My first Cricket 22 shooting
Got my Cricket 22 standard from WWAG last week. I finally got a chance to go to the range to try it today. I shot 6 groups of 5s at 50 yard and 75 yard (3 groups each) shown below.
Few disclaimers and notes:
– Pellets used are JSB 15.8 in all tests shown. I plan to test the JSB heavy 18.1 in a later day to see which gives more consistent results.
– I sorted my pellets to exclude the deformed ones. I have to say that in general I am not impressed with the symmetry of the pellets tails in the tin, but JSB is the best I can get.
– This is an indoor range so no wind effect. Occasionally some vibration in the dangling target when the guy next to me shoot his high power rifle, but I wait to rest.
– The tank pressure was between 180 bar and 120 bar throughout the tests.
– The scope used is AEON scope 6-24 set at 20x.
This is my first ever shooting with the cricket aside from some warm up shooting in house (15 yrd) the days before, and I did my best to eliminate shooter error. In total this gun has less than 200 pellets shots at the time of this shooting. Overall I am pleased with the accuracy which is far better than anything I ever shot with. The 50 yrd groups are dime size and the 75 yrd groups are quarter size. My best 50 yrd group was about 3/8″ CTC and my best 75 yrd was about 5/8″ CTC. I tried to do 100 yrds but the AEON scope does not have enough mildots. I know I could go around this but decided to wait until I install my Hawke scope later and try the 100 another day.
While I am happy with the results, I wonder how it compare to what people who are familiar with the gun see. Do these guns need break-in too like springers? Should I expect my groups to improve with time (assuming barrel cleaning)? Did anyone try oiling the pellets and if so is that recommended for better accuracy? Are there better pellets to try? Any advice for improving the accuracy further?
Feedback and suggestions are appreciated.
Awny
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Zonk
Sure Zonk. I am a physicist not a machinist. I don’t plan to mess or modify it by myself, but would like to study and understand its behavior well and the impact of common procedures like cleaning, and common options like pellet types, oiling, shroud etc. Once I figured all that, Ernest is my next step 🙂
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Completely agree on the price of pellets. It’s insane! With lead around $1 per lb, makes you wonder why do pellets go at about 3 cents per gram. Material is less than 10% of the cost and its not that it requires a great manufacturing technology to do. JSB claims every pellet inspection but looking at the tin content I don’t see how that was done. Pellets looks to me like a cash cow for these companies.
Awny
That’s why I haven’t touched my Cricket, I don’t want to Fux up my AG. Now on the other hand my PBs that’s all I do is play and reload and test and shoot small critters like P-dogs and chucks.. :4: Been doing that for 45 years. :biggrinn:
Zonk
I have a bunch of h&n pellets but have not tested any. My gun is more accurate than I can shoot and the pellets just keep getting more expensive if I shoot anything other than the edgun 18. 12 bucks per 500 is as cheap as it gets.
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Good to know. I will take out the monster off the list.
Any of the H&N pellets worth testing?
Same here I have never gotten them to shoot good past 30 yards with any of my guns
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The Monsters are awful in every gun I have tried.
Zonk
My groups were indoor too. Still the 100 yrd spread was higher that I hoped.
BTW, I wonder if anyone tried the tried the JSB monster 25.4g .22 pellets. They will fly slower (sub 800 may be) but should have a more stable inflight. I will consider them in my next test.
Awny
Zonk
My groups were indoor too. Still the 100 yrd spread was higher that I hoped.
BTW, I wonder if anyone tried the tried the JSB monster 25.4g .22 pellets. They will fly slower (sub 800 may be) but should have a more stable inflight. I will consider them in my next test.
Awny
Excellent advice. 
Awny, those groups were shot indoors. It’s been to windy to get out to 100 yards, hopefully soon….
Zonk
Fuxing {noun} Pronounced [Fuk sing]
Meaning; A less than stellar job of repairing your air gun, trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist with your air gun, fixing your air gun until you break something.
The word Fuxing originates from an old Chinese phrase, the phrase loosely translated is: “me weed too much forwum cwap and get wery wery bad adwice.. my gun was working perfekrie until I fuxt it up.. ” :ugeekn:
😆 😆 😆
credit to: Wingman of NZ
That my friends is why I didn’t touch it, I let Ernest do it. 😀 And I’m damn glad I did.
Awny, those groups were shot indoors. It’s been to windy to get out to 100 yards, hopefully soon….
Zonk
Absolutely. There are a lot of Noobs with the latest large Crickets orders and sales and the Fuxing is at epidemic levels right now like the flu season. :rofl:
If it shoots well at that – or any particular – speed then it’s wise to stay there. Most backyard “Tuners” only manage to Fux-up a good thing.
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Zonk
With the awesome grouping you are getting at 75 you should really try and push to 100 to see when it starts to broaden non-linearly. I will be very interested in seeing your results and others. Note that in my case increasing distance from 75 to 100 (33% increase) resulted in almost 100% increase in group spread. This is something I need to study and work on. Pellet shape irregularities become a bigger factor there and I may need to repeat the test with well sorted pellets.
Awny
I didn’t. 890 fps for the 18.1 and 935 fps for the 15.9 is the highest I could get.
I only played with the spring adjuster. I do not plan to mess with the regulator since I am not seeing a need for that.
Awny
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Cleaning? Once it starts to spread, which is every 200-350 Pellets shot thru it and depending which cal and Pellet.
Oiling? It isn’t a sewing machine so light gun oil over the metal parts every time i’ve been out does it.
Shroud? Don’t try to open it and it isn’t necessary anyway.
Pellet options? There are plenty but the only ones shooting consistently well are JSB & Benjamin. H&N sucks in comparison.
Ernest? A good idea !
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