TargetTalk

Howdy!
It's been a while since I've been on here (under a different name now), and I have been coaching athletes' for a few years, but this is my first encounter where I think I have an athlete that is outshooting the ability of her gun.
I had outshot the ability of my first air rifle about a year into shooting, but I never understood why. Can anyone point me towards any indicators that the athlete is starting to outshoot their gun that would be fairly easy to spot.
I truly believe she is ready for a gun that will suit her needs and that she is hitting a plateau due to the limitations of the gun's ability to shoot, as well as her growth throughout HS.

Thanks!

wouldn't consistent scores be the best indicator?

A few random questions:
Is this an air rifle or a smallbore? The text seems to imply air rifle but want to check.
What kind of pellets or ammo is she using. (You can have a great rifle but if you are putting crappy pellets/ammo through it you will not get results)
To that end: what make and model of rifle period?
As rbsev points out, scores that seem to have plateaued may be one indicator.
If the shooter is shooting both air and smallbore and one discipline seems stalled it may be an indicator of a problem.
Next: Do you suspect a 'bad' rifle in that it will not print good groups or a rifle that does not meet the needs of the shooter?
A bad rifle may be indicated by the shooter reporting a number of shots that a just not 'on call'. This can also be confirmed with simultaneous SCATT if you have the ability. Multiple incidents of a good looking SCATT trace but shot out in the 9 ring somewhere can be an indicator of a bad barrel or bad ammo. Is there another good shooter around who can test shoot the gun and see how it performs for them.

So, these are a few thoughts to get started.

'dude

It’s an Air Rifle.
We are using R10’s. It’s an FWB P70 (not the first owner).

I’ve been seeing the athlete plateau recently, and saw it a while ago, but thought the plateau could be something else, and not the rifle.
Personally, I think that they have outgrown the rifle based on the adjustability. We have it in the aluminum STOCK for a P70, but that only gives so much compared to other stocks like the 800X or the Walther’s.
I have another shooter I can have shoot the rifle, but it wont be for a few weeks as we end our HS match season and move into the post/club season.
I have done SCATT with the gun, and the SCATT is looking good, but like you said it could be the barrel or the ammo. Once I get a chance I’m going to have another shooter try out the rifle.

Thanks for the help!

I am not so concerned with the adjustability of the stock as I am the age of the rifle....

R10 should be fine pellets. Yes, you can get more performance if you do lot selecting but for the most part any tin of R10 will perform acceptably well for most shooters in most guns.

A P70... I would be very surprised if this shooter was the first owner, in fact this rifle is likely noticeably older than the shooter. This gun could easily be 25 years old. Does not mean it is necessarily a bad rifle but... when was the last time it was serviced or the barrel even cleaned? While air gun barrels do not wear out the way a smallbore or high power barrel will, they can build up pellet lubricant or get grit carried into them by a poorly handled CBI. A build up of pellet lubricant can cause accuracy problems and grit carried into the barrel can damage it. Next, the regulators and workings of the trigger and air release mechanisms do need occasional attention.

I can't say for certain oh yes, this is a problem, but if it has been more than a few (say 3 years) having the gun serviced and you have concerns, servicing would be a good thing to do. (Pilkguns the sponsor of this sight would be a great place to start.) They should also be able to put it in a vise and give it a general accuracy test while they have it, just to make sure there are no issues with the barrel.

When you say you have done SCATT, I am referring to having the gun in a vise and using the SCATT to insure the gun is pointing in the same place for each shot, then measuring the group.

I would not get too worked up about the adjustability of the stock. Unless this young lady is shooting say 620 plus scores I doubt that is an issue. I see kids shooting the latest generation of gun with a number of the more minute adjustments set in a very neutral place shooting well into the 610s over 60 shots. Unless you can point to a specific issue with her position that a an adjustment you don't have would fix, I would not use that as an reason to purchase a new gun.

If you want to go down the equipment route: How well do her jacket and pants fit?

