Air gun accuracy. What causes 'flyers'?

[HardDrive]

I recently posted about getting an airgun to take care of the squirrels in the back yard.

My intention was (as suggested by Higgins) to get an RWS Model 34 with a scope, but I decided to try some of the guns available locally, mainly because I would have to order the RWS, and my bloodlust was strong. The first, a Crossman, was a piece of trash, and went back the same day.

The next, a Ruger Impact .22, is pretty darn good considering it only cost $125 with a scope and silencer. Tight groups at 50ft, and thats accurate enough for my purposes. I'm a bit amazed at how hard it hits. I shot a large squirrel yesterday, and he was knocked right off his perch, DOA.

That being said, about every 8th shot, I'll get a wild shot. Off by 3" at 50 ft. I'm no marksman, but I know its not me. Does this have something to with the ammo? The way I'm loading the pellet? I'm taking care not to mark or distort the pellets when loading. I'm using Crossman Premier lead hollow points.

Any thoughts appreciated.

I still might order the RWS. This is barrel full of monkeys fun, and I can plink right in my own back yard.

I'm also a bit amazed at the sharpness of the recoil. Its not a big recoil, but its very quick, and it goes backwards, then a much larger pull forward was the piston reaches the end of its travel. I could easily see a lesser scope being damaged by the airgun recoil, when it would fine on a rimfire .22.

[Seahawk]

I just sent out the Higgins "signal"



Good luck. I may have to explore this type of shooting a bit more...

[Paul K]

I'm no expert, but have hear that airgun 'fliers' can be due to build up of lead at the muzzle. This is cleaned out by the (in your case 8th) round that finally 'catches' the build up & removes it. This may be complete BS, but I remember reading it in several places when I was into airguns, back in my youth.

Good luck!

Paul.

[HardDrive]

Since posting this 20 minutes ago, I dispatched another one of the furry bastards. This is war people. Sick of them destroying our garden.

[Paul K]

What range are you shooting them at?

I had a similar problem. Bought a 1:1 scale full auto Tokyo Marui H&K MP5 soft air gun. Put a hot rod battery in it. Bought some biodegradable ammo.

Great fun out to 15-20 yards.

Squirrels didn't think so!

Disclaimer: I had a chat with my neighbor first. He was very supportive so long as I let him have a go with it.

[Evans, Marv]

Mine is an RWS Model 42 (I think), and I'm really happy with it. I only use the iron sights but after zeroing it in, I can hit a squirrel at little more than 100 ft. I always try to brace it against something if I can. I'm pretty amazed at that. I ordered mine from the place in Arizona. When I talked to them about a scope, they told me not to buy just any cheap scope because of the recoil. I've pretty much decimated the squirrel population with only a few left, and they are really skittish and almost impossible to get a bead on. When I first started shooting them, I shot a dozen squirrels on the first day & kept on eliminating them when I could.

[tevake]

Are you guys eating them critters? Cleaning and grilling them in view of their still marauding cousins should be a message to them. Possibly giving them a good reason to move on. Plus they can be tasty.

Cheers Richard

[kolo]

Check out air rifle reviews on
Air Rifles | Pellet Rifles | Shop by Caliber & Manufacturer

I don't have a spring gun, some can be very good, I decided to get a precharged so I could hold it like a powder rifle. Have shot an RWS 48, very accurate rifle.
Spring Rifle Shooting Tips - Umarex USA
and they say it can take a while to break it in

Manufacturers estimates can be padded - by using extremely light pellets (hard to be accurate at longer range). The pellet is supersonic if you hear the same crack of a 22 rifle when you shoot
the pellet ~1125 ft/sec. at sea level (1050 ft/sec @ 5k ft alt like Denver) Pellets are more accurate sub sonic.
Here's an energy calculator
Airgun Calculators - Energy and Velocity

My condor (after it was tuned up by Tony at Talontunes) will put a 30 gr out at 900 ft/sec
and 53 ft/lbs -It'll knock a bowling pin over at 100 yards (holding 3 dots under...)
Furry tailed rats don't last long in my yard.

