10Y groups, do they really tell you anything?

[Danman]

I have been wanting to try this for a while now, and here it is: Does shooting groups at 10Y with an air rifle (clearly designed to shoot much farther) tell you anything about pellet/speed/barrel compatibility and how they will do at distance? For the record I have nothing against 10Y (or meter) shooting! But what happens when you push that seemingly amazing group out? I've heard that it's all relative (and my groups don't all disprove that either!) but to the average person looking at these 10Y groups they all look pretty amazing. My theory was and now still remains that 98% of ammo will group well at 10Y. I'm not bashing any of the pellets either, except maybe the pointed JSB stratons, they don't shoot well out of anything I've tried, and the Crow Magnums are NOT a long range pellet, H&Ns website says to keep shots inside 40M but I would keep em inside 30M for sure! They came in sideways @ 40Y. All pellets were shot at optimal speeds minus the crosmans(that was on purpose) Hammer wheel was all the way down which still pushed em supersonic with the . I was gonna zoom in on the target but you can do that easily enough. Now in my mind...all those 10Y groups tell me these slug/pellets/gun combos are all excellent....but it quickly falls apart at 25Y for some of em. The circles are all 5/8 of an inch, and I mostly guessed at the holdovers, crosmans @ 24Y being way off was my fault. Wind right to left as evident esp on the .177 springer groups.

 

[jps2486]

Any decent airgun should shoot one hole 10 shot goups.

 

[FL22]

25y is the new 10.

 

[ctshooter]

This could be a contentious subject if it takes the wrong direction. However, most of my shooting is indoors at 10 yards. I can sometimes shoot low power small caliber in the back yard. But if I want to shoot 50 to 100 yards I need to go to the range which means a min 2-3 hours outing. So, for me, I need to make 10 yards count.

First off - 10 yards is perfect pistol distance to really challenge your offhand shooting.

For a rifle I do use it to help narrow down projectiles. As @jps2486 mentions, a good airgun should be a single hole at 10 yards. So I use that criteria to both determine if a rifle is accurate and to find the best projectiles to test at longer distances. If a pellet or slug isn't doing a doing a 5-shot single hole slightly bigger than the caliber group @ 10 yards, the likelihood of it shooting well at 25 to 50 or even 100 is slim. And this has played itself out to be valid for many airguns and projectile combinations when brought out to the range. On the flip side I've had projectiles shooting single holes but then totally falling apart by 50 yards and not even staying on paper at 100.

tl:dr - 10y is a good place to start but it doesn't tell the whole story which can change dramatically as distance increases.

 

[rsfrid]

When exclaiming about your groups at 10 yards, Just keep in mind that MOA at 10 yards is a mere .10”! Yes, one needs to be able to nearly put all pellets thru same hole at 10 yards to achieve MOA groups. I shoot regularly at 7 yards with a Weihrauch HW44 and MOA is only .07”. And yes 5 shot groups can be regularly shot under .07” with sufficient practice and skill.

 

[MountainSportAirguns]

Well if it shoots a pellet poorly at 10 yards it probably won't improve at 100

 

[Farmplinker2]

Well, how well a gun groups at 10 meters is important for people shooting 10m competition...
Like everyone else here, it gets rid of the worst pellets. For pesting/hunting 25 yards/meters is probably good.

 

[Hateful McNasty]

Well 10m or 50' is fine for pistol or something sub 500fps unrested

 

[Danman]

Any decent airgun should shoot one hole 10 shot goups.

Lol not if u feed it ammo it hates! It's very much 2 sided.

 

[Danman]

Well, how well a gun groups at 10 meters is important for people shooting 10m competition...
Like everyone else here, it gets rid of the worst pellets. For pesting/hunting 25 yards/meters is probably good.

Shooting 10M helps Knock out some variables (ie wind, rifle cant, etc) but can you test rifles such as a Ghost HP, FX panthera, that new (and ugly) Snipe, etc to weed out ammo choices? I'd say not really. The crosman pellet and H&N slug group for example seemed great @ 10Y but they fell apart quickly at distances they were intended for. The slugs do not recieve the correct twist and kinda do what the want outta a slow twist barrel (although 3 went into same hole @40Y!!) and the crosmans destabilized at distance. Now for the .177 springer you can accurately estimate long range group sizes farther out.... 5mm grouping with the 8.44 (loves em) and 10mm with stratons @10Y and the two effectively doubled as I stretched it out.

 

[Danman]

This could be a contentious subject if it takes the wrong direction. However, most of my shooting is indoors at 10 yards. I can sometimes shoot low power small caliber in the back yard. But if I want to shoot 50 to 100 yards I need to go to the range which means a min 2-3 hours outing. So, for me, I need to make 10 yards count.

First off - 10 yards is perfect pistol distance to really challenge your offhand shooting.

