TargetTalk

I have noticed that several air rifle shooters at the USAS Winter Airgun Championships rapidly discharge air 3 or 4 time before starting the sighter shots. I am not sure what the purpose of this action is as the regulators in these rifle should not need to be warmed up or ?. Smallbore shooters have many time shot several "fouling" shots and I can understand that. Anyone care to shed light on this action?
Jim

I can't say what is on their mind but it seems like a good idea to me. The regulators I have seen ( I have had a fwb P70 and ans 2002 apart) consist of a piston with o ring seals that move in a tube against a spring. I can't hurt to exercise that system a little to make sure it is moving freely before it counts. The seals can stick a little.

And, it's nice to know everything is working - rather than have a pellet stuck in the barrel

Hello From France
We don't use the fooling in the ISSF 50m prone or 3pos since 15 years, and we have never made this in the 10m activity. I dont know if the fooling is important for the résult, in fact the fouling is made during the sighters shoot wich are unlimited. It s the same question about the cleaning or not of the barrel (in 22 lr)
For the 10m a geat parts of the park is with air in a bottle, the piston is not present un the rifle (gun also).

regards from French Shooter 10m rifle and Armbrust match 50m prone and 3 Pos 300m prone

jholtman wrote:I have noticed that several air rifle shooters at the USAS Winter Airgun Championships rapidly discharge air 3 or 4 time before starting the sighter shots. I am not sure what the purpose of this action is as the regulators in these rifle should not need to be warmed up or ?. Smallbore shooters have many time shot several "fouling" shots and I can understand that. Anyone care to shed light on this action?
Jim

Air pistol shooters often do exactly the same. I think it just ensures all has settled in before you start your sighters - I personally don't bother, and just go straight into the sighters.

Rob.

Have you ever not screwed in a cylinder all the way and get only one, maybe two shots and then nothing?

I have my juniors all fire a minimum of 3-4 "clearing shots" to make sure their cylinders are all the way in and the gas systems function normally.

Stuck pellet get you no extra time if it's your fault ....

I don't think that that is the issue with these shooters as they are at a level that stuck pellets should not be happening. I have been a high school coach for 10 years and start about 40 new shooters per year. I have never had a stuck pellet in a rifle with a shooter that is at even the first year of competition level. My personal opinion is that a highly skilled shooter decided that he would do this and several have followed. Kind of the "if he is doing it, it must be important" thing. Many times people follow practices they see the highly skilled shooters do without a clue as to why. Some years ago I was involved in motorcycle racing and from time to time we would do some things that were out of the ordinary just to see who would be the first to try it next. The things we did were of absolutly no benefit to performance and riders would jump on the band wagon and blindly follow. I guess if it makes a shooter more confident then that is OK for them. My only concern is if there will be any regulator damage over time from discharging air without the restriction of a pellet. That may not be an issue, just a thought.
JIm

jhmartin wrote:Have you ever not screwed in a cylinder all the way and get only one, maybe two shots and then nothing?

Nope, never had that happen, but then my cylinders are always fully on (or fully off).

I have my juniors all fire a minimum of 3-4 "clearing shots" to make sure their cylinders are all the way in and the gas systems function normally.

Stuck pellet get you no extra time if it's your fault ....

As I mentioned, better to get them to check they're fully tightened first.

Rob.

could it not be a form of dry firing, to refamiliarise themselves with trigger weight and to check that they're not anticipating the shot release?

beats wrote:could it not be a form of dry firing, to refamiliarise themselves with trigger weight and to check that they're not anticipating the shot release?

It could, but it isn't. If you watch the shooters so doing you'll see it's a task performed with the gun near to the bench and a few shots are fired in quick succession. You can also obviously only do this before you start shooting competition shots so dry firing would be best done as per the prep period - i.e. with no release of air.

Rob.

They could just be getting the spiders out of the barrel !!!

Barney :-)

I do this myself, originally because I didn't trust the internal reservoir in the Anschutz2002 to deliver a stable amount of pressure behind pellets until you'd cycled it a few times and I'd seen others doing it as well. Some of the stuff I've learnt since about Anschutz air rifles leads me to think it's not a bad idea (like the way that simply unscrewing the air cylinder can lead to blowback over the O-rings damaging them).

And if it doesn't do anything to the rifle, it's somewhat like the first stage in a two-stage trigger; doesn't adversely affect the rifle and does call the mind to attention.

Its purely fashion.

I recall it began to happen when gas rifles turned up and the levers went out of popularity. I reckon someone did it on a whim, he was a "champion" and then everyone did it 'cos he did it.

Sigh.

on my 12 ft-lb rigs i can hear a change in report pitch after filling for the first 2-3 shots. Or certainly the 2nd shot sounds different to the first... and that's on a quick fill gun, not a detached cylinder...

i've now started doing the same thing on my 10m rig, but only after a fill.

Just a thought on this matter.

My FWB 700 has a dry firing feature. As a matter of personal safety I set my trigger to dry fire after every time I finish shooting.

However in order to use this feature, I have to fully cock the rifle and then slide another lever forward to actuate the dry firing mechanism. I've often thought if this was some kind of quasi safety that allows the trigger to engage, but no discharge was released. With the fact that I have to cock the rifle first to engage the dry firing mechanism, I have to think that air has already been appropriated for the upcoming shot. That being said, if your last shot happened a few days after your next wouldn't that air be just waiting to be used? Is it possible that this air could lose pressure over that time? If so, perhaps the shooters we are speaking to are just blowing that appropriated air out as well (but for me that would only require one shot)? Please note I have no gunsmithing background and my thoughts were suspicions and I'd be happy to know otherwise.

Peter

Guest. wrote:That being said, if your last shot happened a few days after your next wouldn't that air be just waiting to be used? Is it possible that this air could lose pressure over that time?

Yes, but only if you leave the cylinder in place. And it'd be surprising even so how little is lost. Enough to be inaccurate; still enough for you not to want to fire the rifle into yourself :D

Maybe it is pure physics.

By firing a few (two or three) "blank" shots cools the cylinder and system toward the operating temperature. As gas expands, it cools. The opposite (compression) heats up the gas. A cylinder that may have just been filled and warm(er) than ambient temperature would provide the same pressure that the regulator allows (~70 bar), but the number of molecules in the compession chamber would actually be fewer than if the cylinder were at room temperature or cooler (operating temp). As that charge loses heat to the surrounding metal of the chamber the pressure will drop. Lower pressure less energy available to push the pellet. Lower shot strike on the target. All other things being equal.

As you shoot, at a typical rate of fire of about one shot per minute, the cylinder will cool slightly during charging the regulator and then start to absorb heat from the ambient atmosphere. We are talking about small temperature differences, but some sort of equilibrium will be achieved as the shooter fires the first few sighting shots.

Do I believe that these pressure differences are very significant (an aimed ten hitting an eight low) NO! But I think it may be a procedure to hasten the process to get the gun and propelling system to a consistent temp. One more item of consistency...maybe.

Marcus