It's neat to see a couple airgun threads get so much traction. I won't go on as much as I'd like because I'm firing this off on a phone.
To be clear, I'm no expert; but airguns are my "thing" and I'm lucky to be part of a amazing and active airgun club. Southern Michigan Gun Club's Pneumatics airgun club
IMO the biggest limiting factor in accurate airgun shooting is the ballistic coefficient although slow pellet speed is also limiting. Supersonic pellets will not be accurate, and the ideal speed is usually about 880 FPS.
I have a gun capable of hitting 12 gauge hulls with good consistency at 100 yards, better shooters (esp with better guns) would seldom miss at that distance. I'm shooting 34 grain .25 cal pellets with a BC of probably less than .04. Most .22 rimfire ammo is going to have a BC of at least .1 maybe even approaching .15. As such, when shooting airguns every error in technique, or judgment (basically wind) is multiplied.
If your shooting bullets with an airgun, then all bets are off. Airguns that shoot bullets are a thing, but I've never seen one in person. They are highly modified airguns with very special valves and barrels. .257 is the size that seems most common. There are claims (I would need to see it to believe it) of out to 1000 yards. I've seen videos and believe claims of sub-MOA well past 400 yards with these guns.
Big bore airguns are generally not known for their accuracy. They are hunting guns and sub MOA at 100 yards is a special gun. It happens with consistency, but it's a fair amount of smithing and experimenting to find that accuracy. Ammo, twist, valves... everything needs to be perfect. Taking a deer at say 140-150 yards would be very impressive. That would generally be 3" or less from POA. I've never even heard about a match with guns like these.
I happen to have met and had a few conversations with the owner of Extreme Big Bores, the shop mentioned in one of the threads. Brett is a super nice guy and heavily into promoting youth shooting and hunting, and conservation. Until this year he and Mr. Hollow Point were regulars at the Kalamazoo Airgun Show. I've not had the chance to shoot one of his guns, but even his high-end custom guns would not hang in there with say, a forty bore shoot. Interestingly, a fair amount of his buyers are felons who want to hunt with guns but can't be in possession of a firearm.
As far as .177 goes, according to Chairgun (a ballistics app) the best BC is .031.
Field target is an airgun shooting discipline which endeavors to simulate hunting. You can use .22, but no one I've never met who is really good does (although I see .22 used in hunter field target). Folks like the flatter trajectory of .177. Last year my club hosted the American Airgun Field Target Nationals; a couple nationally ranked shooters are regulars at our club.
These guys have the very best of everything and the degree to which they are obsessed with precision cannot understated. They use shooting jackets etc. This link http://www.aafta.org/Assets/resources/documents/Rifle_Troyer.pdf is a scale that is used to quantify how difficult field target shots are. It puts a pretty nice frame around what .177 (or .22 sub 20 FPE) diablo pellets are capable of. We needed to run our course through the math on this chart for the Nats.
Field target shoots have targets between 10 and 55 yards. Hitting targets past that is, of course, possible but because of the low BC your FPE and FPS will be pretty low. Anecdotally, I've noticed competitive shooters gripe more about missing the close shots than the long shots for whatever that is worth.
10-meter shoots are a thing, bit it is definitely not the most common discipline. No one I know shoots 10 meter, and I almost never see it mentioned on airgun forums. Although, I'm pretty sure 10 meter is an Olympic sport.
This year my club started shooting 75-yard bench rest. It's our own twist on what Airguns of Arizona calls "Extreme Bench Rest". IIRC a 10 is almost 1/2" and an X is a bit south of 1/4". Some of our members have rigs dedicated to just this event. Some shoot with high-end everything, Sinclair rests, 2k glass, 3k guns etc. I've not shot one of these but, guys who are way way better than me with way way better guns describe the shoots as "humbling".
To be clear, I'm no expert; but airguns are my "thing" and I'm lucky to be part of a amazing and active airgun club. Southern Michigan Gun Club's Pneumatics airgun club
IMO the biggest limiting factor in accurate airgun shooting is the ballistic coefficient although slow pellet speed is also limiting. Supersonic pellets will not be accurate, and the ideal speed is usually about 880 FPS.
I have a gun capable of hitting 12 gauge hulls with good consistency at 100 yards, better shooters (esp with better guns) would seldom miss at that distance. I'm shooting 34 grain .25 cal pellets with a BC of probably less than .04. Most .22 rimfire ammo is going to have a BC of at least .1 maybe even approaching .15. As such, when shooting airguns every error in technique, or judgment (basically wind) is multiplied.
If your shooting bullets with an airgun, then all bets are off. Airguns that shoot bullets are a thing, but I've never seen one in person. They are highly modified airguns with very special valves and barrels. .257 is the size that seems most common. There are claims (I would need to see it to believe it) of out to 1000 yards. I've seen videos and believe claims of sub-MOA well past 400 yards with these guns.
Big bore airguns are generally not known for their accuracy. They are hunting guns and sub MOA at 100 yards is a special gun. It happens with consistency, but it's a fair amount of smithing and experimenting to find that accuracy. Ammo, twist, valves... everything needs to be perfect. Taking a deer at say 140-150 yards would be very impressive. That would generally be 3" or less from POA. I've never even heard about a match with guns like these.
I happen to have met and had a few conversations with the owner of Extreme Big Bores, the shop mentioned in one of the threads. Brett is a super nice guy and heavily into promoting youth shooting and hunting, and conservation. Until this year he and Mr. Hollow Point were regulars at the Kalamazoo Airgun Show. I've not had the chance to shoot one of his guns, but even his high-end custom guns would not hang in there with say, a forty bore shoot. Interestingly, a fair amount of his buyers are felons who want to hunt with guns but can't be in possession of a firearm.
As far as .177 goes, according to Chairgun (a ballistics app) the best BC is .031.
Field target is an airgun shooting discipline which endeavors to simulate hunting. You can use .22, but no one I've never met who is really good does (although I see .22 used in hunter field target). Folks like the flatter trajectory of .177. Last year my club hosted the American Airgun Field Target Nationals; a couple nationally ranked shooters are regulars at our club.
These guys have the very best of everything and the degree to which they are obsessed with precision cannot understated. They use shooting jackets etc. This link http://www.aafta.org/Assets/resources/documents/Rifle_Troyer.pdf is a scale that is used to quantify how difficult field target shots are. It puts a pretty nice frame around what .177 (or .22 sub 20 FPE) diablo pellets are capable of. We needed to run our course through the math on this chart for the Nats.
Field target shoots have targets between 10 and 55 yards. Hitting targets past that is, of course, possible but because of the low BC your FPE and FPS will be pretty low. Anecdotally, I've noticed competitive shooters gripe more about missing the close shots than the long shots for whatever that is worth.
10-meter shoots are a thing, bit it is definitely not the most common discipline. No one I know shoots 10 meter, and I almost never see it mentioned on airgun forums. Although, I'm pretty sure 10 meter is an Olympic sport.
This year my club started shooting 75-yard bench rest. It's our own twist on what Airguns of Arizona calls "Extreme Bench Rest". IIRC a 10 is almost 1/2" and an X is a bit south of 1/4". Some of our members have rigs dedicated to just this event. Some shoot with high-end everything, Sinclair rests, 2k glass, 3k guns etc. I've not shot one of these but, guys who are way way better than me with way way better guns describe the shoots as "humbling".