For a rifle I do use it to help narrow down projectiles. As @jps2486 mentions, a good airgun should be a single hole at 10 yards. So I use that criteria to both determine if a rifle is accurate and to find the best projectiles to test at longer distances. If a pellet or slug isn't doing a doing a 5-shot single hole slightly bigger than the caliber group @ 10 yards, the likelihood of it shooting well at 25 to 50 or even 100 is slim. And this has played itself out to be valid for many airguns and projectile combinations when brought out to the range. On the flip side I've had projectiles shooting single holes but then totally falling apart by 50 yards and not even staying on paper at 100.

tl:dr - 10y is a good place to start but it doesn't tell the whole story which can change dramatically as distance increases.

Absolutely! I'm not trying to be vicious or revolutionary per se, it's just no one is buying these long range guns to shoot 10Y and testing should also not take place at 10Y in my mind. I thoroughly enjoyed shooting 10Y, even if it was a little disconcerting with the Ghost

 

[Kragman1]

Man, this post really speaks to me.

And I can speak to it from the perspective of shooting/testing springer rifles in the little 9 yard range in my basement:
IMO, it is not a good distance to learn much about what pellets a rifle may or may not like, etc. There just isn't enough distance for that kind of precision to become apparent.
But, it IS good to A. find out which pellets your rifle doesn't like, and B. find out if you rifle is hold sensitive and to what degree, if you have multiple bulls on your target sheet.

I used to think that group size at that distance was all about hold, but I have definitely proven myself wrong on that.
So I'd think that the same.applies to PCPs.
But I can't imagine anyone intending to truly shoot a PCP At 10 yards unless it's a low powered target rifle.

 

[jps2486]

When exclaiming about your groups at 10 yards, Just keep in mind that MOA at 10 yards is a mere .10”! Yes, one needs to be able to nearly put all pellets thru same hole at 10 yards to achieve MOA groups. I shoot regularly at 7 yards with a Weihrauch HW44 and MOA is only .07”. And yes 5 shot groups can be regularly shot under .07” with sufficient practice and skill.

Here's a typical target shot at 10M with a new rifle I bought from a highly reputable brand. Everything I tried could not improve accuracy, so off it went to the manufacturer for warranty service. They've had it a month and I'm anxious to see what was found and repaired. I won't publish their name until I've given them a fair chance to make this a one hole shooter as others have reported on this and other forums. If it's not any better, then I will face them with my criticisms.

 

[JimT66]

Have to say that's not good. A Daisy cub will do much better than that at 10 meters. I would be pitching a fit.

 

[Hateful McNasty]

Here's a typical target shot at 10M with a new rifle I bought from a highly reputable brand. Everything I tried could not improve accuracy, so off it went to the manufacturer for warranty service. They've had it a month and I'm anxious to see what was found and repaired. I won't publish their name until I've given them a fair chance to make this a one hole shooter as others have reported on this and other forums. If it's not any better, then I will face them with my criticisms.

View attachment 9409

The "we can't find anything wrong with it" clause

They'll also add a target card with tighter grouping of there test shots to prove it ..lol

 

[jps2486]

The "we can't find anything wrong with it" clause

They'll also add a target card with tighter grouping of there test shots to prove it ..lol

Can I use your name?

 

[Hateful McNasty]

Can I use your name?

©®Tm2024.

 

[Danman]

dr - 10y is a good place to start but it doesn't tell the whole story which can change dramatically as distance increases

This!!!! I'm not so good with the wordages.... That's the point I'm trying to make. It CAN be very helpful and it's not a bad place to start, but it doesn't always tell the whole story. Those Mrds for example. Not an overly great group at 10Y I guess but 24Y only opened em up 2mm 40Y was SUPPOSED to be about the same but yeah fliers are very real with Mrds. I grinned as the 4th smashed the group nice and tightly together and then douuu 5th shot flier, single loaded a 6th...flier....7th cooperated finally. Were I to shoot the slugs or Crosmans, @ 100 yards I 100% doubt either would touch paper (I use 5.5inch round targets) While I shot 10 mrds @ 100Y 2 weeks ago and they did a bit over 3inches.

 

[Kragman1]

I was doing some cleaning over the weekend, and I came across this target that I had saved. Shot with an early R9 in .20 cal at 9 yards, using Benjamin cylindricals (the only pellet available locally when I bought that rifle).
I fired each shot into one group or another based on how they fit the bore when i loaded the pellet. It served to show me 1. just how accurate that rifle is, and 2. what terrible pellets those cylindricals are, and that I needed better ASAP.

I included a shot of the back, which may better show the groups, particularly the good ones.
It's worth noting that I was just getting back into springers at the time, and that the 3 shot group with the "Goldilocks" pellets is legit - when they fit well, even those junk pellets can kick butt.

 

[flyfisher]

When exclaiming about your groups at 10 yards, Just keep in mind that MOA at 10 yards is a mere .10”! Yes, one needs to be able to nearly put all pellets thru same hole at 10 yards to achieve MOA groups. I shoot regularly at 7 yards with a Weihrauch HW44 and MOA is only .07”. And yes 5 shot groups can be regularly shot under .07” with sufficient practice and skill.

View attachment 9393

That to me is amazing. Not a single flyer.