Hey everyone, new to the forum, I have a gen 2 marauder 25 that I’m shooting jsb 25.4’s out of. Have looked around at other threads, but never quite found what I’m seeing happen. Running around 865 fps, the gun shoots like a laser to 50 yards or so, but after that my pellets start to zig zag. It’s not a spiral, there’s very little vertical fluctuation, it looks like a drag car loosing the back end through the scope if the sunlight is right. I’ve tried slowing it down, but then it seems it starts sooner. I’m possibly thinking it’s wind related since it waits til 60 or so when the wind is calm. Anyone else experienced anything like this?
Unfortunately, most of the information found in the search results given above is complete rubbish, even some of the comments given in the Wiki entries.
If it is just sideways movement, the most likely culprit is wind. However, no pellets or any other spin stabilized projectile fly in a nice straight line, they all swerve about in a spiral. It is just that the spirals are usually too small to notice. Some pellet designs however will start to have spirals which can be seen when they get a certain distance from the gun. This is due to the increase in yaw wave length as the forward speed decreases much faster than the spin speed, coupled with poor dynamic stability. Wind can initialize visible spirals, but it is not necessary for some pellets, which can do it themselves. It is not a result of a loss in stability, if anything it is just the opposite.
It may be possible that some spiral flight can look like the above effect when seen from the sights or a camera looking at them from behind.
