New pcp, when is it not good enough ?

[32:1]

Setting aside the vagaries of shooter, scope and pellets, (and how many shots in a group, as more shots = bigger groups) I can’t imagine an “industry standard” that applied to anything from a budget Chinese rifle (£250) to a high-end FT or 10M job (£2000+).

A lot of users (plinkers, barn hunters) of the former would be happy with 20-25mm at 30M (though I wouldn’t). The owners of the expensive stuff would want those figures at least halved, probably less.

Agreed and also a reason manufacturers could muddy the waters a touch regards under performance, so is a 50mm group at 50 yds from an Anshutz as bad as a 400mm group from a Kral or whatever. Thing is we buy rifles to hit targets, Id say rested inside with tje right pellet a pcp should put 10 pellets inside a 50p at 40y even a buget pcp

Chris

[FPoole]

I've seen claims of 50 shots inside an inch at 50 yards. This is from a fixture inside a tunnel. This was what the maker claimed as a benchmark for all his guns. He first started out claiming 3/4", but changed it to 1". The claim was that every gun was tested and if it didn't meet this standard, they sent it back to the line for the work it needed to pass. Sadly, this was a lie. Back when I could still shoot fairly well, I had a .25" kill zone on one of my field targets. I would put it out at 20 yards for practice. I once dropped it 19 times in succession from my seated FT position. This was with a TX200, so a pcp should do better.

[SuffolkRifle]

TBH, I can't see any manufacturer coming up with a claim of 'x' sized group at 'y' distance - too many variables.

I've a PCP that grouped 10 shots within 15mm (outside edges, so 11.5mm C to C) at 30 yards outside (still day) after a small tweak on power it went to 25mm + with the same pellets, changed to another manufacturer/weight of pellets, and it went back to 15mm, and that was just with a tweak of about 10~20fps - both makes of pellets are well known brands, the Lord only knows what would happen if I used other brands (even the brand that's made for the guns manufacturer by JSB). I've also got a QB78 that groups the same (15mm 10 shot group) with Crosman pellets, put anything else through it & I'm lucky to get a 2" group at 30 yards, with all my guns I've carried out pellet trials and out of 30+ guns, I've only got about two (at most e.g. S200 & Cyclone - JSB 4.52/ QB78 & Typhoon - Crosman Premiers 7.9g) that shoot most accurately with the same pellets (which is why I've got about 20 types of pellets in the cupboard, ranging through H&N, AA, Crosman, RWS & JSB)

So if the manufacturers were to 'group size' test.

How many pellets per group?

What pellets would they use (probably not those that they use for fps claims either)? Would AA use Air Arms Field - I'm not too confident that the AA Field pellets are 'the most accurate' through all AA guns (if the members of the club I belong to are anything to go by, anyway, most of them use JSB rather than AA - I, too, use JSB through my S200).

What distance would they test over? Most hunters probably don't take many shots over 30/35 yards, but HFT & FT the group size is important at 45 - 55 yards, so I very much doubt that a group size of 1" at 30 yards (whilst good enough for many) isn't anything a HFT/FT shooter would take any notice of.

[Neil54]

Fresh out of the box my new rifle would not group.
These were shot from the rifle in a cradle. (note three different poi)


It did eventually improve after cleaning and leading up.

[angrybear]

Fresh out of the box my new rifle would not group.
These were shot from the rifle in a cradle. (note three different poi)


It did eventually improve after cleaning and leading up.

My Rapid FAC is worse than that by a long way...with any pellet other than JSB/AA Diabolo kings.

It will put a mag full of JSB/AA in to a ragged single hole 5p size, but next best "group", Pest control, was over 50mm, FTT's were 100mm, Norica didn't get all 12 on a sheet of A4 paper

Some barrels are plain fussy.

[bozzer]

Perhaps I’m over critical of my equipment here, but in the “perfect” scenarios described I would expect at my zero ranges (which are 35yard for .177 and 30yard for .22 at 12ft/lbs) all shots in the same place.

What place ... Selby?

[bozzer]

It's worth noting that a PCP isn't totally recoilless. Close but not totally. It's also worth noting that you can't take a PCP and put it on a rest indoors and expect every shooter to get the max accuracy from it. It still takes a lot of effort from the shooter to get the best out of the rifle.

Look at bench rest shooting or HFT.

I used a very vague guide of @ 18mm ( 5p ) edge to edge at 35 yards. If I got that everything was ok for me. If I didn't I was checking consistency of muzzle velocity ( I don't think that's been mentioned yet ), cleaning barrel, trying different pellet or pellet batches.

I've posted many times about the S10 from BSA that I bought. Through the mag I could get Bis Mags to group as above at 35 yards. No other pellet would get under an inch. I tried every popular pellet and various batches. I asked several AA FT shooters to try it for me. All said the rifle was hopeless with anything other than Bis Mags and it should go back.

BSA said it shot well with "A" pellet ... so use that pellet. I said I didn't want to use loopy 10+gr pellets in a sub 12fp rifle for HFT. BSA said I should have bought a target gun. Their gun is a hunting gun and it did shoot well with "A" pellet ... so use that pellet.

JB kindly tried to sort that rifle for me and fitted a new barrel and blueprinted the gun. Eventually we got it to a point where it was useable with Crosman Prems. Still very poor with AA/JSB and everything else ( apart from the originally good Bis Mags ). I also had a single shot adaptor made by Rancid Tom. That also tweaked in the groups with the Prems.

