TargetTalk

Noticed a big difference between groupings with cheap pellets and R-10 pellets. Just can't get the same tight groups like I can with the R-10's but at 20 bucks a can and shooting 50 rounds a day they get very exspensive!
Anyone know of any cheap air pellets that group well?
I went to wall mart and got some Beemans that are pretty good...

I spent years and years shooting high Power service & Palma rifle and a little bullseye pistol and some smallbore and even shot a round or two of skeet.

RWS R-10 ARE VERY VERY VERY inexpensive!!!!!

you said $20 a can? where are you? canada or Aus?

if you're in the US, you might try Vogel green from Pilkguns. they are $8 a tin.

and you don't need another $400 Krieger Barrel every 5000 rounds.

The confidence you gain shooting quality pellets in a quality gun is worth every penny.

Shoot good

Poole
http://arizona.rifleshooting.com/

And this is meant to be good-fun ribbing.... But weren't you just looking for the BEST airgun in your last post? :) After dropping the $1,500-$2,000 you probably would for that setup, a penny or three difference per pellet shouldn't matter much, no?

And I have to agree with Bill... The confidence good pellets give you (whether real or in the mind) is certainly worth the little extra $. And yes, shop around, I pay about $9/500 for R10 at a local shop.

I went from those Beeman/Walmart pellets you speak of, to Meisterkugeln's, to R10's. And I swear each was progressively better. Could be due to my ramping up in skill though, too...

Best of luck in your search, AJ! :)

I know how good high quality ammo is and I totally believe in shooting it in matches and a few days before but its just expensive training with high quality pellets. Dry fire is great but it doesn't simulate the little bit of recoil you get when you shoot pellets.
I did mess up that price, sorry. The R-10's are 12.30 American for 500, was thinking 20 something for two cans.

More importantly . . .

if you are burning up that many pellets, it is very likely you are PRACTICING and not TRAINING . . .

Steve Swartz

(What are you trying to accomplish with live fire? No, really- what are the specific training outcomes you are trying to achieve? I think if you really put some thought into this you will discover that there is a big difference between "training" and "practice" and that while "practice" is necessary it isn't anywhere near as beneficial as "training!")

So whats the difference in training and practice???
Is practice live fire then is trainin dry and holdling the pistol out?

Well, different opinions on this . . . however, the best description I heard was that

Training: Designed activities to improve technique
Practice: Repetitive performance to ensure consistency of technique

There is some overlap. It is possible to do some limited training during live fire; like exploring different modifications to shot plan/match plan. However it is more likely that if your technique is not already developed, live fire will simply "burn in" the technique you already have- for better or worse.

The purpose of live fire is to integrate all the elements of technique; to put them together into a holistic pattern that will become second nature through repetition.

Ask yourself honestly- what do you actually *learn* during live fire? The answer is probably either "nolt much" or "what I did wrong." Both are forms of negative reinforcement that will serve to hold your progress back if you do too much of it.

Training, on the other hand, requires that you isolate individual elements of your technique (trigger control, for example) and perform narrowly focused drills around improving performance on just that element. By focusing ona single, limited element of technique, you can experiemnt and find yoiur "sweet spot" for this element. It is much harder to focus on a narrow element of technique during live fire (too many distractions; like that irrelevant fuzzy dot downrange, the useless holes in paper, etc.). Therefore, for training, you take all the irrelevant aspects of technique out of the equation.

Of course, you msut do a certain amount of both- focused training for improving technique, and practice to smoothly integrate the individual elements into the overall process.

If you want to internalize and make permanent your current level of performance and technique, blast away!

If you want your level of performance and technique to improve, that requires a different approach . . .

In a typical 15 hour training week, I perform about 45 minutes of live fire; 2 hours of dry fire, and 8 hours of "no fire" (technique drills). The rest is physical conditioning and mental training. This mix seems about right for me. I have heard similar breakdowns from "near world class" and "World Class" level shooters. Of course, the consistent world class level shooters will be shooting more live fire- at a certain level of technique, the distribution changes back again because your technique is pretty well developed and refined- but your ability to execute consistently is what needs work.

