Panthera I Jumped In!

[Pumacarl]

Yeah, 140b is a good number for a stock gun, but if you've got the biggest port in the business and a heavier than standard hammer and are only shooting slugs 33gr up to 43gr, than 150 to 165b is really popular with a lot of people too. At the end of the day I want an accurate powerful efficient shot, in that order. This gun is about making what used to be called 'seemingly impossible' shots, not a lot of ho-hum ones, or super precise paper tigers either. It does very well. I have zero complaints about it's inherent accuracy, it doesn't seem to have nodal preferred speeds either. Today, after a week in the truck with some hot temps, the reg (Huma) had zero creep, no purge shots needed at all. Since I can get it to perform at just about anywhere on the dial the next logical thing to chase is efficiency. So far everything I've tried always ends up at about the same shot count, depending on weight 20-24 shots. There just might not be an efficiency sweet spot where I'm checking, it might be below 140b. If so, screw it. I'll just leave it at 140b if I can get 975fps for the 40's and 1040 for the 33's there, and leave it for a while. The only way I'd see myself experimenting more after that is if I had to use a hand pump to fill the gun all the time. lol

 

[Pumacarl]

I shot this today for the first time in 6 weeks. I have been spending most of my airgun time on the G3 mrod lately, but I never finished figuring out this gun to my liking before the G3 came out. Anyways, after six weeks zero reg creep, my first shot with the H&N Precisions was the same speed as my last shot six weeks ago. That's pretty damned good for anything but for an FX, wow! I'm going to be really upset when the new wears off of my orings, and life goes to normal.

I went back to playing with the hammer spring settings, trying to figure out the correlation between the Macro and micro settings and if the 33gr and 40gr always moved the same to each other, with each change. I could have just done this over a chronograph but instead setup for some reaction target shooting at the same time at 158y. It wasn't terrible in the shade, but it has been muggy lately. Long story short, still inconclusive results. If having a lower/higher Macro/micro makes any differences when adjusted to get the same velocity, then I don't know what it is. I don't see how that I can play these two adjustments against each other and get the speeds that I do. Usually you turn down a hammerspring and things slow down, but in this case I can always make up for that with the micro adjustment and get the speed right back up there. Macro at 7 or 22, and utilizing the micro I can get my target speed right back, and the gun shoots the same. I'm not noticing any increased or decrease harshness or harmony either. It's all pretty much the same. The only difference that I notice is between the 33gr and 40gr slugs themselves. I like how the 40's sound, but I like how the 33's fly, better.

I'm thinking that at this point it doesn't really matter what's going on if I can get the results that I want. If at some point I can't, then I will revisit it, until then I'm just a dog chasing my tail. Bottom line, I'm very happy with how this gun shoots, which is a lot better than me. I love my tripod too. What a game changer. I never would have gotten into distance shooting at this point w/o it. I'm done laying in the dirt, using a bipod, with the ticks. It's just time to shoot what I got.