TargetTalk

I'm brand new to bullseye pistol shooting. I have considerable shooting experience in the shooting sports and I quit for 25 years. I have a hammerli 215s that I bought many years ago that is hardly shot. I'm ammo testing now with every brand of 22lr standard velocity match ammo made. My findings are at 25 yards off a benchrest with iron sights I can only get about 1 inch groups and the gun shoots cheap ammo as well as expensive. I'm going to scope the firearm hoping I can match the test groups that come with the gun. Is it realistic to get the sub .25 inch groups that come with the gun using a scope? And is it common that 22lr match pistols shoot cheap ammo as well as expensive ammo? In need of opinions.
dave wong

One of the reasons that the Hammerli is a favorite pistol of many is because it will shoot most ammunition well unlike some of the other more picky guns. You have probably noticed that the targets are a lot bigger for pistol than they are for rifle. There are reasons for this and one of the main ones is that the ammo is not the critical factor is pistol like it is in rifle. The critical factor is once you have a gun that will shoot one inch groups finding an ammo that will function reliably in your gun during sustained fire. Any ammo tests you run should be at 50 yards the outdoor distance for slow fire in a bullseye match. If your ammo will hold the ten ring there you are fine. You can then start working on your stance, your sight alignment and your trigger control. Isabel

My experience has been that just about any ammunition will shoot well at 25 yards. From a good test fixture you'll definitely see differences at 50 yards. Shooting by hand I'm not so sure.

In any event, any testing that you do gives results that are only valid for that unique combination of barrel and lot/batch of ammunition. Extrapolating the result of testing one lot of ammunition to another is pointless.

There's a reason Eley and Lapua have Customer Ranges.

New bullseye shooters often get caught up in lots of testing of ammo and other equipment trying to come up with the perfect combinations when much of that time would have been better invested in training. It is important to come up with a gun / ammo combination that works well but as you found the Hammerli is likely to shoot most ammo accurately so the biggest question is probably to be sure it is reliable, meaning it always goes bang and will function the gun every time. Pick one of the less expensive brands that works and is readily available to you and stick with it until you progress enough you think a small increase in accuracy is worth the effort in more involved testing.

Using a Hammerli 208s off a rest with a 3-9x scope on it, at 9x power, I was able to get groups as small as 1" at 50 yards with some ammo, but even the cheaper brand I tested was only about 2" so there really isn't that much difference. As Isabel said spend your time working on such things as trigger control and sight alignment, the true fundamentals of shooting. That is where the real challenge is in this sport since we hold the gun out there in one hand with no supports allowed. Welcome to the world of bullseye!

Clark