'dude

An additional thought on all of this, if you have a developing shooter and there is a debate about getting new equipment as opposed to club or borrowed equipment, simply research, select and purchase but don't make the purchase conditional on a specific feature of the new gun.

It is easy to say 'Oh, if the gun had (fill in the blank) then all problems would be solved. It can be very tempting to try to 'buy' points. Which does not work. At the same time, there is a pride in a new shooter being able to say 'This is MY rifle' and, the guns usually get better care.

The economical route is to send the existing rifle for service and have it checked to make sure it is still shooting consistently. For development, funds allowing, maybe it is time for the shooter to have their own new, (this decade?) rifle. If it is a used, still have it checked but yeah, if you want a new updated gun and the shooter is ready to learn how to take care of it, go for it but don't do it based on a specific expectation.

Just 2 cents from a different perspective.

'dude

I put together this powerpoint for the parents on my team to understand the options available for upgrading equipment. May be of some use here.

https://app.box.com/s/t4y4h8icp98p24jhjkj5zf9ix113lrxb

bdutton wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 1:48 pm I put together this powerpoint for the parents on my team to understand the options available for upgrading equipment. May be of some use here.

https://app.box.com/s/t4y4h8icp98p24jhjkj5zf9ix113lrxb

That's a really nice PP. Gonna save that right into my coach folder.

Thanks for posting.

Have done SCATT testing ,it indicate there are sth issues in your rifle at least. so get the rifle under a maintenance or clean the barrel,and check the pellets accuracy， otherwise it will lead to ineffective training for athletes.
Do anything you can for the rifle the scores would not increase , a new gun is a choice, hope not equipment route.
If athlete with a special physique, maybe need NEW GUN,or there are clear signs that rifle not match NPA.

Somewhat late to this thread, and I shoot mainly .22 which has slightly different considerations (e.g. more third-party stocks for .22 than air actions, air rifles tend to be traded as whole items, etc).

The first and most obvious thing is: have you performed any sort of batch testing. Do you know what the mechanical score-potential of the barrel is? If the athlete is plateauing, then it could be approaching that point.

There's lots of other stuff though. Being a cheapskate, I've had a somewhat slow adoption of new kit, sometimes leaving it past the point I should have spent some money, but which probably also means everything I've spent money on has been quite impactful.

For nearly 10 years I shot with a walnut 1913 Supermatch that I had from new. When I joined the Welsh programme I improved, but was challenged by my coach "have you shot with anything else/tried metal?". I hadn't, and they had one of the original anschutz (cast) alloy stocks, which I was loaned for 6 months. I dropped my action in with all my existing buttplate/sights/etc. I liked it, got on well with the slimmer fore-end, and ended up getting a Grunig XRS (plus an Anschutz square-to-round adaptor. My shooting definitely improved with that.

I was also offered the loan of some hi-end foresight elements by a team-mate. I'd looked at them before and had no issue with paying £20 for them. But not knowing what size or ring thickness I really needed, was reticent to blindly drop £120 on a selection which I might not even get on with. Having the chance to use them, decide if I like them and then buy some of a preferred size/thickness was invaluable, and I shoot better with them than the metal inserts.

Some time later, I started to feel I was plateauing, and getting near the score potential of the barrel - which wasn't sufficient for decimal scored matches. So I ended up with a Grunig R3 to go in the action (the notion I might buy a Grunig action factored into my stock choice some 18 months previous as I had also considered the Anschutz Precise). I set a new PB in my first training match with that barrel!

So this is all a very long-winded way of explaining some of the leaps I had and asking :

* What makes you think they're outshooting the rifle?
* Do you know how good the rifle is mechanically?
* Have they tried different sight systems, buttplates, etc?

There may well come a point where they are "outshooting the rifle" or the rifle is limiting them due to stock size/adjustability (and they're never going to reach the mechanical barrel potential because the stock is limiting them). I didn't try hi-ends or a metal stock because I had a specific problem, but because it seemed sensible to try alternatives where I had the opportunity to and see if they worked better than what I already had. When asked "why do you use metal foresight rings?", it's desirable to have a better answer than "because that's what the rifle came with".