250Z 250z - Working On It!

[Pumacarl]

I had a moment to shoot today but didn't have the time to follow best practices of cleaning between ammo types. This kind of puts everything into question, but at least I got some trigger time in and I got to see if it is fussy. I was only shooting at 53y, so I still need to do a long range test to confirm anything.

What I found, starting clean, was that the gun didn't like the 23gr NSA, major bummer. It was about an inch group, not good. The FX Hybrids had the most symmetrical groups for the slugs, with no fliers, but even they were .75" groups, too big. The AEA 21.9gr pellets shot 4 shots almost through the same hole, but then had a flier, making the group size go from 1/4" to 1." That could have been a result of the barrel getting leaded up by the slugs, so I have to check those with a clean barrel.

Judging by the uniformity of the groups, it would seem that the slug, to play the up and and down velocity game with, would be the FX. I did not have the H&N 21gr and 25gr with me to try either, so who knows. It will be nice when more people start posting their experiences with different ammo so I have more to go on. There are so many choices it is kind of daunting. I usually get lucky early, but that is not happening this time.

My plan going forward is to first check if the AEA will shoot fliers out of a clean barrel, or not. If not, then I am certainly going to be buying some more of those. If they still throw fliers, they're out. Then I will try some more H&N slugs in different diameters. H&N, because of the big suppliers, they usually have a supply. Availability is important. I will keep my fingers crossed that someone will find, and post, some winning combination, if I don't first.

 

[Pumacarl]

Decided to continue trying NSA slugs and ordered three more different ones today. This will make nine different examples. I can understand everyone that just throws their hands up to it. I guess it is still better than drinking, and cheaper, plus there is a chance that this just might work out yet. I hope it happens soon because I really don't like target shooting.

 

[pan60]

Decided to continue trying NSA slugs and ordered three more different ones today. This will make nine different examples. I can understand everyone that just throws their hands up to it. I guess it is still better than drinking, and cheaper, plus there is a chance that this just might work out yet. I hope it happens soon because I really don't like target shooting.

drinking use to be affordable

 

[Pumacarl]

Not the really good stuff, that has always been expensive!

 

[Pumacarl]

To Barra's credit, they did not forget me, and they did send me the correct magazine today, after the mix up.

They're learning as they go, I guess.

Thanks Barra!

 

[Pumacarl]

Just an FYI for those following this thread that bought a 250z. Barra's parts department seems to be well up to speed now. I ordered an extra poppet, air guage, hammer spring, orings, just to be prepared and I got them in 4 days. Not bad. They sell extra barrels for cheap money too, luckily I didn't mess mine up, but it's good to know if I had, a replacement can be had easily.

 

[CTAirgunner]

Just an FYI for those following this thread that bought a 250z. Barra's parts department seems to be well up to speed now. I ordered an extra poppet, air guage, hammer spring, orings, just to be prepared and I got them in 4 days. Not bad. They sell extra barrels for cheap money too, luckily I didn't mess mine up, but it's good to know if I had, a replacement can be had easily.

Thats pretty awesome, for a budget rifle, having parts available is a pretty good sign, look at Hatsan for instance, been around forever and they basically have ZERO customer service.

 

[Pumacarl]

Spring has sprung and I finally got back to shooting. I'm thinking about just starting a new thread called "shooting It'" but willl hold off until my shooting starts producing repeatable results. I have been thinking about the accuracy problems that I have been running into all week and I think that I need to do more work on the barrel. I am going to at least re-crown it. Since they are so cheap, I will probably be buying another barrel too. It really can't be the ammo, and the speeds I'm pushing aren't crazy either.

Another thing that came up, is that my 250z does not like my .30 Ronin. This is the first pcp that the Ronin screwed up groups with, and there was no doubt, I swapped out a few times. I am not surprised that this happened with this pcp because the moderator does not screw directly onto the barrel, but I am surpised that it only hates the Ronin and not my Tanto or my STO. They are all for .30 so on a .22 I had thought there wouldn't be any problems.

Slugs are weird too. I did not think that they were shooting all that great at 53y, between 1-1.5" depending on the wind . Not what I would consider acceptable for sure. Anyway, I was shooting later in the day at almost twice as far and hitting my little spinners like the accuracy was actually there. This gun is going to keep me busy for a while, that's for sure.

I'm suspicious of my Alpha 6 scope too, so my 16x SWFA is going back on for the duration. We'll see.

 

[CTAirgunner]

Spring has sprung and I finally got back to shooting. I'm thinking about just starting a new thread called "shooting It'" but willl hold off until my shooting starts producing repeatable results. I have been thinking about the accuracy problems that I have been running into all week and I think that I need to do more work on the barrel. I am going to at least re-crown it. Since they are so cheap, I will probably be buying another barrel too. It really can't be the ammo, and the speeds I'm pushing aren't crazy either.

Another thing that came up, is that my 250z does not like my .30 Ronin. This is the first pcp that the Ronin screwed up groups with, and there was no doubt, I swapped out a few times. I am not surprised that this happened with this pcp because the moderator does not screw directly onto the barrel, but I am surpised that it only hates the Ronin and not my Tanto or my STO. They are all for .30 so on a .22 I had thought there wouldn't be any problems.

