Realistic Expectations

[Bladefin]

I've applied the concept of Gaussian distribution to airgun barrels before, and will again here. "Gaussian" is also known as the bell curve of distribution, also referred to as normal distribution. There's also some Central Limit Theorem ideas at play when applying these statistical concepts, in this scenario, as well as most others, since this applies to data distributions of so much of our universe.

The Bell Curve

68% will be within 1 standard deviation of the average (the peak).
About 96% will be within 2 standard deviations of the average, about 48 % on each side of average.
The last 4-6ish % will be in the exceptional/outlier areas (both ends of the bell curve). As it applies to barrels, that will be either exceptionally crappy, or exceptionally amazing.

So, say we sample 100 airgun barrels. 68 of them will be fairly acceptable, on either side of average. About 13 of them will be subpar, about 13 of them will be noticeably better than average. 2-3 of them will be utter trash. 2-3 of them will those rare magic barrels we all hope that we luck into receiving.

I'm up around 65-70 barrels that I've personally spent time shooting. The bulk of that has been Lothar Walther, but other high end examples of barrel manufacturers have been: CZ, Weihrauch, Feinwerkbau, BSA, Shin Sung, and more recently SubMOA. Sprinkle in some Chinese barrels here and there. From my barrel testing/comparing, I would conclude that this statistical concept of the bell curve of distribution holds pretty true to airgun barrels.

And that brings up what we so often hear people call "the barrel lottery." Sometimes we just lose the lottery, BUT statistically speaking, for every 2-3 utterly crappy barrels put out by any manufacturer (or 16-18 if we increase our expectations) there are about 85 barrels that are gonna shoot better than their owners are probably capable of....once they've worked through the variables to get the most out of it.

I have read the whole thread here. My response is directly to post 100. Not anything else regarding out of the box expectations and proper tuning.

As an importer of mass produced products I completely agree with everything you said above. My thoughts with barrels is... The full curve applies to budget guns. Hell, I'd even go as far as anything sub $2500. But at or north of $3k, I don't think it would be an unreasonable expectation for internal QC to catch 99% of the guns outside the 1% standard deviation and repaired prior to distribution. These aren't the car equivalent to the +100,000 per model in sales per year. More like the specialty high end sports car that has 1000's of units a year, where the QC is much tighter.

 

[Franklink]

....at or north of $3k, I don't think it would be an unreasonable expectation for internal QC to catch 99% of the guns outside the 1% standard deviation and repaired prior to distribution. These aren't the car equivalent to the +100,000 per model in sales per year. More like the specialty high end sports car that has 1000's of units a year, where the QC is much tighter.

I agree. But.....reality.

In the same vein of QC versus reality....I'd REALLY like all batches of MRDs to shoot equally well. And we could go on and on with examples.

I think it was in the discussion on the other forum that somebody pointed out this isn't a turn-key hobby. Expecting a gun to come out of the box in a match-winning state simply isn't realistic, no matter the price point.

 

[Danman]

I agree. But.....reality.

In the same vein of QC versus reality....I'd REALLY like all batches of MRDs to shoot equally well. And we could go on and on with examples.

I think it was in the discussion on the other forum that somebody pointed out this isn't a turn-key hobby. Expecting a gun to come out of the box in a match-winning state simply isn't realistic, no matter the price point.

I do agree with @Bladefin here on what to expect after spending that kind of $$ (but again I may just be lucky!) These are the FIRST 2 groups my Ghost ever printed right out of the box, no cleaning/tuning, at 50Y; which took just a few clicks thanks to that MOA rail. I included a pic of my rickety old table with foam, all i had at the time. Nowadays I have much better gear but struggle to replicate this accuracy lol. That day if we had a 50Y competition and I brought my new Ghost, I'd of done just fine.
My S510 was the exact same experience out of the box. I would expect both manufacturers to group each of these guns @ reasonable distances (25-50Y) before shipping out to dealers.
With an ART team, I would esp think the less-than-average barrels should be weeded out, thats part of that premium cost!?
In the real world, no one is happy after spending 2k+ and getting poor accuracy (after doing proper homework).
In the original post @Franklink speaks of 100Y+ shooting....that is when practice, tuning, wind reading, etc separates the pros from the boys(im mostly in the latter group).
One caveat, my ghost lost accuracy a few months after ownership, barrel polishing was necessary to resolve that issue. Not a warranty issue by any stretch, thats what happens when you send soft lead projectiles close to 1000fps!

