TargetTalk

hello,

I was wondering if there was a general rule as far as the balance point on an air rifle for 3P and standing? I would imagine that you don't want the weight too far forward to make the rifle feel barrel heavy. My son wants his rifle to be heavier so I am also looking for a good source of weights we can attache to his rifle.

Best Regards,

pmelchman

To help dampen my wobble, I prefer the CG/balance point forward of my support hand. With part of the weight in the form of a muzzle weight.

Depending on which rifle your son has, there are generally specific weights available for it. These include weights that can be attached to the cheek piece, butt plate, barrel and muzzle. Champions Choice and other suppliers such a Pilkguns will have them.

On my daughter's air rifle I used stick on wheel weights, available at most auto parts stores to add weight where I wanted in order to get the proper balance. Her rifle now has a balance point about 1" in front of her left hand. She is right handed and uses a fist. She likes quite a bit of weight on the muzzle. Right now she is using about 6 ounces of weights on the muzzle. 6 ring weights (Walther) that are about 1 ounce each on the muzzle.

Additional weight at the muzzle will slow down the wobble (hold). However, you must be careful as too much will cause it to get larger, although slower. There is a tradeoff there. If you have a SCATT or access to one you can add the weight and see the effect on the SCATT. Keep in mind this is a process that takes several days. Add weight, remove weight and save the files over a period of several training sessions and you will begin to get a picture of what the weights are doing. If you do not have a SCATT, you can accomplish the same thing by shooting groups over a period of several days and comparing results. Also listen to your shooter. They can see that hold and will often have a pretty good feel very quickly for things that don't or do work.

All I can really say is to try out a bunch of things to see what works for you. It appears that the majority of shooters today prefer front heavy rifles but I've always preferred to have my rifle balanced directly over my supporting hand. As previously mentioned there are manufacturers weights but you can add more weight to the rear by using pinewood derby weights. Give a few different wieghts and balancing points a shot and see what you prefer.

As the last post said, try it and see. If you look at some of the You Tube of international and Olympic air rifle, you will see a high proportion of shooters with lots of sticky wheel balance weights on and around the butt and cheek piece. The theory is, it makes the butt sit firmer and heavier on the upper arm which in effect damps out some muzzle movement.
I prefer to have my balance point about 5-cm in front of the support hand measured from the most forward contact point with the stock.

I think every body will be different on this, so check it out to see what works for you.

thanks for the reply