any way, they are both sort of mediocre in accuracy. The shells
seem much softer than other brands, and absolutely will not come
anywhere close to cycling properly in my semi-auto bullseye pistol.
However they function just great in my single-shot free pistol and in
every single-shot rifle I have tried, including one rifle that cannot
properly extract Federal 711.
- Benjamin McLeod
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Re: 4765 buttplate
No you're not the only one who thinks that. I too tried this butt plate
once on a colleagues Anschutz and thought it was a step back. It gave
less of a contact 'sensation'. In fact I am on the look out for an older
version which came with the Model 54. I found they made very good
contact.
Have fun shooting.
Usman
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I am in a little dilemma on the topic of picking an Air-Rifle that suit's
me. Here is my question, what air-Rifle do I choose (sounds simple), there
are so many an I am more of a smallbore person so I don't know what's the
good, bad and the ugly of the Air world. I currently own/holding a P70 junior
which is way too small for me, who is 6'1". I had thought about getting a new
stock for it but our club had purchased these from the CMP with the 4 year
policy, the club must hold these Air-Rifles for 4 years. I can make
modifications to it, but replacing the stock infringes on the 4 year rule. I
was thinking about the P70 which is a very nice Rifle but the air cylinder
only holds about 80-100 shots as opposed to the anschuetz 2002s cylinder
which holds 180 shots.
Many Thanks,
Ross Miller
[Editor - IMHO, accuracy-wise it makes no difference so it comes down to which ever one fits you best and has a trigger you like. I'm surprised the P70 only goes for 100 shots. Perhaps the junior model you're using comes with a smaller cylinder also? I thought all the brands were using 200bar cylinders.]
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Your readers might be interested in my initial experience with the
blooptube and tuner now available from Gunsmithing, Inc.(GI) The tuner
fits over a blooptube with an o.d. of 1.000 so unless you are a
machinist you cannot use the Medisha clamp and tube.
The weight of the GI clamp, 16" tube and tuner is about 700 grams.
Since I was not ready to add that much weight to the end of my
Anschutz 1911 I had the barrel cut to 19.625" - a reduction of about 650
grams. I can't feel any difference now with the tube and tuner from the
standard length barrel and I have a sight radius that is about 8" longer
than standard. GI also makes an 8" tube that would keep the standard
sight radius.
The tuner is epoxied on to the bloop tube and it's ready to go.
Our club outside St. Louis is very heavy into benchrest shooting and has
regular .22 rf benchrest matches at 50yds. It also hosts the National
.22 benchrest finals. ALL these shooters use tuners and most of them
are similar in design to GI's. The common experience of these shooters
is that within 1 or 2 revolutions (depending on the weight of the tuner)
you will find a sweet spot in which your ammuntion (high quality ammo)
will consistently group in the neighboorhood of .25." In their
experience it will not make cheap ammo into great stuff but it will
permit a barrel to get the most out of both good or bad ammunition.
My own experience is with a lot of Eley BR-50 that I thought shot best
in my rifle when I tested ammo several years ago. I am by no means a
competent benchrest shooter but I borrowed a test target from a
benchrest shooter ( a piece of 8 1/2 x 11" paper with 7 or 8 rows of
1/4" dots about an inch apart) and started testing. The tuner has a
scale divided into 25 segments and each movement of the tuner from one
division to the next moves the tuner weight .001." I started with the
weight about in the middle of its range and moved the weight backwards
from 24 to 22, then 22 to 20 etc. firing 3 shot groups each time. The
groups were very ordinary to bad until I reached 8 and then when I fired
a group at 6, I had a nice cloverleaf group that was about .25" center
to center. I fired another 4 or 5 groups with that same setting and got
the same kind rounded group about the same size. At that point I quit.
I have not had a chance to shoot the rifle prone but I expect good
things. The only problem I see is that the tube and weight must be left
on the rifle unless you can be certain to replace it exactly. However,
the benchresters tell me that these sweet spots have a range of four or
five thousandths on these tuners so it may not prove to be that
difficult to remove and replace them. Time will tell.
Mike Barron
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[Editor - I snipped some stuff out of this post for brevity, but hopefully kept the meaning intact.]
COMMNENT: This is interesting, and does not tally with my personal
experience in high-level competition. In the beginning, having read about
autogenics and the rest, my desire was to be in a controlled state during
competition, with a nice slow heartrate. (Being quite fit, my resting heart
rate was 45 or so). When it came to the Commonwealth Games, and to finals at
the Commonwealth Championships, my experience was that my heart rate went up
to nearly 120. This was rather worrying :-( Having dropped one place in the
Final of the 3x40 in the British UIT Championships, and as Malcolm Cooper
was on the range, I asked him how he (as a double Olympic Gold medal winner
in the event, in 1984 and 1988) had coped with Finals.