Steve Swartz

Steve,

I am new to this forum. I Shoot air pistol60 for about 3 year and i have
an average score of +/- 550. During this 3 year i have been "practicing"
almost all of the time. I would like to change that. Can You tell me what
technique drills you use.
Thanks
Mark

A list of drills that is located centrally would be benificial.
I did find that I was doing alot of practice and switched to doing more dry fire drills. I usually start with just getting the pistol to the taget in an organized manner is a good start to a session. Then I move to a method that I use to hold on target as I work the first and second stage of my trigger to maintain sight alignment. Dry fire training to keep sight alignment during the break of the shot. I know that if I am not hittng where I predict after the break I need to analyze what I am forgetting. So I must have a list of things I do to look at so I can analyze the shot groups in a parctice session if they are going astray. Oh yeah and make sure your sights are tightened down so they don't move after everyshot(grin).

The "core" for training that I use involves the following:

Blank: against a blank surface
Bull: against a target

Pump: pressing through the second stage without cocking the gun
Snap: cocked dry fire

Seated: resting arm
Standing: stance
Multiple: engaging aim points in a star pattern

Each drill progresses from seated-standing-multiple in a single session

Training sequence:
Blank Pump
Bull Pump
Blank Snap
Bull Snap

To round out a six day string of training, add a "long standing" drill where blank pump/bull pump is performed (12 or so trigger activations over a 60 second hold).

What you are specifically working on is maintaining perfect ALIGNment while exercising perfect TRIGGER control (ie no movement of front-rear sights) with intense FOCUS on the front sight.

These are my basic drills.

Steve Swartz

I should point out that the above should be taken as Steve's drills and they work for him. BUT some aspects may work for you but some won't. This is an area were you (and me <g>) need the assistance of a coach. They will be able to work with you to develope a training plan and drills etc. The important aspects from my perspective is that a) training is not practice and b) isolate the elements of the shot process and work on them one at a time and then add in more elements.

I would suspect I'm like a lot of shooters (the vast majority I'd guess), in that my trainng/practice balance is way too skewed to the wrong side (practice) - I am however working on correcting that.

Rob.

Guys:

The key thing about drills is

1) Where they come from (what part of delivering the shot do they focus on)

and

2) What is the objective/purpose of the drill

which leads to the following principles:

1) know what the disassembled parts (skills or techniques) of delivering the proper shot are in the first place;
2) know what the specific desired behaviors are for each disaggregated part;
3) know how to replicate the mechanics of the specific technique/behavior are in isolation; and
4) build drills (or understand how existing drills contribute to the behavior) around those isolated components.

There's your training plan, dude.

Steve Swartz

[I have had some sporadic "coaching" over the years from a variety of sources. Many of the coaches could not clearly explain, when pressed on the purpose of a particular drill, the "WHY" and "WHAT DO I LOOK FOR" aspects of it.

Way too many coaches have a "toolbox" of exercises they somewhat randomly prescribe to shooters without clearly identifying the shooter's weakness (what part of the shot are they having trouble with). Being able to diagnose a specific deficiency and then "prescribe" a fix interms of a specific drill aimed at a specific weakness seems ot be the exception and not the rule.]

Returning to the original question:

In my opinion, you can use any quality of pellets while you are in the range of 550 points or below.
I recommend you jsb match pellets that costs 6 $us/tin they are exelents.
the rws pellets are very fine, there are diverse qualities, in my club we use those more cheap (RWS Geco, or RWS basic line 2.5$us/lata) for the programs of beginners shooters, and it has occurred very good result, so much that the shooters that look for economy use them, the marksmen that have smaller scores at 550, obtain the same results with cheapest pellets or with Finale Match.

Nano

I agree with Steve...training is about breaking down the shooting technique into its parts and then building those individual parts evenly. It's not productive to endlessly work on trigger control if your blalance and hold are unsteady.

