I know what guns to buy per class. What's popular now and historically. I'm asking about lowest acceptable shot groups regardless of gun.
I'm curious what, at the lowest level acceptable, your gun would have to bench shoot before you would let a rookie use it at an event just to see what it's like or use it yourself. Basically 10yd groups, 20 yard groups, 30 yard groups, and 50 yard groups. We're talking PCP, Springer, and CO2 (yes I would like to use a co2 gun if allowed). I know shootable accuracy and bench groups are different but I am talking about bench shooting a gun to decide if it's worth keeping around and improving. Or Maybe just what type of groups a gun could make before you gave up on it.
This is what I expect accuracy wise out of my competition guns in FT position in good conditions.
Spring gun, sub 1/4 at 10, 3/8" at 25, 1" at 55.
PCP 1/4" at 25 and 5/8-3/4" at 55.
You don't just normally pull a gun out of the box and have it shoot like that.
Spring guns should be able to group under 1" at 35, that's a great starting place and you can build your way to tightening groups by improving hold consistency, tuning, finding the right pellet etc.
Same with a PCP, but tighter grouping. If I can't group around 1/2" at 25 yards I wouldn't try to compete with it until tuning or experimenting more.
I've tuned a few gauntlets for customers and all of the .177 we're sub 3/8" at 25 yards and an inch or slightly smaller at 55 yards. In FT position. That is an acceptable gun to loan to a new shooter or as a spare gun for yourself. Those kind of groups are great for most Airguns.
Shoooting from a bench to keep things interresting...or bench rest shooting (as in shooting as tiny a group as you can hold?).
Going to go with the first of the two...airgun shooting well enough to know that when a pellet lands "out" it's not the gun's fault.
Can live with Kerndtc's above post's numbers...always room for improvment, but you have to be able to objectively/honestly judge your perfomance vs. the rifle's.
Feeling grumpy...can tell by the following.
The MOST improvment a rifle will show is more BIOLOGIC than mechanical. This is esp. true with springers, but also true with PCP's.
Yeah...going to put a lot of the bad shots folks "explain away" on the shooter...even if the pellet was warped/bent/deformed, the shooter loaded it (evidently without inspection) so that bad shot is ultimately the shooter's fault.
If you miss guessed the wind, it's still your guess that is at fault...or miss guessed the range...etc.
Yep...have heard a lot of excuses. Bug hit my glasses...I farted....sneezed...blinked....rifle fell off the rest....my hold shifted...and likely a dozen more.
Basically, it's all BS....gun fires when you pull the trigger. If you trip that sear when all is not right, then the excuses are more for your mental comfort than aything factual.
That's likely why many hate shooting groups (swear they shoot better on "stuff" than they do on paper)....it's likely becasue paper doesn't care about excuses.
Kerndtc, thanks for that info. I wanted to see how my guns compare and to determine which to keep and tinker and which to get rid of. I've got one I'll be testing today after first round of tinkering. Been doing good at saving targets and recording stuff. Your numbers are close to what I was expecting but a little more forgiving actually at shorter distance. I was tracking until the sub inch at 55, that's going to be impossible for any of the guns I have now, in current configuration! It seems my guns prefer the JSB RS pellets or the pointed Stratons and can group very well sub 25yards but I suspect it's the pellets fault that my groups open up so much past 25-30 yards. Example: shoots jagged hole at 10 yards then then open to 1.5-2.8 at 50. Even after your tuning, those gauntlet numbers are impressive actually. I've wondered about the difference between that and the maurader for entry level pcp accuracy. Personally I got my eye on some others but that's a big IF I go pcp.
The MOST improvment a rifle will show is more BIOLOGIC than mechanical. This is esp. true with springers, but also true with PCP's.
hat bad shot is ultimately the shooter's fault.
...have heard a lot of excuses. Bug hit my glasses...I farted....sneezed...blinked....rifle fell off the rest....my hold shifted...and likely a dozen more.
<oh man this qoute thing takes some getting used to....>
I agree with ribbonstone. If you've been shooting for a while you should be able to know WHY you miffed the shot. Ive been shooting the Zimmer-Schutzen for a few seasons now and can tell from the target why I missed. Cant blame the pellet, as I inspect before the shot, and took the time to find what the gun likes before starting the season's first match. Shots that land 8,9,10 oclock mean I had the gun out of the pocket of my shoulder, 11,12,1 oclock means I was rocking back and took the gun with me, or I let the buttstock slide down in the pocket of my shoulder, 3 oclock means I had some tension in my waist or upper body, and 6 oclock means I didnt ahve my head far enough forward on the cheek piece. All of which are my fault.
Basically the only excuse I have is "I need to practice more"........
I won't shoot a springer at any kind of event if I can't keep groups to 1/2 inch c.t.c at 25 yards. I am happier with 1/4 inch groups and don't get excited until they're in the 1/8 to 3/16 inch range for at least 5 shots (i.e, one ragged hole). But before you hand that gun to a rookie, consider how difficult or easy it is to achieve those results with. I'm an experienced spring gun guy and my guns still give me fits from time to time. I'm a Beeman/HW snob and just about any of those guns (from Germany) that shoot in the mid 600 to mid 700 fps range in .177 are going to be accurate and easiest for a rookie to shoot well. If you're not sure if you want to keep some of your high end magnum springers around because of their group sizes, check and see if there are sub 12 ft-lb kits you can buy and install, or sell them and go to PCPs. I put a kit in my HW 97 and velocity dropped from 830 to 760 fps with 8.64 gr. H&N FTT's and, while the best of the best groups were similar, the twang went away with the new kit, the gun was more pleasant to shoot and those "best" groups come far more regularly now than they did with the factory guts.
Sorry....but basically all the excuses are the same: the trigger tripped at the wrong time.
Who is in control of the trigger?
Every rifle has an accuracy limit...just won't shoot bettet than some point. It's OK to sangdbag it in like a WWII Japanese Pill box in a John Wayne movie to find out what that is...pretty much weight it down for and aft/side to side, and find out what it actually can do in it's most sable setting (basically removing the biologic element as well as you can...although I'm not a big fan of totally hard-fixed mounting (like a vice) as that introduces an un-natural vibrational element.)
Once you know the limits of thre rifle, no matter how un-naturally it's set up/bagged/rested ...every thing after that is the shooter's responsibility.
I mostly just wanted a base that I can aim for in order to have a somewhat competitive gun. As much as I love airguns I don't want to (in theory) start stacking up guns (happening now) that I can't compete with or that I trust for clean small game kills. I've got a folder for each gun and keep records of all shot groups, ammo, date, and tinkering stuff. Right now I've got nothing that could compete, close but not there yet.
As far as knowing your gun and yourself, that's a story in itself. I haven't shot enough to notice with some of my guns yet but I will keep that in my thinking. I do have 1 that seems to like some strange holds, like where I have to hold tight against my shoulder while at the same time pulling the gun down into the tripod, but only when the forearm is rested in the end. I've always wondered btw about those gun vises that you can mount a gun into and if you need to make adjustments you do so with the vice and not the gun, seems like that would be a good method of testing recoilless guns for max performance, like a pcp or something. Too unnatural for any useable results with a springer I'd think.