Slugs are weird too. I did not think that they were shooting all that great at 53y, between 1-1.5" depending on the wind . Not what I would consider acceptable for sure. Anyway, I was shooting later in the day at almost twice as far and hitting my little spinners like the accuracy was actually there. This gun is going to keep me busy for a while, that's for sure.

I'm suspicious of my Alpha 6 scope too, so my 16x SWFA is going back on for the duration. We'll see.

As far as the slugs go, and I would think at 50 yards they had time to stabilize, but maybe they didn't? Id be curious to see if the size of the group changed from 53 to 95 , or whatever it was you mentioned in Bills thread, but maybe that is the case?

 

[Pumacarl]

As far as the slugs go, and I would think at 50 yards they had time to stabilize, but maybe they didn't? Id be curious to see if the size of the group changed from 53 to 95 , or whatever it was you mentioned in Bills thread, but maybe that is the case?

I really hope not, though I have heard of that actually happening. The only problem with that is if there's wind the wobble super decreases the bc. A bad thing all the way around. I'm not buying any more .22's for slugs, I'm going to try to get this one right and that's it, pellets and Plinking for .22, that's it. I'm finding that for bird & chipmunk pesting the .177 with slugs is actually better under 75y anyway. If I am shooting further, than it is better to go .25 or .30. I have never, and still don't, understand everybody's love for .22 outside of Plinking. A lot of municipalities mandate it, and some countries, but if they didn't it would not be all that popular in my book. Except for Plinking, it is excellent for that. It's too much for in close little pests, and at distance it takes too much air to push on heavy slugs in such a small bore, it is just not efficient enough. It is way easier to get power out of the bigger choices, and if it weren't for the S.A. boys being limited to .22, I think that at this time it would be a minor player in the slug game. The length of the barrels required to get heavy .22 slugs up to speed is just f'ing ridiculous.

 

[CTAirgunner]

I agree with you on whats required for barrel length needed to push the heavy .22 slugs, thats why the impct being a bullpup makes the most sense from an ergo stand point... but honestly, my opinion for bird pesting, is .30 pellets. All day. 0-100 yards. Out of the paradigm with some rough math/memories , you could shoot a 44.75 at 800 fps very accurately (yes the hold at 100 is going to be more) on a 25 yard zero its roughly 18 inch of drop at 100, however its making 64 fpe at the muzzle, and at 100 still making just over 40 fpe, and the wound channel is quite a bit larger.

This is just me thinking aloud and whatnot but isn't that what discussions are for?

 

[Pumacarl]

I agree with you on whats required for barrel length needed to push the heavy .22 slugs, thats why the impct being a bullpup makes the most sense from an ergo stand point... but honestly, my opinion for bird pesting, is .30 pellets. All day. 0-100 yards. Out of the paradigm with some rough math/memories , you could shoot a 44.75 at 800 fps very accurately (yes the hold at 100 is going to be more) on a 25 yard zero its roughly 18 inch of drop at 100, however its making 64 fpe at the muzzle, and at 100 still making just over 40 fpe, and the wound channel is quite a bit larger.

This is just me thinking aloud and whatnot but isn't that what discussions are for?

This gun is actually just for Plinking cans at 200y. I am speaking of most people's use of .22, not mine necessarily. I just don't think it's all that and a bag of chips, like everyone else does, or you for that matter too. I like Plinking with my .30 better, but sometimes I worry about what's around and half the weight flying through the air seems a little safer. Luckily, this is all just a different way to have fun, it just isn't that fun yet. Getting there.

 

[Billm]

You’ve done a lot to that 250z, well done. I’ve always liked shooting .177 and the 250z is my first venture into .22 and larger. I shot a lot of Starlings and squirrels with .177. I can’t wait to receive the .25 Ghost and then maybe I will try the .30. My plan was to build a range and buy cans for my 10/22 and 9mm’s. But I’m having too much fun with my airguns to bother.

 

[Dogowski]

I agree with you on whats required for barrel length needed to push the heavy .22 slugs, thats why the impct being a bullpup makes the most sense from an ergo stand point... but honestly, my opinion for bird pesting, is .30 pellets. All day. 0-100 yards. Out of the paradigm with some rough math/memories , you could shoot a 44.75 at 800 fps very accurately (yes the hold at 100 is going to be more) on a 25 yard zero its roughly 18 inch of drop at 100, however its making 64 fpe at the muzzle, and at 100 still making just over 40 fpe, and the wound channel is quite a bit larger.

This is just me thinking aloud and whatnot but isn't that what discussions are for?

Absolutely my friend!

 

[Dogowski]

As far as the slugs go, and I would think at 50 yards they had time to stabilize, but maybe they didn't? Id be curious to see if the size of the group changed from 53 to 95 , or whatever it was you mentioned in Bills thread, but maybe that is the case?

Do you think they might be tumbling through the air on the way to the target? Faster speed may be required to send them downrange? Just thinking out loud here.