That seemed a reasonably common theme with 0.177 older BSA barrels. The more modern ones seem to be better now they are 'polished'. Maybe the answer for my old barrel was to 'polish' that barrel.

I've heard Chris C comment on a Steyr of his ( I think it was a Steyr ). He reluctantly polished it and it gave great accuracy.

So check the muzzle velocity consistency. I'd expect that to be under 20fps across a string of 20. Some talk of 3fps. Personally, I've not found 20fps makes that much difference. If you are getting above 20fps spread I'd start to think the delivery of the air to the pellet isn't right. You've probably got more chance of convincing the seller/manufacturer that it needs sorting by showing them chrono readings rather than shot groups.

If you aren't certain of your own ability then get a few other successful shooters give it a try. Again ... easier to say to a seller/manufacturer that several good shots have tried it.

If you aren't getting any joy regarding a replacement then maybe worth polishing the barrel ( if chrono readings are good ).

[Archer50]

Sorry, but some makes and models of guns shoot better groups than others under all circumstances while some are very pellet fussy and might be great with one pellet and rubbish with another. I'm afraid that anyone who has bought a poor quality make/model of gun is probably stuck with it - I just hope for their sake it's a cheap one, although in my experience, that's not always the case. The only way you could demonstrate that there was something wrong with a gun, based on its grouping alone is to compare it to exactly the same gun shot in exactly the same way by the same person with the same pellets and even then not all 'identical' guns like the same pellets and pellet batches can vary hugely. There are so many variables that in practice all you can do is compare your set up with others as near identical as possible to yours and, if you still think you have a problem, hope that the retailer/manufacturer or whoever will take a common sense, goodwill approach and try to get it fixed. In the absence of any external standard or specific claim from the manufacturer, and given the importance of the human input, your chance of going down the 'not fit for purpose' route simply on the basis of grouping would not be good.

Alan

[32:1]

Its not my rifle but a question concerning what is acceptable in this scenario, Im happy to tinker and others wouldn't touch their mew pcp so wondered how bad a rifle had to shoot before it was accepted as faulty by an rfd or manufacturer.

Would a s400 be returned if it grouped bigger than say 10p at 40yds, or a Brockock or even a Steyr. Is their an acceptable group, if not a manufacturer could just say it fires pellets so its doing its job, where they go is not important, with no reference its a mine field I guess

Chris

[robhw97k]

My aas400f was great accuracy straight out the box,i recently cleaned inside barrel,now it aint so accurate.i wont be cleaning it again ggrr.

[Geezer]

According to “Which”, their summary of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 is:

- Satisfactory quality Goods shouldn't be faulty or damaged when you receive them. You should ask what a reasonable person would consider satisfactory for the goods in question. For example, bargain-bucket products won’t be held to as high standards as luxury goods.

- Fit for purpose The goods should be fit for the purpose they are supplied for, as well as any specific purpose you made known to the retailer before you agreed to buy the goods.

- As described The goods supplied must match any description given to you, or any models or samples shown to you at the time of purchase.

Obviously, these are open to interpretation. The middle one is key, as 32:1 has suggested. I’d be happy to argue (and there’s plenty of evidence in mags and on forums etc) that there are broadly accepted accuracy standards for 35-40M hunting, FT, HFT.

I guess if you really want to insure yourself, tell the RFD (in writing, eg email) “I want to hunt rabbits at 40 metres” while enquiring about their best price or a combo deal.

In the real world, it seems to me that most (but not all) dealers are pretty decent when stuff does not work properly, but some distributors are truly painful in admitting they supplied a sub-standard item.

[Shed tuner]

depends rather on price.. c-c group sizes at 30 yards I'd say the below are acceptable...

£250 - 20mm (my very cheap AGS PCR-1 does about 15mm)
£450 - 10mm (my old S400 did way better)
£700 - 7mm (my Phoenix does about this and so does my Rapid)
£1200+ - 5mm (never paid that mutch, but my old pro target was about this level of accuracy - modern equivalent AA FTP ?)

Don't get me wrong, I may expect better, but if a new gun at those prices can't match that it'd be going back. I have a couple of (very well tuned) springers that will shoot 6mm groups at 30 yards all day long.
Chap at our club sent a £370 PCP back as it was shooting about 20mm c-c at 30 yards - they accepted it was faulty and refunded his money.

[MrChipShoulder]

There are countless videos on Youtube showing how fantastic XYZ gun is and lots of shooting grouping shots of XYZ gun.

If a gun is felt to be under performing, just gather up a handfull of Youtube videos showing an example of your gun and if your grouping is worse than the videos, then I'd say that's a fair test to compare to.

[krisko]

1 MOA, 1 inch @100 yards, half inch @50, quarter inch @25yards.

I would say if you can hit a large paintball long range or a small paintball short range repeatedly with it is fine.

In hft you have 15mm killzone at short range, long range is what 45mm diameter 40yard ish. This should get you the idea. Clamp The gun down to rule out parallax and shooter, in no wind situation it should be pellet on pellet or at least touching (cloverleaf)

[MrChipShoulder]

1 MOA, 1 inch @100 yards, half inch @50, quarter inch @25yards.

I would say if you can hit a large paintball long range or a small paintball short range repeatedly with it is fine.

In hft you have 15mm killzone at short range, long range is what 45mm diameter 40yard ish. This should get you the idea. Clamp The gun down to rule out parallax and shooter, in no wind situation it should be pellet on pellet or at least touching (cloverleaf)

I would totally agree with the above. HFT targets are not the size they are for no reason.
Good call