Canadian Airgun Forum

With good PCP's, the tuning is in hammer strike force, hammer weight changes, valve changes, regulator changes
to accomplish the similar results as the bl. tuner on a rim fire or centre fire rifle.
Guy - good analogy on the wind and pellet drift specs differences with .22 LR's.
I haven't got my M11 shooting 1/2" at 50yards, but am close at 40 meters so far.
I've yet to try the Hades pellets. That will be next time I get out to the small bore range.

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Daryl

Tuners vary in weight. Tuners or muzzle devices as we know them now began to be used about 30 years ago. The earlier ones tended to be heavier. The Harrell tuner, which is often seen on BR rigs, is just over 8 ounces. Others such as the Lowey tuner from Australia is even heavier. Some shooters have the Harrell tuners made lighter, in the 4.5 - 5.5 ounce range that have proven to be successful.

Barrels that are relatively short and heavy are less responsive to tuners. Serious BR shooters often have custom barrels with a diameter in the neighbourhood of 0.900" and are 24" and more in length. Target rifles used in Olympic style shooting typically have barrels that are about 26" - 27" long and 0.860 - 0.940" in diameter.

I'm not aware of reports about the use of tuners on PCP rifles, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. I don't know if the way in which the energy is transferred to the pellet in a PCP barrel will cause it to behave similarly or differently than a .22LR barrel does when the firing pin strikes the casing and the propellant burns and gasses expand rapidly, pushing the bullet down the bore.

Perhaps tuners can work well on PCP rifle barrels. The main reason I brought them up, however, was to illustrate how .22LR shooters tune their rifle barrels to achieve improvements in accuracy. These efforts have the best results when they are used on rimfire rifles at distances for which the .22LR round is best suited, which is up to 100 yards. The further out the target distance, the more crucial it is to use ammo with a consistently low ES. No tuner can make inconsistent ammo shoot like good ammo.

I fellow I shot 3-pos. competition with in the 70's had a lead 'tuning' slide on his lightweight barreled .222 Rem sporter. He simply moved it up and down the barrel until the rifle shot into a single, slightly oblong hole for 10 shots. It works. The 3" long chunk of lead Wheel Weights was cast in a tomato-paste can then drilled for the barrel after peeling off the can. It was held stationary on the barrel with 6, 1/4" set screws.

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Daryl

Wow! That's ingenious in its simplicity!

Jim G

It was quite a modern "move", for 1974. The weight also improved barrel weight for the standing position,
although most of those guys were prone shooters. They were not difficult to beat with a 90-93 standing and
96-97 kneeling, along with the typical 100 prone. In a straight prone 3-target contest, it was all about the X's.
I shot SFC, BCRA and DCRA.

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Daryl

Perhaps the relatively crude weight was little more than a barrel weight. Muzzle devices that act as barrel tuners move a weight beyond the muzzle (the exit point of the bullet) by small very small increments at a time. The whole range of movement on a typical .22LR barrel tuner is no more than about 1cm (less than .5"). That is to say, the weight that moves on a barrel tuner moves no more than about a centimeter. The right adjustment for the tuner is determined very carefully. If it's only slightly off the best place within its 1 cm range of movement, accuracy is not improved and the tuner makes no difference.

Moving a lead weight along the middle area of a barrel doesn't act as a barrel tuner but more like a weight. As described above, a weight on the barrel often improves the balance of the rifle, which in turn makes for better shooting. A mid-barrel weight and a barrel tuner are two different things. Using weights to balance a rifle has a long history, one that goes back long before the seventies.

Good distinction to make! I see the difference you are talking about.

Jim G

I'm starting to think that what I really need if I want to do very small 5-shot groups at 75 to 100 yards, reliably, is a rifle capable of shooting slugs. That same rifle being able to shoot pellets would be nice, but not essential.

A PCP rifle shooting slugs at 100 yards costs notably more per shot than shooting pellets (roughly double the cost per shot for the projectile, plus more air too). But, it's still WAY less costly per shot than shooting high quality handloaded centerfire cartridges in ANY caliber.

And while a really good PCP rifle is costly, it's not more costly than a firearm rifle, and the scope needed is no more expensive either.

So, while double the cost of a pellet rifle, a slug rifle is still a bargain in terms of ongoing cost.

I just need to figure out WHICH rifle can shoot slugs into 5-shot groups at 100 yards that are less than an inch (ideal conditions of course), and if it can ALSO shoot pellets, that's a plus.

Jim G

The slug liners for the FX Impacts are said to shoot just as well with pellets as well. The reverse does not happen, apparently.

What the lead weight did on that .222, was to reduce or stop the whip, or lengthen the 'stay time' on the whip, I assume. In that respect it was
a "tuner". I assume it smoothed or lengthened the node on barrel whip. That can also be done with load development. What he did was to find
a good shooting load with the lead weight on the barrel, then fine-tune it by moving the weight.

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Daryl

Thanks, Daryl! The Impact is a little too "industrial" in its appearance to me, for a rifle that costly. Would the "Crown" work just as well? It APPEARS that despite the very different appearances of the 2 rifles, they offer the same internal basics. Is that correct?

Jim G

That similarity I don't know, but likely. The walnut stocked Dreamline would be the gun I'd go after.
It looks like a "rifle" should. I just prefer wood and that's the only reason I would sell my Condor
& keep the Artemis M11 - The Condor is not wood.

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Daryl

I'll take a closer look at how the Crown and Dreamline differ internally.

Jim G

Jim- also, check out airgun101 for the latest articles on slugs and air gun topics
mail@airgun101.com
https://www.airgun101.com/

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Daryl

Yes, I am right now looking for videos or articles that can clearly show a slug rifle reliably producing sub MOA groups at 100 yards (provided no wind, right slug for the specific rifle, capable shooter, etc). Still looking, I'm afraid. I just got the latest Airgun101 email and will see what it includes.

Jim G

This evening I watched 2 videos in which the FX Hybrid Slug was the star, and that slug is indeed impressive. In one of the videos the .22 size (also happens to be 22 grains) is fired from an RAW HM1000X, which I am pretty sure is a pellet, not slug barrel, and it shot 5 shots into 3/4" at 100 yards before the shooter forgot he was supposed to fire only 5 shots and went on to fire a total of 10, enlarging the group to over an inch.

Another video showed that same .22 slug, hitting blocks-of-clay targets at 300 yards and making VERY impressive wound channels while expanding to about twice its diameter and STILL penetrating 8" of clay!! After being launched at "only" 930 fps (about 42 ft lb) and suffering 300 yards of deceleration!

NOW I am finally starting to see videos that show results versus excuses. It appears that slugs, or at least the FX Hybrid slugs, are where the accuracy, ballistic coefficient, and terminal ballistics appear to actually be for air rifle shooting at long distances.

Jim G