How to secure pistol for testing pellets?

jabberwo · Post by **jabberwo** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 11:00 pm

Coach figured it was time to try out different pellets. Any suggestions on how to secure an air pistol? I'm assuming clamping on the air cylinder is a bad idea -- of course would only clamp stiff enough to not move during recoil and would use non marring clamp. Dumb?

Have read a Steyr manual that said to clamp the trigger guard. That seems like an awfully small area. Anyone have success with that? Folks using bench vise screwed down to a portable work surface? That's my thinking, with the surface (e.g. a tray) large enough to take sand bags for recoil management.

thanks,
Jab

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 11:53 pm

I do not remember what post on here talked about this but it was recent.

What I did was took a standard bench vice I have on my work bench and placed a home made trap 10 m away. I made something to put in the jaws and clamped on to the cylinder. It only needs to be clamped hard enough to keep the pistol from moving. I placed some bike handle bar tape on the part of the device I put in the jaws that made contact with my cylinder and it worked great.

Take off the grip so you can adjust the velocity.

Make sure you have several brands and sizes of pellets available. I could be a good idea to just start with the pellet size marked on the test target from the factory if you have it. For my LP10 4.49 gives the best groups. I was not able to find a good velocity adjustment to get 5.51 or 5.50 to work as good as 4.49. Find the right one and buy a bunch and then you do not have to worry about it again for a long time.

john bickar · Post by **john bickar** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 1:28 am

As I told a fellow shooter yesterday: wait until you break 570 two matches in a row, then worry about testing pellets.

Rover · Post by **Rover** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 1:06 pm

With any decent pellet it is the lot that counts, not brand or size.

Either a buy a large number pellets of the particular lot number that shot well or be prepared to test each new batch of pellets you try.

With a pistol, it doesn't seem to matter much as long as you're not shooting crap pellets.

And yes, you can clamp on the cylinder. I have just used a scrap of cardboard so I wouldn't scratch the finish

David M · Post by **David M** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 1:28 pm

When we rebuilt our range we included a bench mounted 6" machine vice fitted with 3/4" polyproplene jaws for clamping.
You can use either the barrel, grip or tank.
Just cannot use a pump gun.

lg2011 · Post by **lg2011** » Sat Feb 02, 2013 1:54 am

Great advice John Bickar.

funtoz · Post by **funtoz** » Sat Feb 02, 2013 8:49 am

You aren't dealing with a whole lot of recoil. Trigger guard works just fine.

This is an old and recurring topic. This is an article from the early days from the list http://www.pilkguns.com/mako.htm

The usual conclusion is echoed by John. Mako even tried shooting pellets backwards with surprising results. I can't find that right now, but maybe he still checks in and will repost those results.

Larry

jabberwo · Post by **jabberwo** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 11:51 am

Thanks y'all. I see using the cylinder is OK after all.

-= Jab

Post by **pilkguns** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:45 pm

The only advice really worthwhile in this thread is John Bickars.

pellet testing an air pistol is a waste of time.

superstring · Post by **superstring** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 6:42 pm

pilkguns wrote:The only advice really worthwhile in this thread is John Bickars.

pellet testing an air pistol is a waste of time.

But how about testing and adjusting the pistol's velocity with any particular pellet to get the best grouping?

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 2:56 am

superstring wrote:
pilkguns wrote:The only advice really worthwhile in this thread is John Bickars.

pellet testing an air pistol is a waste of time.
But how about testing and adjusting the pistol's velocity with any particular pellet to get the best grouping?

That might be worthwhile, but only if your gun has crept out of the optimum window. In which case it's perhaps only important to get the velocity back up and then check for consistency of velocity. I cant see any benefit in tweaking velocity to 'tune' it to the actual batch of pellets.

Rob.

Post by **pilkguns** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:02 am

superstring wrote:
pilkguns wrote:The only advice really worthwhile in this thread is John Bickars.

pellet testing an air pistol is a waste of time.
But how about testing and adjusting the pistol's velocity with any particular pellet to get the best grouping?

Any velocity between 350 and 700 fps would still have your group size averaging 10.5 or better. If you get the beyond those extremes or even close to them, you will be noticng a major sound difference for the shots.