Who went to a compact AP from a full size?

[brent375hh]

The reason I ask:
I was looking at a Bullseye forum, and the consensus was that a 5 inch barrel was more forgiving than a 6". The opinion was that if your follow through was less than perfect, the long barrel would punish you more. Now I realize that most of those guys are shooting dots, so the reduced sight radius doesn't cause them any reduction in precision.
If I remember correctly, Pilkington recommended the compact until a person was shooting a certain score. I am a mid 550 shooter, but as of late, I am shooting both more Xs and 8s.

So, anybody gone compact and had much better scores? BTW I do not see any compacts at WC competition on YouTube, but that could also be an ego thing at that level.

[william]

I switched to a shorter barrel years ago when my shoulder went south. All that "forgiving" business is a bunch of nonsense.

A shorter barrel is physically easier to shoot because it's lighter overall and the shorter length provides less leverage against you (sorry, engineers & physicist for the imprecise lingo). The drawback is that the lower mass damps out the shooter's tremors less well. I've partially overcome that bit by adding a small barrel weight (also partially cancelling the reason for the short barrel in the first place).

The bigger benefit is mental: The shorter sight radius reduces PERCEIVED front-sight movement, both pre- and post-shot. If you don't see so much shake, you have higher confidence in your hold and trigger squeeze. Higher confidence - unless you have no idea what you're doing - leads to higher scores.

Over time I've probably shot fewer 10s with the short barrel, but I can say with certainty that I've more than made up for it with fewer 7s and 6s. Could it be that's what the Brits are talking about when they say somebody "is at sixes and sevens"?

[David M]

When Morini made the short barrel I changed to that pistol and shot it it a number of High level competitions.
It came in two forms, a short barrel/tank pistol with standard sight or with rear sight extension.
With the rear sight extension it had the same sight radius as the full size pistol.
The advantage was moving the C of G aft in the hand closer to the trigger.
The characteristics between the long and short were very different and showed up on the scatt and in scores.
The long barrel has a slow but long movement trace in the target wobble where as the short barrel has a smaller range of movement but at a higher frequency.
This movement resulted in doughnut type group, it pulled the 9.8/9.9 into the 10 ring, but pushed the poor shots 9.0/9.1 out to the 8 ring.
Over a match I gained a few extra shots, but poor trigger control was punished.
These days I shoot a carbon Walther, long light barrel with a short tank and no weights, still with rear C of G.

[thirdwheel]

All of the analysis above is spot on especially the moving the C of G rearwards, the outcome witnessed on the scatt along with the punishment of poor trigger, I went compact on both the K12 and titanium, just bought new barrels and short cylinders so in about 10 mins can swap back, the reason I now stay with the compact is because of the feel / balance and it is less tiring on long training sessions every day and it has also worked for me in matches. Sight radius is the same on the K12 short as the long titanium and have not felt the shorter sight radius on the short titanium has warranted putting on the rear projecting sight.
On another note "being at sixes and sevens" - love your reasoning of where it came from and I will go with that from now on!
But this is closer to the real meaning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sixes_and_sevens

[Rover]

So I guess you guys are saying that Pilk was right to refuse to sell long barreled APs to the commoners, except for internet influencers.

[atomicgale]

Pilkington Competition would only sell a short-barreled Steyr LP10 to anyone without documented competition history. The deal was that if you bought a short-barrel, and then within one year, shot a 555+ in a sanctioned competition, they would give you a long-barrel LP10 FOR FREE.

That obviously would exclude your personal best shot at home. And would exclude some of the absurd claims we see here on Target Talk, such as "I routinely shoot in the high 580's; 600 is just around the corner."

As of press time, Pilk never had to award a free pistol.

[David M]

Published scores with short barrel Morini.
Australian National record Qual. 585
State record Qual. 586
Best local Competition 590
Personal best 592

Do short barrel's work.....yep, sure do.

[Gwhite]

No doubt.

However, I don't recall seeing very many in any of the Finals videos from major competitions. What ever works for each individual shooter is fine with me, but the top tier shooters seem to lean heavily towards long-is-better.

Given that a lot of this stuff is driven by fad/fashion more than physics, as soon as someone sets a new world record with a compact air gun, LOTS of shooters will immediately switch...

[Ricardo]

Hear, hear!
I'll add that we often (well, half of the time) get the cause and the effect wrong. Suppose that shooters who get to the Olympics are those who inherently have a teeny wobble or have developed a greater tolerance for whatever wobble they have. If so, they can benefit from the longer sight radius or forward balance, so they choose longer pistols. Add in peer pressure, and they will be afraid of trying shorter pistols. As a result it looks like longer guns give better results. We won't know without testing directly.

[atomicgale]

. . . and exclude some of the absurd claims we see here on Target Talk, such as "I routinely shoot in the high 580's; 600 is just around the corner."

Published scores with short barrel Morini.
Australian National record Qual. 585
State record Qual. 586
Best local Competition 590
Personal best 592

Documented:
World record = 594 (Jin-Jong-oh 12Apr2009)
Olympic record = 591 (Mikhail Nestruyev 14Aug2004)
American record = 589 (Reuben Hafter 18Aug1990)
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1 ... ol_records

Top scores in qualifier from recent Dixie Double at CMP in Anniston (all Team USA members):
Day One: 581, 576, 574, 571, 562, 561, 553
Day Two: 584, 577, 571, 566, 566, 564, 563
Source: https://ct.thecmp.org/app/v1/index.php? ... atch=20363

[spektr]

Just a stupid question.
The Steyr Evo 10 front sight can be moved to 1 of 3 positions.
I'm not sure what the total distance you can shorten the sight radius, but it appears significant.
Do we know the sight radius difference between the compact and the full length evo 10 at its full aft position?

I haven't heard anyone speak of just shortening the sight radius on their full length pistol by using the existing adjustability

[curtosis]

Do we know the sight radius difference between the compact and the full length evo 10 at its full aft position?

The brochure specs give 316 – 365 mm for the full and 266 – 315 mm for the compact.

[rapha]

Is the compact significantly louder than the long barrel? I have neighbors and would rather minimize my noise footprint.

[rmca]

Both are loud.
The short one is a bit louder, not much...

Hope this helps

[bootneckbob]

I've wondered about this short Vs long before. I shoot a Evo e long and of late been shooting consistently 556 in practice although did a 573 for last months comp on here.
If I drop my sights to short and try a few series I might see a difference or notice something. Willing to try anyway? I'll do it on a separate folder on my target app; don't want to bugger up the stats!

[bootneckbob]

Yeah ah no. That didn't work! Silly idea anyway.

To be fair I probably only shortened the distance by an inch. I wanted to keep the rear sight as it was. I know if it were a compact the balance would be quite different with the shorter cylinder and chassis.

[B Lafferty]

Just curious how many people may be shooting a full sized air pistol using a compact air cylinder.

[northpaw]

Just curious how many people may be shooting a full sized air pistol using a compact air cylinder.

Reduce weight and change center of gravity?

In this topic I´m missing the term "barrel time". Think that comes into play when changing to a shorter barrel (= compact model). Reduced barrel time could prove "more forgiving"?

[Rover]

"Reduced barrel time could prove "more forgiving"?"

Naah.

[Green_Canoe]

Very roughly we're talking about a change in barrel time of 0.0003 seconds. I don't think a reduction of 0.0003 seconds of gun movement is going to save anyone's score.