Wives . . . you gotta look out for them, \u2018cause sometimes they will nail you with an insight that is just cosmic in its significance.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what happened, I was wandering through the house this am when I noticed the book my wife was reading. About two-thirds of the way down the front cover was a cloverleaf which, in this case, was a symbol for the Holy Trinity. For me, though, it brought something else to mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know,\u201d I said, \u201cjust the other day when I was visiting with the airgun benchrest folks, I shot Todd Banks\u2019 air rifle and produced a group just like that \u2013 a little tiny cloverleaf. It\u2019s a really, really (I could have added a couple of more reallys) accurate gun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d she said, \u201cbut weren\u2019t you telling someone a story today about a day when you shot two air rifles, got the same crummy results, and concluded that you were the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, so?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, how do you know that you weren\u2019t shooting extra good when you got that cloverleaf? How do you know if it\u2019s you or the gun?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
All I could say was: \u201cWow, sweetie, that is a darn good question . . . a DARN good question . . . how DO you know if it is you or the gun?\u201d<\/p>\n
So, in this blog I am going to attempt to make some progress on answering that question, but bear in mind that I don\u2019t claim to have all the answers. So if any of the good readers of this blog have their own methods of sorting out whether it is you or the gun, you are cordially invited to post in the comments section of this blog.<\/p>\n
From a theoretical standpoint, I think there are two key concepts in figuring out whether it\u2019s you or the gun: (1) look for common factors and (2) eliminate variables.<\/p>\n
Look for common factors. The day on which I shot two guns and got crummy results with both is a classic example of spotting the common factor. I was shooting a springer in the side yard and could not get it to group better than 1.5 inches at 20 yards. I stormed into the house, muttering darkly under my breath: \u201cthose darned springers are soooo difficult to shoot well . . .\u201d I then grabbed a precharged rifle which I knew was a tack-driving sonofagun, shot it at 20 yards, and got nearly identical results. What\u2019s the common factor here? The guy behind the trigger.<\/p>\n
But if you shoot two different guns and get a good result with one gun and a bad result with the other, that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that you are not the cause of the bad result. I had a perfect example of that a few years back at a field target match. One of the fellows was shooting Hunter Division with a springer, and he beat me, fair and square, with a tuned springer. Afterwards, I asked if I could try his gun. I tried six times to drop a large target at close range and failed miserably, so much so that he thought maybe something had broken in his scope. He took the gun from me and promptly dropped the target. The problem was that I wasn\u2019t holding his springer the way that he did. If I wanted to shoot his gun, I would probably have to re-zero it.<\/p>\n
Here are some common factors you might look for: are you using the same scope on both guns? (A bad scope can really screw things up.) Are you shooting in conditions that are not typical of what you usually shoot in? (Wind from an unusual direction, even if it isn\u2019t particularly strong, can wreak havoc with accuracy, just ask the benchrest shooters.) Are you using a particular tin of pellets with both guns? (Recently I talked with a shooter who has two \u201cidentical\u201d tins of pellets \u2013 one shoots true, and the other habitually spirals the shot, and nobody can figure out why.) Have you recently changed your rests or shooting position? (That can mess things up in subtle ways. If you just changed rests and suddenly can\u2019t shoot for beans, try reverting to your old rests and see if that doesn\u2019t cure the problem.) Common factors will, in general, affect all guns that they touch. If it turns out that the common factor is simply that you are having a bad day, there\u2019s hope that on another day things will be better.<\/p>\n
The other thing that you have to do if you\u2019re trying to figure out if it is you or the gun is to eliminate variables. With springers, in particular, you have to make sure that your scope mounts and stocks screws are snug. If any of those screws are loose, weird, erratic stuff can happen that can really affect accuracy. It should go without saying that, having made sure that none of the fasteners are rattling, you should test for best pellet by shooting groups off a rest. With precharged pneumatic airguns, make sure that you are charging to the correct pressure for that particular gun. If you are using a scope with a mil-dot reticle or any other reticle with multiple aiming points, make sure that you use those aiming points at the same power every time. If all else fails, try cleaning the barrel.<\/p>\n
Every airgun sold by www.airgunsofarizona.com<\/a> comes with a small pamphlet that I wrote on airgun maintenance. If you ask nicely, I bet they will send you a copy. The tips in there should prove pretty useful.<\/p>\n Okay, now, dear reader, it’s your turn: how do you tell if it is you or the gun?<\/p>\n Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jock Elliott<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wives . . . you gotta look out for them, \u2018cause sometimes they will nail you with an insight that is just cosmic in its significance. Here\u2019s what happened, I was wandering through the house this am when I noticed the book my wife was reading. About two-thirds of the way down the front cover…»<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,20,211,134,11,29,133],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2091"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2137,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091\/revisions\/2137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}