Too many times I have seen shooters doing a drill or exercise with no idea what they are working on. Also keep in mind, the same drill can be used for different aspects of the technique.

You can spend as little as 15 minutes up to a whole day working on a single aspect of the shooting technique. I would not suggest spending more than a day working on one aspect. It gets boring quickly and there are others points to work on.

As far as pellets. Go with any well recognized brand RWS, HN, etc. And don't worry about batch testing until you are in the 570-580+ range. Sizing pellets is a waste of time as well.

Mike Douglass

While agreeing with most of what has been said above, I tend to think that some pellets are better suited to some pistols than others.
Recently I changed to the more expensive R-10s after shooting Meisterkluglen (or however it is spelt) for several years. My average score dropped 15 points over two tins of R-10s.
I thought I was just going through a bad patch, analysed my technique to see what had changed, but could see no obvious reason for the lower average score.
I changed back to Meisterkluglen and straight away my scores picked up 20 points.
The groups are tighter. What were 9s with R-10s are now just cutting the 10 ring and the annoying 8s have now ended up cutting the nine ring.
It may all be coincidence but I now don't have confidence in the R-10s through my Morini 162E and there are 4 tins sitting there that I will probably offload to someone else. It is important to be confident in your ammo as it forms an important part of your mental toughness to shoot a match.

Colin C
I think you would be wise to vice test both pellets from your pistol as I doubt there would be that much between them.
It sounds to me more of a mental attitude and trusting of the pellets you use normally against something new.

We have been through this many times before.

Any good target air pistol or rifle will shoot any pellet that is not deformed into a single hole at 10m.

Yes some people prefer brand x over brand y and think that the expensive ones are going to help increase their score. In reality if you clamp your gun to a sturdy object and fire pellets of any brand, you will see that they all stay in an area the size of a B40 X-ring.

I have even put pellets in backward and they still hit the 10 ring at 10m! Every time!

You need to quit agonizing over the pellet issue and concentrate on your technique. That is where you will gain the most points.

A cheap source of great pellets is Walmart. They sell Crossman Premier for $4.00/500 in the DFW area.

I buy JSB myself. But they are getting harder to find and more expensive so I will probably start shooting the Crossman Premier.

Your mileage may vary.

Check the archives!

My coach has me doing 40-60 lives (usually 50), 40 dry and then holding the gun out for a min then down for a min and repeat a few times...

Sounds like your coach knows what you need to be doing.

When I first started shooting 10m, I shot all the time. Shooting three or four 60 shot matches a day at home for about a year, and in competition once a week at our shooting club.

When I switched guns to a Morini, I went to the club several times a week to shoot on the indoor range. There is just something different about practicing on the same range you compete on that is more satisfying. And the target carriers help too.

Keep practicing!

My coach has me doing 40-60 lives (usually 50), 40 dry and then holding the gun out for a min then down for a min and repeat a few times...

All this is excellent for building shoulder strength so you can hold the gun easily without wearing out during the match. I think it is otherwise too much for developing shooting skill.

Try doing only 20 shots in a session, but make sure you do each of those 20 shots the very best you can. Really pay attention, and start each shot more than once if necessary, so that you fully believe that this shot will be an excellent shot at the time it is released. One good shot, fired correctly and deliberately so that you know it will be a good shot before you see the target, beats 10 fired any other way.

Then do 2 of these sessions a day. Even 10 shots a session is a lot better than none, if you pay close attention to each of those 10 shots. Learning is more by the number of practice sessions than total shots. The key is, that if there is anything whatsoever wrong with the shot, to abandon that shot and start over. Even if the only skill you learn is to avoid firing all the shots that miss the 10, you will get a 600 in your next match!

The last session each day should be just before bed time; or take a nap after your training session if you have time. That is because the brain needs sleep time to put away the short term memories you just created into long term memory. It doesn't do any good to figure out what the perfect shot feels like, if you forget before the next session. This applies to any mentally directed skill, not just shooting.