REPLY: While accomplishing the reduced heart beat of 45, this shooter is unable to
maintain the rate because of his emotional condition therefore the heart
rate increases to 120 beats per second. This is very typical for
physical shooting athletes. As for the double medal Olympic winner, we
find the winning of any medal in competition is a relational thing and can
only have value when consideration is given to the other performance level
capabilities of the shooting athletes in competition. Why did this athlete drop one place in the British
Championships...? Because of the emotion of fear and doubt. His NDME has raised his heart beat because of this fact. This is a typical physical shooting technique and is the main cause of the physical shooter inability to repeat a fine performance. The emotional insecurities
of fear and doubt are the main problems. However, one other element comes
into play here and that is the simple fact that any shooting athlete has
only one competitor and that is themselves. Every time a shooting athlete
approaches the firing line and prepares for the competition, they have only
themselves as competitors as not one other shooting athlete on that line is
in competition with any other shooting athlete. The only way any athlete
will win the Gold is by out performing all others in that competition and
that athlete will by out performing his or her personal technical
performance levels will win the Gold.
So the Athlete will win by out performing his or her level of performance
plus out performing the performance levels of each competitor on the
competition firing line. This is easy to accomplish as the shooting athlete
must use the One-Shot-Match that always results in a PBE on every shot. If
the shot will not result in a PBE then break the circuit and restart the
one-shot-match again. The shooting athlete will pull the trigger when the
sight alignment is a PBE and the QZ~ has arrived according to the timing and
mental checklist sequences contained in Chapter 7 of the book.
COMMENT: His reply was that rather than trying to avoid adrenaline, and its
effect on the body (increased sensitivity to balance and sight, and speedier
reactions) he had welcomed it as an aid to his shooting; and that while the
rifle might appear to be jumping around, it might well be that it was just
an increased awareness of my normal movement. His advice was to "go for it",
accept that the target would appear to be moving, and to trust ones training
and reactions. View the adrenaline as an advantage, not as a disadvantage.
[Note - I took his advice in the prone final the next day. It worked well
enough
REPLY: By Mr. Cooper accepting excessive levels of adrenaline he has
started the destructive elements of the physical shooting technique. Any
athlete will reduce adrenaline rush by mental control through the use of the
mental checklist technique and the procedures of Chapter 3 and 4, Match
Pressure in the book. When mental practice is accomplished, the element of
adrenaline rushes is not an element of the mental practice session, but is
an element which is reduced or eliminated all together. The by product of
adrenaline rushes is the increased sensitivity to balance, sight, and
increased reactions. All will be found to be the domain of the autonomic
or NDME mental system which will not require the increases of adrenaline in
any manner. The NDME has taken care of this requirement very well in the
past and can continue to monitor and respond with precise amounts of such
adrenaline as necessary for the accomplishment of the PBE and Gold. So stop
being a physical shooter and become a mental shooting athlete. Beware of
those who use their medals as the validation or authentication of any given
technical system or procedure. Don't accept such physical items. Go for it, not on your
life. Learn to do it right and then win the Gold. If the target is moving
you have something wrong with your position or shooting technique and you
had better learn to eliminate the problem through mental practice and use
mental shooting technique.
COMMENT: This tallied with a presentation that Alister Allan (3x40 Bronze in
1984, Silver and Olympic Record 1988) gave to a group of Scottish shooters.
On asking whether anyone would consider firing the shot when the target was
moving, and receiving a lot of headshakes, he pointed out that if you go
into an Olympic Final in 1st place, with an Olympic Record, it didn't matter
how "cool" you were, your heart would still be going at 120, and the target
would appear to be bouncing around like a mad thing.
REPLY: This is not true for an athlete using mental control techniques.
Such emotions are repressed and otherwise removed from the shooting
technique. The above is only natural to the physical shooting athlete and
never to the mental shooting athlete. That is the difference. Because
this athlete has won some medals, you are told that this is natural; to
experience shakes, heart rate increases, and the target commences bouncing
around. This is the first clue that the shooting athlete has not trained
correctly and is a physical shooting athlete instead of a mental shooting
athlete which can and does control such random occurrences. The mental
shooter uses the QZ~ and mental check list and for the 3/4 of a second with
the above occurring with the shooting result of the PBE.
Chet Skinner, Coach
[email protected]
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End of UIT Mailing List #23
Michael Ray - Systems Engineer
Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech. Rifle Coach
UIT Shooting Page -
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1190/index.htm