 

[Pumacarl]

Do you think they might be tumbling through the air on the way to the target? Faster speed may be required to send them downrange? Just thinking out loud here.

I can see them flying. They are not tumbling or spiraling. The speeds are all pretty good. The slowest is doing 920fps. It has to be a bad node thing. I just have to change the speed up, amongst other things, like re-crowning etc.

 

[Pumacarl]

You’ve done a lot to that 250z, well done. I’ve always liked shooting .177 and the 250z is my first venture into .22 and larger. I shot a lot of Starlings and squirrels with .177. I can’t wait to receive the .25 Ghost and then maybe I will try the .30. My plan was to build a range and buy cans for my 10/22 and 9mm’s. But I’m having too much fun with my airguns to bother.

Yeah, I was heavy into custom 10/22 rimfires before I got into PCP. Once the ammo shortage happened and I started shooting these things, I haven't looked back.

 

[pan60]

Yeah, I was heavy into custom 10/22 rimfires before I got into PCP. Once the ammo shortage happened and I started shooting these things, I haven't looked back.

yep

 

[Pumacarl]

Just great, Nate posts a video about the 250z in .22 and only shoots pellets. Not only that, but in the video comments, he's asked why he didn't use a suppressor, and he says because he didn't want to have to deal with tuning it, so he wore earmuffs.

I have seen some great groups with slugs from the .25 version of this gun, but none at at 100 with the .22. It's been out for a while now too. I was hoping it was just me, but I am starting to wonder now.

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[Pumacarl]

This story is a little weird because this wasn't supposed to happen this way. I actually started the day out trying to talk someone, that I just got into the sport, out of getting a 250z and getting a Ghost instead, I failed at that miserably, lol. He already has a BRK Sahara so why go backwards, is what I was thinking. He has been shooting Starlings at 75 -94 yards with FX 18gr pellets and wants to go further with a slug gun so he wanted to set up a Barra like mine. I kept telling him that it wasn't shooting slugs that great, but he knows that I'm very demanding and probably thought that my standards were higher than his, or just flat out unreasonable, and wanted to try it. So I told him, fine, I'll bring it tomorrow and you can shoot it. I figured, that would show him where he should put his attention, on a Ghost.

I had not touched my gun yet, from the previous comments, except for changing the scope to my 16x SWFA. I was planning to crown the barrel this weekend, before todays events happened, and had not shot the new ZAN slugs I just got, 23gr .217 reg 2450psi 925fps.

I was not using a bench for this, I was using my tripod, standing, and there was a good wind that would go down to 5 and up to 15mph the whole time, and it felt damn cold. The temp was actually 50. The target was 75y away with the wind coming from 4 o'clock. I did not expect to do well, would be an understatement, I was kind of planning not to. I would usually have not even attempted to shoot groups in these conditions because it is a waste of ammo. I figured we'd both shoot a few, shrug our shoulders, and say, "yeah, this kind of sucks."

So, the target had fallen over in the wind but the giant stump it was leaning against had some clear barkless parts, so I took a shot at that. I noticed where it was shooting and if I waited for the hum of the wind to be steady it was shooting almost exactly 1 mil left. I said where it was shooting and handed it over figuring he would shotgun a group. Instead, he was like, "this is incredible in this wind." I looked through the scope and I was rather stunned at the group that was appearing. SWFA scopes are so reliable, image quality be damned, they are a fine gunsight. I clicked in the correction this time and shot the most improbable group at 75y that I can ever remember shooting withan airgun. It was 5/8", from a tripod, me standing, and a good wind, I was happy! We went down to look at the group, it looked like 4 but was actually 5 shots, amazing. After setting up the target again we took turns shooting and the gun was shooting like we were benched in no wind at 50y with his BRK.

A couple of things that I took away from this; I am never shooting from a bench again, and slugs are a pain to get working but totally worth it in the end, I should have started with ZAN since I ended up using them in my .25 slug gun too.

I am still going to try the JSB KO 20.83gr slugs though because they have an even better bc and a huge cavity for expansion and Dairyboy has said they are more accurate than anything he has shot. At least now I know that the gun is actually not the problem, I just needed to find the right ammo and settings. A big relief for me. I'm all excited about getting this thing out in no wind at 200y now. I did go out to where I shoot 155y (the wind now at my back) and I hit my hanging target twice in a row so I know my strelok data is right too. My zero distance is 31y, which gives me no hold unders 25y and out, and shoots flat 30-40y. At 200y it should drop 11mil which is still on my reticle if I don't want to click, ...but yeah ...I'm going to click!

It was a good day for Barra too. I finally saw .22 slugs shoot well, the tenth try was the charm.

Edit: I forgot to tell about the noise part. In todays weather my gun was sounding loud, using the STO Levitas, so while shooting groups we switched with a 0dB 110 (the small one) off of the BRK, and the difference was amazing. I am going to be buying one of those for this gun too. Absolutely no impact change and a substantial reduction in noise, and it is actually a little bit smaller than the Levitas, though it is a little heavier. The Levitas is only 2 ounces, but it's also too loud.