CRICKET A BIT OFF COMING OUT OF WINTER STORAGE
So we are starting to have a few warm days and sunset comes a little later…. Got the Cricket .25 out and started shooting. Things were off. POI shifts, bad groups. I ‘ll say right now it could be me after a long hiatus, but with the wind coming out of the SW some POI shifts were towards the SW…you’d expect them to be pushed NE.
I re-mounted the Aeon 6-24/50 scope leveled and zero’d for 30. Some groups were real tight and on target and some shifted one direction or another. I thought I saw some pellets spiraling on some longer shots. Shots generally seem haphazard. I could show a target.
Is there something I can try in order to remedy this?
I’m shooting JSB Kings at 920 fps off a bag on bench. I lube with Krytech. It seems that it shot better before the winter buy who knows. I cleaned the barrel beforehand with patched pulled through with fishing line treated with Kleanbore and Kroil 50/50 . Crown looks good, passes Q-tip test. The barrel has not been lapped. Pretty much stock.
Help….
kp
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I have a bone stock 25 Synth. Cricket that came to me out of the box shooting 945-950 fps. It groups like your last target at 50 yds. with no problem. I know every guns different but some shoot very well in the 950 range with 25 grainers.
Looking good KP the more trigger time is doing it’s job.
Don’t thing you need to, but ………
http://talonairgun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=31238#p315704
~ Greg
Here’s my last target. 4 groups each increasing one turn in speed at 30 yds. The last two measured 3/8″ and 5/16″ CtC repectively. If it continues to shoot like this I’ll be very happy….so long as it shoots as good at 50.
Greg, forgive my ignorance but what exactly is a barrel pull?
I think I’ll post my last target where I changed the hammer spring tension with each successive group. Again I need to get it out again and shoot it to see if it shoots as good as last night. If it does then I’m leaving it alone.
Another odd thing is I had it up to 1/2 turn from full in the other day and chrony’d one magazine (12 shots). I don’t have all the number in front of me but the average was 953 with EK’s and the SD (according to the Prochrono) was 0. I’ve never seen 0 before. The best I’ve seen with this gun is SD=2.
so more shooting.
KP
Thanks for the answers guys. all screws/bolts were checked for tightness and the scope was re mounted yesterday. I got home from work and to my surprise there was little wind. They have been calling for pretty strong winds all week. Everything was still set up so I got busy with last hr of daylight. Right off I’m thinking the biggest problem is me …….and a little from other factors.
I tried changing up my trigger technique and that helped quite a bit. My hand was angled weird to the rifle and I straightened it up and noticed a big improvement. The calm conditions helped too, though the other day, I was shooting straight into the wind.
I started experimenting with velocity. Actually I can’t get too much slower than 920 with my tune. So I tried slowly increasing speed to see if it made a difference.. At 920 its about 4.5 turns out from full spring load. I went up one full turn for each five shot group and things grouped best at 1.5 turns ou from full tension.. I know, that flies in the face of the 880fps is the magic number. Par for the course for me. I need to repeat this to see if it really helped or if it was a fluke. Seems what is good one day goes out the window the next.
Greg, to answer your question. the POI shift was instantaneous…not a gradual creep. but to be fair I should look for this more under calmer conditions. Today there was very little major POI shift.
I try again next chance I get and if things are still a bit weird I’ll loosen the stock. I noticed quite a bit of 2nd stage creep in the trigger. I need to get in there and remedy that as well…..work to do.
Thanks again…I’ll let y’all know how it goes.
KP
It could be it just needs to be shot more ……… ?
Also a question of the term shift is used in your OP.
Dose the group shift jumps over or slowly creeps over to a new POI ?
If you are experiencing POI shift/ing I recommend the below.
As you may know I have 2 Crickets and they both had POI shifting but the 22 std had the worst most of which was corrected with the free floating the AT and a properly torque frame.
My compact 177 had very little and only a vertical shift, so a free float helped but I had to employ a barrel pull that helped the most.
Not all Cricket benefit from a barrel pull but I did it to both of mines and it didn’t hurt it I think it’s helping.
Now I have absolutely no shift/ing what so ever with both of my Crickets.
My friend Cricket 22 std also had very little shifting and his stock was much looser then mines in the fore grip.
So, I believe every Cricket stock fit and frame torqueing out of box is a bit different.
I’d check it in stages listed below and stop at the one that make the shifting go away.
The first thing to check is to make sure your barrels clean, the scope, a bad pellet batch lot, sighs of shroud off centering, next is don’t make the stock both to tight, next is frame re-torqueing, next try free floating the AT and lastly a barrel pull.
Hope that helps yah ~ Greg
Try backing down to 880 to 890 fps and see what happens.
My airguns are on duty year round. 🙂 Try the stock and scope mount bolts. Heaters dry the wood out but who knows.
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Greg…I think you’re spot on. More trigger time and fine tuning the velocity a bit.
218bee. I agree. Mine is also bone stock synth. It came out of the box shooting around 965. The spring has relaxed, as has the regulator so I think that 953 is it’s top now. All of these guns are different. Mine seems to like the velocity a bit higher and with an ES of around 6 and SD of 0 who am I to argue?
Thanks again guys. Y’all are always the biggest help
Come on warmer weather, longer and windless days!!
K