Let’s talk a little bit about ST barrels

It’s not the question “how accurate is this or this barrel” rather „how good is the quality
control of the factory“!

FX QC is about 20m!
YES! Only 20m for a height and gun!

It’s the same if Ferrari testing his Cars only in the first gear! :rofl:

There’s no doubting in some of the Impact vids I’ve seen the pellets can spiral quite often.

But there’s also no doubting the results at EBR for the Impacts.

The thing is, I don’t get how a spiralling pellet can be accurate? Even if the pellet spirals the exact same every time you could (theoretically) zero the gun at 50yds (say) But, if you moved the gun back even a cm the pellet would impact the target at a different orbit of it’s spiral and be off. Although the chances of the pellet striking the same or spiralling the same are zero surely.

Maybe there’s something a spiralling pellet can do to buck the wind better than a straight pellet! Haha.. I know it’s very windy at the extreme bench rest comp, maybe a corkscrew bucks the wind better lol.

I’ve said it plenty of times, and I will say so again, it’s not the barrel that is the issue when it comes to getting unknown flyers. When you become confident enough to call your shots, you can tell when a flyer is the result of your error. You get flyers because something was incorrectly executed or was lacking in your technique. Or, the reason could be a pellet clipping a baffle or end cap of the shroud. Ruling these things out, the result of your shooting error will translate to movement that will directly influence the flight of your pellet. Know this: a pellet will fly straight—granted it is a good pellet and one that is not deformed or improperly sized—when the barrel remains fixed to the point of aim during a shot. Because you know that it’s impossible for the barrel to remain motionless due to even the slightest of recoil (yes, even in PCPs) and Newton’s third law of motion, your goal then as a shooter is to enable the barrel to move only straight to the rear or, as best as possible, in a manner that does not allow it to deviate from the straight path you intend for your pellet to travel when it is spit out. The barrel can move just as long as the movement is along the line of sight of the crosshairs.

When all the other things are working as they should (e.g., regulator, valve, power curve, trigger, etc.) and conditions are right, when people say that polishing makes a barrel perform better, I believe the improvement comes from it perhaps being able to move just slightly straighter to the rear, which good technique can easily permit. How polishing is able to make a gun shoot better, I don’t have the exact answer to. What I do know, however, is, in my opinion, best explained in a short personal account below.

I have shot completely untouched, straight-from-the-factory barrels with much disappointment before. If you read the preceding sentence carefully, you’d notice I stated “barrels” with an “S.” No amount of cleaning and tuning made them shoot any better than before all the sloppy work done to it. I never did any polishing work though. The only thing I did physically to one of them was a really horrible re-crown. But, both of them were subjected to countless, careless ramming and jamming from a cleaning rod through their muzzle. I tell you with sincerity, I was so pissed at them both that I was forced to do that. I had done it without much planning and contemplation too that I felt the rod scrape the sides of their muzzle. (Just for redemption, this was during my early days as a shooter, so please go easy on me. LOL!)

Then revelation struck. Skipping through all the melodrama, I realized the reason for all the flyers I was getting one day. My realization was through careful observation on how the crosshairs would behave, or move away from my point-of-aim, rather, when I practiced my trigger pulls. I tried replicating the events that occur during a shot cycle, and in the end I thought that if even a very small amount of force made the rifle look away from the aim point from just dry firing, imagine the degree of movement during actual recoil, and most especially, when human movement is added into the mix. It was this discovery and thinking that led me to really focus on developing a solid technique. And to bypass all the melodrama again, years later one-holers started to magically appear, on both of the rifles … with severely mutated muzzles. Go figure that one out.

You see, a hasty newbie is probably never going to accept that it takes a great deal of practice to become the best that he or she can be at shooting, or practically at anything in general, and that they will rely on other measures to mask the handicap. I know this because I’ve been there before and am sharing my experience here to make others see the light. No offense to anybody here; I am not directing this post to anyone in particular, but this is just how I see things based on a lot of the posts that I read on this and other forums.

Do yourself a favor, whoever you are and are experiencing frustration. Learn how to really shoot well. Try to seek the advice from knowledgeable and truly talented shooters. Maybe even let them shoot your self-determined inaccurate rifle to find out whether it’s you or your gun that is the issue. I must warn, though, that there are some shooters out there who, although are very good, don’t know what they are saying sometimes. Heck, I could even be that such person if you so choose to regard me as. But I will say this: in time, as you progress, you will be able to discern the difference in skill level between the proclaimed experts and genuinely talented and skilled shooters. And I tell you based on what I personally feel is the truth, there is a difference between the two.

Cheers and shoot safe, everyone!

The results of the match last weekend:

The Pellet section:

The cast bullit section:

Regards, Robert.

Edit: Had some bucket isue’s..