Having some problems with my .25 Need help again
Ok this morning was the first day that it was not snowy and windy since I have had my .25 barrel so I shot a few groups to see what it could really do. I am shooting at 40 yards and using JSBs. My first group was not so good(1.5inches), the second was good at under .75 inches, the third was bad again(over 1.5inches), the fourth had most of the shots go into .5 inches and two shots openng it up to over 1.5 inches. I don’t know what the problem is. 😥 The only thing I can come up with is that the JSBs are not consistant in this barrel, the numbers are good but the groups are not. I will try some different .25s when I get them but have only JSBs for now.
It’s not my tank or valve because it works fine on my other Talon.
It’s not my scope because I tried it on my BSA Lonestar and got great groups.
It’s not the wind because there wasn’t any this morning.
It’s not me because I shot several groups from my other Talon and BSA and got several good, consistant groups from both.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
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Ok Walt. Thanks for all of the help and advice.
It’s ok. This is one of the uses of this forum, so people can learn… that way hopefully others will learn and not make similar errors, and that way everyone benefits. I gotta admit I was a bit upset when I wrote all that, I shouldn’t post things when I’m mad.
No, I didn’t put a micrometer on the barrel to check for straightness. However, I would have seen it when I originally recontoured the blank if there was anything that bad with it. And when I turned the bushings just now, I did it with the bushings installed, and the barrel spun just fine, no wobbling at all so it looks to be fine. Anything more than a few thousandths is easily visible with the naked eye.
A note, though: the bushing surfaces are now exactly trued up to the bore. I made sure of that just now. But since they don’t look like they were trued when installed, you must never remove them or there is no guarantee they will go back to true. This is why we true things individually before putting together; so that they will always go back together the same way each time. I’ve taken apart my guns, scopes, and rings and put them back together and shot pretty much the same group; nothing moved because all the individual items were trued before assembly. It’s not always possible with each setup, but this kind of attention to detail is especially important with AF guns, since the barrel is not screwed into a receiver like on a normal gun. The group I shot above, was shot without touching the scope settings at all. Not a single click. In fact the scope was off the gun because I had my gun apart for part of a project I’m working on and had to bolt the scope back onto it to test your barrel. That shows you that your bushings, once trued up, matched my barrel settings as well, or very very nearly so… that is because my barrel and bushings are also trued. If everyone paid the same attention to detail in their guns, technically I could send a barrel, a bushing, or even a scope to, say, Mike in TX and he could install it on his frame and his gun would shoot to the same point of impact as mine, without any fuss.
Anyway, sorry for bitching. It was an honest mistake. Just DON’T remove your bushings from this barrel.
walt
First let me say sorry for the trouble Walt. 😳 😳 Other than me fucking up the bushings I did nothing else to the barrel other than cleaning the bore and oiling the outside. The only other thing I did was slide the bushings on and shoot it. Did you check to see if it is straight and round?
Again, sorry for the trouble
Jeff
Bushings trued. Crown recut. This is 21 yards, the longest distance I can manage on my property. 8 shots. H&N Baracudas. There are 2 distinct groups because the fucking box fell over halfway through and I had to walk over and reset it, but it was at a slightly different angle, I could see the angle change by comparing the black crosses on the target against my crosshairs, which no longer matched. So there was added cant halfway through. This was not taking my time and this was not well braced. This was sitting, on a wobbly bench (my 8 year old daughter’s tea party bench).
walt
Jeff, your barrel arrived today.
Initial inspection…. HOLY SHIT BATMAN. Jeff, you cannot put together an accurate rifle with a hand file and a couple hammers. You cannot cut corners with everything in life.
The bushings you have on there have axial runout (they are not round) on the order of 7 or 8 thousandths. They have front to back runout, in just a half inch space, approaching 20 thousands with drastically sloping shoulders. The rear bushing is bigger than the front bushing. I haven’t even checked to see if they have holes which are centered or not. That means that you have little peaks and valleys that are holding the barrel in place inside your frame. there is no large contact surface between the bushings and your frame.
The finish on the barrel also does not look like the finish I left on it when it left my shop. Did someone try to polish this?? If so, the surface of the barrel is also now no longer straight and level, or may no longer be round; so a new bushing set may not solve the problem completely. Everything has to be refinished to fix whomever tried to work on this barrel.
I am sorry, but I will NOT refinish this entire thing. That’s a lot of work just to correct what someone else has buggered up. I will true the existing bushings up, and turn them to the same exact size but they may be slightly undersized since the outsides will be turned down until they are both true. I will also recrown the barrel, which is necessary since the live center will have to be inserted in order to assure the barrel is held on center. I always crown the barrel last to assure a perfect crown.
For all of you reading this: IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO INSTALL A BARREL PROPERLY, SEND ME THE GUN AND I’LL DO IT FOR YOU. I don’t have the time to fix other people’s mistakes.
Walt
Yeah the numbers sounded great! Let us know what happens. Weather permitting I hopefully can get out this weekend and do some more testing!
Yes, I will probably ship it out tomorrow. I really liked the numbers I was getting with it to. 😥
Man that sucks. You sending it back to Walt? Let us know maybe he got a bad batch?
After some testing yesterday and today I can now say that the rifle is not the problem. It is either the barrel or pellets.
I am going to try a different barrel this weekend. If my other barrel shoots accurate I will be sending the .25 back to Walt and see if he can figure out something.
Well I did some more shooting and got decent groups. It is shooting better than it was at higher power but not by much and not what I expect out of a LW barrel. I already checked the optics before but just to be sure I put the scope I was using back on my BSA Lonestar to check it and like before it shot great.
I tried the PW at 6 and I think I am on to something. I shot several consistant groups in succession. It has never shot this consistant for me before. I still need to shoot more to verify that it shoots good and consistant. I have shot it over a chrony before at this setting but the reason I only shot it over a chrony is because I wanted more power, like most people who buy a .25. My point is I wanted a .25 for power but with JSBs only shooting 40 ft lbs and Kodiaks at 46 ft lbs thats not much more than I can get with my 18 inch .22 barrel which is still very accurate at 36-39 ft lbs with .22 Kodiaks.
Ok I have been trying some different PW settings with some good and bad results. The most consistant setting so far has been 8 which is shooting JSBs in the 840s. The group on the bottom left was the first group shot with JSBs at PW 8 then I shot the group in the middle diamond right after that group with the same settings. 😯 The wind was calm for the most part with a little breeze now and then but not enough to cause a bad group. I also fixed the cocking knob before shooting these groups.
If you don’t mind me asking, what is the point of this? just curious
Walt
I want to try a a couple more things first.
Sometimes it is all about finding the “Sweet Spot”
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Glad you got this worked out Jeff. I was gonna say I was getting inch groups at 40 yards yesterday and it was raining off and on and was windy.