 

[Billm]

I agree. But.....reality.

In the same vein of QC versus reality....I'd REALLY like all batches of MRDs to shoot equally well. And we could go on and on with examples.

I think it was in the discussion on the other forum that somebody pointed out this isn't a turn-key hobby. Expecting a gun to come out of the box in a match-winning state simply isn't realistic, no matter the price point.

Talk about comparing apples to oranges. Big difference between easily malleable cast lead pellets packed loosely in a tin and a rifle that is CNC machined on a $500,000 DNS Solutions 3-5 axis CNC Vertical Milling Center with a guaranteed repeatable accuracy of .0005”.

I do agree with @Bladefin here on what to expect after spending that kind of $$ (but again I may just be lucky!) These are the FIRST 2 groups my Ghost ever printed right out of the box, no cleaning/tuning, at 50Y; which took just a few clicks thanks to that MOA rail. I included a pic of my rickety old table with foam, all i had at the time. Nowadays I have much better gear but struggle to replicate this accuracy lol. That day if we had a 50Y competition and I brought my new Ghost, I'd of done just fine.
My S510 was the exact same experience out of the box. I would expect both manufacturers to group each of these guns @ reasonable distances (25-50Y) before shipping out to dealers.
With an ART team, I would esp think the less-than-average barrels should be weeded out, thats part of that premium cost!?
In the real world, no one is happy after spending 2k+ and getting poor accuracy (after doing proper homework).
In the original post @Franklink speaks of 100Y+ shooting....that is when practice, tuning, wind reading, etc separates the pros from the boys(im mostly in the latter group).
One caveat, my ghost lost accuracy a few months after ownership, barrel polishing was necessary to resolve that issue. Not a warranty issue by any stretch, thats what happens when you send soft lead projectiles close to 1000fps!

Well said.

 

[Franklink]

Talk about comparing apples to oranges. Big difference between easily malleable cast lead pellets packed loosely in a tin and a rifle that is CNC machined on a $500,000 DNS Solutions 3-5 axis CNC Vertical Milling Center with a guaranteed repeatable accuracy of .0005”.

Well said.

I didn't say that pellets and rifles are the same thing. That was an example of how things "should" be, but simply aren't. Although if we were to get really technical here, I'd wager that the machinery JSB uses to produce their pellets are fairly expensive as well.

As for the tolerances of ANY rifle versus the accuracy/precision that it's capable of....the barrel is a much greater contributing factor than the platform itself, the greatest in fact.

This wasn't ever only about the Blackwolf, but general expectations exceeding reality. I've seen the same sour grapes situation with most airgun manufacturers over the years, both on the forums as well as amongst shooters at the airgun clubs of which I frequent matches.

BUT since it became BW specific, two questions to quantify this conversation about BW accuracy/precision:
1. Of all you guys with a burr under your saddle about BW accuracy, do you own a BW?
2. How does it shoot? Something like a 5x5 average group size @ 50 yards would be great.

 

[Franklink]

The only airgun I know of that anybody should expect to come out of the box in a match-winning state is a Thomas.

Mike sets the gun up for a single pellet to be used for a particular use, either field target or benchrest. He machines the parts, assembles the rifles, and hand-laps the barrels to make them shoot to his very high standards. When you buy a Thomas you know exactly what pellet to use for it to shoot the way Mike set it up. That's a very different business model than pretty much every other airgun manufacturer. And that's the reason there's typically a 12-18month wait list for a Thomas.

If your non-Thomas, mass-manufactured gun (again, nearly all of them fall into this category) DID come out of the box shooting to your expectations, you either have low expectations, or got very lucky.

 

[FL22]

The “put up or shut up” post has been made with the appropriate meme.

Popcorn is in the microwave .

 

[Solo1]

The only airgun I know of that anybody should expect to come out of the box in a match-winning state is a Thomas.

Mike sets the gun up for a single pellet to be used for a particular use, either field target or benchrest. He machines the parts, assembles the rifles, and hand-laps the barrels to make them shoot to his very high standards. When you buy a Thomas you know exactly what pellet to use for it to shoot the way Mike set it up. That's a very different business model than pretty much every other airgun manufacturer. And that's the reason there's typically a 12-18month wait list for a Thomas.

If your non-Thomas, mass-manufactured gun (again, nearly all of them fall into this category) DID come out of the box shooting to your expectations, you either have low expectations, or got very lucky.

