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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Appreciate your recommendations spinj.
So I keep hearing two different schools on this matter:
– One that says shoot more with the gun and had the barrel leaded and this break in will improve the accuracy. Here lead is your friend that will smooth irregularities and improve shooting accuracy.
– Second that says clean your barrel well from the lead periodically (frequency varying) and that will improve accuracy by removing lead residuals that cause irregularities.
With the second opinion being the more common. I wish I can try both approaches within a short period of time but clearly its a very time consuming experiment to reach that leaded state for the gun. I like the cleaning approach because at least it brings the gun to a consistent state, but would love to hear the opinion of others specially if any is in favors of the first option.
Oh – when you have the time take and polish the bore.
Thanks Sir Ville. I plan to push the speed of the 18.1 (currently ~860) to 900 (which will push the 15.9 to 930-940 I guess), and then try again with both.
I too would prefer the 18.1 if proven more or equally accurate as per my pellets inspections I found them to have better quality i.e. less chance of deformation due to the more lead fill. Also for the better wind resistance outdoor.
For the 15.9: 904 907 907 905 907
For the 18.1: 858 860 860 859 860
This is what I got from WWAG tests. I need to generate longer strings across wide pressure range later. I don’t have that now.
Good information Sir Ville.
I have the same experience here. And i have experienced the Ballistol being better than the CLP . To test the lead eating capacities on those cleaners there’s pnly one way : Take a Pellet (although a .22LR bullet is better for the purpose) and soak it in the solvent. Let it to soak 15-20 mins then take out and start rubbing. I guarantee the CLP doesn’t win that fight.
That about lead dissolving capability, now to the fact why they clean the bore from leading : Good solvent or oil creaps between the bore wall and lead letting the lead rise so it is easier to remove. For that purpose the CLP may be better than Hoppe’s since Hoppe’s is more of a PB “solvent” and thus its primary purpose is removal of powder residue etc.
WD 40 works wonders for that creaping purpose – no need to buy anything else if that’s your primary Goal.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2. This POS iPhone sucks though …
Good groups! Now about teh 100 yard thing and mil-dots. You do know that the turrets onthe scope have a purpose other that sighting in right? Mil-dots are fine for ranging, and snap shooting. But for precision, you want to use the center of the lens. That means the center of the cross hairs needs to be used. 😉
Congrats on a fine gun!!!
KnifeMaker
I actually happen to use both. I use Hoppes for the first two patches then use CLP to clean up. I find Hoppes works very good. I have not found anything that it wouldn’t clean.
If you can, clean your barrel with Break Free CLP (Cleaner, Lubricant, Protectant). I find that it’s the best bore cleaner that I’ve used. I thought the Hoppe’s No. 9 was good until I tested it against Break Free, which is what I’ve been using since. After cleaning my Air Arms S410’s barrel with Hoppe’s until the last few patches came out clean, I tried the Break Free next. What I found was shocking, the Hoppe’s wasn’t able to get rid of the lead buildup entirely as the patches soaked in Break Free did as the ones with Break Free still had lead on them. Even better, Break Free never ever harmed the O-rings, and it lubricates and protects the steel from corrosion as well. WD40 isn’t as good either as I tested it against Break Free as well.
The Cricket’s barrel is very good and is the reason for it’s amazing accuracy. It is due to the barrel really biting into the pellet more so than some other guns. The thing, though, is it has to be cleaned more often than other rifles. When this is done the Cricket’s accuracy is simply unbelievable.
I’m finding cricket 22 needs a cleaning every 500 shots for sure. I did some testing with mine couple days ago and then I cleaned barrel the other night. It was quite dirty especially the first patch. In 6 patches it was squeaky clean. I think I’m going to start pulling a patch every time I get back from a 4 clip pest fest
I recommend always cleaning the barrel of a new gun when you first get it or before it shoots its very first pellet. I never trust dealers when they say that they’ve done so before shipping it. When I got my Cricket new its barrel needed more than thirty patches oiled in Break Free CLP through it until the last couple of patches came out without any trace of oil, machining particles, lead, etc. With that I can’t imagine a dealer having to spend all that time and effort doing the same thing when you’re not with him having to witness it being done. They’ve got other things to do to make money.
Anyway, after a thorough barrel cleaning, I consider the point of impact the pellets shoot to would be the gun’s true POI, and I would ensure that if a pellet were to deviate from it then it’s time to clean it again. I don’t wait for this to happen though. I clean my gun’s barrel after 60-70 shots to maintain its pinpoint accuracy. I am perfectly fine doing this in the name of precision shooting. Also, I lightly lube my pellets so that cleaning after those number of shots only takes a couple of patches pulled through. I don’t believe in the “a barrel needs to be re-leaded or seasoned after a cleaning to achieve accuracy” notion. I’ve been through that experience before and was unsatisfied with the results. Sure, the accuracy was very good after a barrel re-leading, however the pellets’ POI would deviate from the previous leaded state. That to me is what I’d call an “uncontrollable factor,” needless to say an unpredictable POI. Having a default or reference POI allows me more control over maintaining it. To me, it’s knowing that I can always feel confident that I don’t have to keep adjusting my scope turrets to correspond with such an unstable point of impact. I just clean the barrel and it’s back to being spot-on perfect. That to me is control. But that’s just me, and I understand that others may object and I respect that.
Those 75s are really nice
Thanks Octavius
I did not clean the barrel. Charlie from WWAG already did before sending me the gun. He also tested the gun with the 4 mags using JSB 15.9 and 18.1 at 30 yrds and verified a good grouping and sent me the targets with the chrony numbers. I have to say I was really impressed by Charlie and WWAG service and commitment. They got a customer for life. I even added a Webley Aletco Ultra pistol to the order, which is a fine pistol (plan to test it once I got a good sight for it).
On the scope side I do prefer the Hawke SW over the AEON mainly because of the range of the mildots. The AEON has $200 advantage so I likely will use it for my talon SS. The Hawke is also few ounces lighter which would help reducing the weight of the gun which stands at 10.5 now with synth stock, AEON scope and Harris bipod.
Good afternoon friend. I wonder what the results were for the crony JSB 18.1 and 15.9 grans. 😆 😆 😆
Nothing wrong with those groups. I´m confident the 18 grainers will do better still although you may need to adjust the speed a bit to get them at the same fps you have with the 16 grainers. Congrats for the new Toy ! :fishinghole:
Oh – when you have the time take and polish the bore.
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Congrats on a fine gun!!!
KnifeMaker
Good point knife. I forgot to mention that for the 75 groups I did use the mildots without adjusting the vertical turret. I realize this may introduce small horizontal error/spread but I paid special attention to keep the gun vertical to reduce/eliminate that error. Clearly the error would be much larger with 100 yrd shot as the drop is quite larger. I agree with you that the adjusted cross hair is the better approach for accuracy. I did not do it due to running out of time (had to get back to a work meeting) and not being familiar with the scope yet to do the adjustments effectively in time. I will be more prepared next test I hope 🙂