[HardDrive]

Well the flyers are nuisance, but its not effecting the overall outcome of the battle. Holy heck. I'm snuffing them out at an alarming rate.

I'll put a tin of pellets through it and see how its doing.

[mattdavis11]

A quality air gun is loads of fun. When I lived in Dallas we had a pear tree, a peach tree and a garden. Squirrels would wreak havoc on our crops. They also liked the cones on the pine trees, which they would toss down, half eaten, at the yapping labs below.

The population was way out of control and the time had come to thin the heard. At first I was happy with the .177 crossman I had, but wanted more power. Then came some pos spanish made air rifle. I think it was a gamo. Never would I buy one of those.

Finally, I bought a Benjamin .22, threw a Ziess 4x6 scope on it and annihilated those fuchers. It was a blast for both the dogs and I. It was easy pickings, the dogs would start barking, open the second story window, fire, close window, meet the dogs at the back door, take the squirrel from the dog that got to it first.

The most I shot in a day, or maybe it was a weekend was 13. It gets tiring after awhile though. After 50-60 it's work.

[mreid]

When I lived in PA, several red squirrels chewed the wiring in my 65 Bronco. After that, it was on.

Six months later, I had 21 gray squirrels and 12 red squirrels with my .177 1200 fps air gun. I was deadly accurate from 10 to about 40 yards. The bastages took one bite out of every tomato in my garden, chewed a hole into my attic, and dug up some flowers.

Not any more.

[John Rogers]

A flyer in any rifle can be caused by anything that upsets the projectile as it travels down the bore and causes a minute amount of wobble which then is magnified as the bullet exits. In my black powder cartridge guns and the Gibbs muzzle loaders there and many more variables than with an air rifle. The one constant with mine is leading, however minute in the bore that "snags the bullet" as my mentor told me so I take great pains to prevent any during a match. In my case it is either grease groove bullets with solid lube or paper patch wrapped bullets so there are no lead deposits. In the air rifles that I have seen the shooters wipe the bore constantly and make sure the "bullets" weigh exactly the same, are same size, etc. One of the air gunners we get at our range never has that issue he said since he managed his bullets, rifle, etc.

[Jeff Higgins]

Hmmmmm... Lots of things affect accuracy in springers that are non-issues in other firearms. They are very sensitive to both lubrication and lock-up. Both become more critical as the quality of the moving parts declines; i.e. as the guns get cheaper. What you are seeing, in a way, is what us old time cast bullet shooters call a "purging" shot. Things build up until they reach a critical point, then "purge" or "reset" to "zero".

In a cast bullet gun, it's the bullet lube building up in the bore until one shot finally has to do something about it, kind of "plowing" it out ahead of itself. These never land in the group. Too tightly, or too loosely fitted pistons in air rifles do the same thing. They work their way towards a "wet" shot, wherein the piston behaves differently than it would under a "normal" shot. In extreme cases, it will even have enough lube in front of it to "diesel" - the oil actually ignites, and the thing goes off like a .22 rimfire.

The trick to avoiding this is to simply break it in and get the rings to seat, just like a fresh motor. Higher quality guns break in faster, lower quality may never actually seat the rings (or whatever seals they use on the pistons). Play with different lubes and see if that helps. I like Mobile1 0W-15 or 20 (whatever their lightest is). This is my "top secret" springer lube, in place of all of the proprietary airgun stuff out there (which is no doubt just repackaged something else anyway).

The other issue - lockup - can be addressed by keeping the lockup plunger very well lubed, as well as all of the hinge points. Use the same Mobil1 for that. Then, just keep shooting until it settles down. My respective RWS's took well over 500 rounds each to well and truly do that.

[vash]

eliminate the obvious first:

shooter error.

[M.D. Holloway]

It's all about the lube...always has been, always will be ...