So in your mind all manufactured airgun are basically id say junk but then you would fixate on that word but not of high quality and you ard a lucky person to get 1 thats does its job the reason for its existence well? Quite s bigger slap in Daystates face than me saying their qc is going down hill.

 

[Franklink]

So in your mind all manufactured airgun are basically id say junk but then you would fixate on that word but not of high quality and you ard a lucky person to get 1 thats does its job the reason for its existence well? Quite s bigger slap in Daystates face than me saying their qc is going down hill.

I didn't say junk.

I have been saying all along that the owner is likely to need to put forth some time and effort to figure out the gun to make it shoot to its highest potential (the variables).

Once "tuned" to the owners desires and intended uses, a high-end gun is going to be a much more enjoyable, refined experience than putting the same effort into a budget gun though. Smoother cocking, better trigger, magazines, etc. And much better after-market support a few years down the road when it develops a leak, etc. And every airgun will eventually leak.

 

[Franklink]

@Solo1,

You are very fond of your Ghosts. For good reason, it's a great platform.

How many barrels have you bought for those Ghosts to make them do something different than they did when you pulled them out of the box?

 

[Solo1]

@Solo1,

You are very fond of your Ghosts. For good reason, it's a great platform.

How many barrels have you bought for those Ghosts to make them do something different than they did when you pulled them out of the box?

I have 8 barrels all for different calibers or purposes. All of the stock barrels i shoot pellets with and all needed polishing to shoot as well as they do the rest are slug barrels a25 lw i had machined for slugs which does not shoot to my standard and a 30 sub moa which doesn’t really cut the mustard with slugs either. The brk barrels aren’t bad but not finished to what i would expect from the manufacturer and this is from past experience not because of some knot head on you tube or anywhere else. The group that builds Daystate was world renowned similar to Thomas for quality and accuracy! Its just not always there anymore!

 

[Grunt64]

I didn't say junk.

I have been saying all along that the owner is likely to need to put forth some time and effort to figure out the gun to make it shoot to its highest potential (the variables).

Once "tuned" to the owners desires and intended uses, a high-end gun is going to be a much more enjoyable, refined experience than putting the same effort into a budget gun though. Smoother cocking, better trigger, magazines, etc. And much better after-market support a few years down the road when it develops a leak, etc. And every airgun will eventually leak.

I agree that every rifle needs some time and effort to get shooting at its best — that part never changes.
Where I see it a little differently is that the “high‑end = automatically more enjoyable once tuned” idea doesn’t always hold up in the real world. A well‑sorted budget gun can be just as smooth and predictable once you’ve matched the tune, ammo, and pressure band to what the platform likes.
The premium guns definitely give you nicer triggers, cocking, and long‑term support, but the actual shooting results still come from the same variables: barrel consistency, tune stability, and how well the setup matches the intended range.
At 50 yards almost anything looks good. At 100 yards and beyond, that’s where the real separation shows — and it’s not always price that decides it.

 

[Grunt64]

I have 8 barrels all for different calibers or purposes. All of the stock barrels i shoot pellets with and all needed polishing to shoot as well as they do the rest are slug barrels a25 lw i had machined for slugs which does not shoot to my standard and a 30 sub moa which doesn’t really cut the mustard with slugs either. The brk barrels aren’t bad but not finished to what i would expect from the manufacturer and this is from past experience not because of some knot head on you tube or anywhere else. The group that builds Daystate was world renowned similar to Thomas for quality and accuracy! Its just not always there anymore!

I get why some folks buy extra barrels, but for me if a rifle needs a different barrel than the one it came with just to shoot right, I’d move it along. At the price these guns go for, the factory barrel should already be capable of doing the job.

 

[FL22]

At the price these guns go for, the factory barrel should already be capable of doing the job.

Are you specifically referring to the BW, Daystate or any Airgun?

If so, at what price point are you referring to?

 

[Solo1]

I get why some folks buy extra barrels, but for me if a rifle needs a different barrel than the one it came with just to shoot right, I’d move it along. At the price these guns go for, the factory barrel should already be capable of doing the job.

Well in most instances barrels don’t shoot slugs and pellets well because they need different twist rates thats part of the reason i have 1 barrel of each caliber for pellets and 1 for slugs. The other part of the reason is length to increase velocity of slugs because of additional drag. 3 of my pellet barrels came with guns the 4th is a 22 just to have a 22 pellet barrel.

 

[Billm]

View attachment 19594

I didn't say that pellets and rifles are the same thing. That was an example of how things "should" be, but simply aren't. Although if we were to get really technical here, I'd wager that the machinery JSB uses to produce their pellets are fairly expensive as well.

As for the tolerances of ANY rifle versus the accuracy/precision that it's capable of....the barrel is a much greater contributing factor than the platform itself, the greatest in fact.

This wasn't ever only about the Blackwolf, but general expectations exceeding reality. I've seen the same sour grapes situation with most airgun manufacturers over the years, both on the forums as well as amongst shooters at the airgun clubs of which I frequent matches.

BUT since it became BW specific, two questions to quantify this conversation about BW accuracy/precision:
1. Of all you guys with a burr under your saddle about BW accuracy, do you own a BW?
2. How does it shoot? Something like a 5x5 average group size @ 50 yards would be great.

If it makes you feel any better: that reply was written yesterday as more of a tongue in cheek post and I decided not to finish or post it. I decided that it might not be seen as being facetious, unless I added some more context. Then I responded to Danman today and didn’t realize it was still there. I really didn’t want to rekindle this discussion, as in my mind it’s not really progressing. In my case I just hope to see more real world results from purchasers. Reports from the field so to speak.

For me the jury is out on the Blackwolf. I want to purchase a dedicated 100yd benchrest rifle and it may be the BW is the one, I haven’t decided yet. That’s the main reason I care. I’ve read your BW thread on AGN and there are several posts in the thread by owners that are less than Stellar. Including one who stated that his $450 Barra 250z is more accurate than his Blackwolf. Cave dweller made a point to post on here that the Blackwolf is capable of 1.5” or better groups at 55yds. I would certainly hope it is, my $279 non-adjustable Alpha with a 12” barrel is capable of that. There is one UK YouTuber that has struggled to get his BW to shoot well. Several Blackwolf owners in the UK Facebook groups have complained about the accuracy. There are also a lot of BW reviews that are very complimentary and a lot of those shooters didn’t purchase their rifles. You keep implying that everyone expects too much from an out of the box multi-thousand dollar air rifle. I don’t think that it is the case, at least not in my case. I expect it to perform better out of the box than a less expensive rifle and be tuneable to a higher level of accuracy. In simple terms I would expect it to be inherently more accurate than a lesser rifle. Whether or not I can shoot it to it’s potential accuracy is really irrelevant. I can work on skills, I enjoy the discussion, if anything I say is offensive, it’s not meant to be and will refrain if anyone is offended or mad.
Tony Belas stated on video at the British Shooting Show that the thing that differentiates Daystate from Chinese, Czech and Turkish airgun manufactures is not price, but that their rifles are hand built and “SUPERBLY ACCURATE”.

At the very least I would expect the 5x5 100yd groups from a $4000 rifle to have a substantially lower average group size than those from a $2000 rifle from the same manufacturer when setup and shot by an expert tuner.

You’re also right that the barrels are crucial to the accuracy, they’re also usually turned in Swiss CNC Centers.

 

[Billm]

@Franklink I know you stated that you have a dedicated chronograph for the Blackwolf and are keeping track of the number of shots taken with said Blackwolf. Roughly how many are you at now?

 

[Billm]

Please lord, let the wind stop so that I can go back to shooting.

 

[Franklink]

@Franklink ikniw you stated that you have a dedicated chronograph for the Blackwolf and are keeping track of the number of shots taken with said Blackwolf. Roughly how many are you at now?

Looks like just shy of 2700, but doesn't show all. Just prior to changing everything back to OEM, when it was shooting so good with the 1:22 SubMOA barrel and all the power reducing experiments, I shot probably 800+ pellets NOT over over the Chrono. I also shot quite a bit at 19fpe that doesn't reflect in that total. I'm probably closer to 3600-3800.

I've got a stack of BW empties that is a better representation of total shot count. I'll try to remember to count the empty tins in that stack and let you know the total.

 

[Billm]

View attachment 19596

Looks like just shy of 2700, but doesn't show all. Just prior to changing everything back to OEM, when it was shooting so good with the 1:22 SubMOA barrel and all the power reducing experiments, I shot probably 800+ pellets NOT over over the Chrono. I also shot quite a bit at 19fpe that doesn't reflect in that total. I'm probably closer to 3600-3800.

I've got a stack of BW empties that is a better representation of total shot count. I'll try to remember to count the empty tins in that stack and let you know the total.

No need lol, I figured you’d be close to 4000 by now.